Chapter 21"Un cachorro joven cazando al viejo."
"BAAAHAHA
"God… why have you forsaken me this time?"
"I knew it. I knew it. One day, with the kind of work me and my brothers do… we were bound to create something like you."
He leaned forward as far as the restraints allowed, eyes locked onto mine.
"A real демон."
His smile twitched.
"And I always figured… if that day came…"
"it would be the end of us all"
"But as God is my witness I never thought I'd see the day…"
"That we'd be the ones getting picked apart by punk ass pussy ass period person like yourself."
His eyes dragged over me, slow and deliberate.
" A dirty, filthy, mixed-season, skinned, oily, taco-blooded, blended, useless, uterus-user, dependent individual like yourself."
He laughed under his breath.
"Wait tell me, tell me, tell me is that why you're doing all this?"
A tilt of his head.
"Is it that time of the month? That's why you're acting out?"
or maybe.
"Poor little fifi."
"Couldn't fit in, huh?"
I know your dad couldn't hehe.
"Too much of a mutt to stand with the purebreds."
"Don't worry tho."
"We still loved you."
"For what you were."
"Well…"
His grin sharpened.
"At least half of you."
"The good half."
You were still our little cousin at the end of the day the one we used to play in the field with.
The one we taught how to fight, how to kill
You are the pride of the Volkov Bratva, and we all knew it.
Our hands were bloodied. We were young, hunting with the old.
Our youth and ignorance made us so bold, so we still held our bloodied, battered hands together and laughed and played.
God, I wish that lasted forever, even though we knew we could have lost our lives at any day.
I pray that, in the Volkov Bratva family, our hearts would stay and never decay.
But…Obviously that prayer was never answered with you I don't know what the hell you are now. I guess your father's genes fully corrupted you, and now you're acting like a full-on banshee.
I answered Konstantin with nothing but a blank stare.
Then I looked away.
Toward the woman.
That seemed to bother him more than anything I could have said.
A wet, choking sound clawed its way out of his throat as he strained against the bindings.
(Мы плакали и плакали, когда ты исчезла, Фифи.)
We wept and cried when you were gone, little Fifi.
I didn't look back.
"Do you need permission to speak?"
he sneered.
It's been four agonizing years since you abandoned us,
A sharp, broken scream cracked out of him as he raised his voice.
What the hell do you have to say for yourself, you traitor? Where is your honor?
My head turns first too slowly, too precisely before the rest of her body follows.
My hands lift in jerky, almost puppet-like motions.
MY HONOR ...
Fingers twitch as they form the shape of the grave, outlining it in the air with unnatural accuracy.
WILL BE
Then both hands move downward, but not smoothly stuttering, as if skipping frames repeating the act of burying over and over again.
WHERE I BURY YOU
My gaze never blinks.
Suddenly, the motion stops.
One finger rises… bends at an odd angle… and points directly at them.
ALL OF YOU
The burying motion resumes faster now, more frantic until it ends as abruptly as it began.
UNTIL ALL OF YOUR SOULLESS BLUE BODIES
and somehow through all of her her a natural and unsettling movement the message was clear to clear from start....To finish
TURN RED FROM THE BLOOD YOU ALL WILL BE BATHING IN
Konstantin swallowed , I tried to grin through his metallic red lips.
But even if a rat struggles and tries to be strong, biting back, in the end it will always be the same with a cat's bloody fangs at its throat.
"Figures."
"So that's why your mom made the whole family suffer through sign language classes. It was all for you, as it always is."
...
He tugged for a little while against the restraints, breath hitching.
"But eventually, he stopped. His breathing slowed down, and he hung his head."
I took the moment to reach into his pocket and grabbed Three hundred bucks.
I tossed it onto the floor beside the woman.
She didn't move.
She was obviously frightened All she did was
curled in the corner, half-dressed, shaking and hyperventilating staring at nothingness like a frightened animal that didn't realize the cage door was open.
I snapped my fingers.
Her eyes flicked to me.
I tilted my head toward the door.
"Leave"
She looked at the door and look back at me and kept her gaze on me still frozen.
Fine
I'll use a universal gesture
I turned slightly
THUMP KRRRK.
My fist punched straight through the wall behind me.
Plaster cracked, dust falling in soft, quiet pieces.
I pulled my bleeding hand back and looked at her.
Dead eyes that needed no words to get the point across.
LEAVE
NOW
She scrambled to her feet, nearly tripping over herself as she rushed for the door.
She didn't look back.
She didn't speak.
She didn't even take the money I went through So much trouble of giving her.
Just ran.
The door slammed behind her.
And after that there was silence.
Then
A muffled, furious sound under my hand.
I let go.
He sucked in a breath like he'd been drowning.
"Hey hey! Come back!" he shouted toward the door.
"I wasn't finished with you hell, I didn't even finish in you!"
He laughed at his own joke, then turned back to me, grin crooked and ugly.
"What the hell, Francesca?
You disappear for three years just to come back and cockblock cousins?"
come on now.
"I hurried to the door, closed it behind me, and locked it with one hand, using the other to flip off the pest behind me."
"You really gotta get that hating-ass energy out your spirit," he went on. "But I guess I can't blame you.
Got tequila party blood in you messes people up."
He leaned forward as much as the restraints allowed.
"Oh, and let's be honest you're about as dumb as your sped father."
"You just let a witness walk."
His smile widened.
"You should've killed her."
But I guess when it's not your loving family you play pacifist am I right.
I flipped off the rat without looking at him, then locked and fortified the door. Today was already a long day, and it's just about to get longer.
"Hey, Fifi, you can stop with the tough act. I already know you won't kill me you've left me alive this long for a reason. But the question is: why?"
"Aww, do you have a little soft spot for me? No, that can't be true. I always suspected you loved Ruslan a bit more he's the one who taught you the spinal wrench.
And now look at him."
Konstantin looked at his fallen cousin on the ground, his neck completely and utterly shattered, his eyes and mouth wide in full surprise and shock not just from dying, but from who had committed the act as well.
"So I can rule out favoritism. And even if favoritism were true, I guess we'd be talking about your dad you definitely killed that, so I doubt you care about me sending a message, since you attacked us out of nowhere. So the only thing I can think of is information.
Am I right?"