I stared at her for a moment, my heart skipping a beat. So this is what being in love is. She and I, together through thick and thin. I hugged her tightly to my chest.
"I love you too, Kitten, always. No matter how fucked up the world is, or how broken he tried to make you. I will protect you forever. I can promise you, no man will ever touch you again."
Her reply was a soft murmur against my skin, but it burned through me like fire. "You own me, Atlas, and always will." For the first time in weeks, I closed my eyes with her in my arms, and sleep came easily to both of us.
Chapter 30
Cleaning up loose ends
Atlas
It was six thirty in the morning. Birds chirped, and the sun hid behind the clouds. I wanted to get this over with as early as possible so we could plan our trip back to Rhode Island.
The humidity was thick this morning as Jacob and I walked across the stone path to the guest house. The mansion was quiet behind us, the girls still tucked in where they belonged. Safely locked behind closed doors. Kitlyn and I slept soundly without her usual nightmare waking her. Becca and Layla still had some difficulty with night terrors.
Everyoneheals differently.
We continued walking in silence. Neither of us needed to speak. We both knew what this morning would bring.
An ending.
The guards smiled when they saw us approach. I nodded once, and the door was unlocked with a hollow click. Jacob and I stepped inside, wrinkling our noses. The smell wasn't as bad as it had been yesterday, but it still stunk like a cesspool. The guards opened the windows to let some fresh air into the rancid-smelling bungalow. When we're finished executing the three assholes, I ordered a cleaning company to come in and disinfect the whole place.
Hector sat in the middle of the room. His body was painted with bruises and crusted open wounds. Juan and Julio were beside him, strapped to their chairs, with their heads leaning forward. Their lower halves were covered at my order. Not out of mercy, but because I had no interest in looking at their dicks while I tortured them to death.
Hector looked up as we entered, one eye glaring through a haze of severe swelling. Even after all we had put him through, he still had the audacity to smirk.
"Well," he croaked out, his voice raw and broken, "look who finally decided to finish the job."
The rage in me remained coiled and controlled as I crouched in front of him. "You're only alive because I wanted you to feel what it was like to be powerless, and to sit in your own filth. Give you some time to think about what you've done to all those women." I tilted my head, watching his lips curl. "Tell me, Hector. How does it feel to be on the other side of the coin?"
He spat blood onto the floor. A crimson blot landed between us. "Do you think you broke me, assassin? You don't know me, gringo. You can chain me, beat me, starve me; but you'll never be half the man I am."
Jacob stepped out of the corner calmly and drove his boot into Hector's ribs with a crack that echoed in the room, almost sending the chair flying. The ex-cartel boss coughed hard, wheezing and spitting more blood. Jacob moved in closer, his voice firm and steady.
"You're right," he said. "We're nothing like you."
Beside him, Julio stirred, lifting his battered head. His voice cracked; words of desperation flowed from his lips.
"It wasn't us. It was him."
He jerked his chin toward Hector.
"He made us this way. We were forced to do things. Horrible things. Even our father never subjected us to the cruelty Hector did. We weren't like this before he took over the family business."
Juan joined in, broken and pathetic. "We didn't want to touch the girls. He ordered it. He's the one who turned us into monsters." His eyes filled up, swollen lids twitching. "It was always Hector's fault. If we didn't obey, we were brutally punished. He's the monster."
I circled them like prey caught in a snare.
"You're both pitiful losers," I said sternly. "You blame him for your sins, as if your hands weren't the ones holding them down. Like it wasn't your cocks inside them, your fists landing all over their bodies. It wasn't your piss on Becca? You want forgiveness?"
My voice sharpened, piercing the air. "Then ask the women whose screams haunt them every night."
They had no answers.
Just silence, broken only by Hector's hoarse laugh.
"They're lying sacks of shit," Hector croaked, his smile ragged and bloodied. "I didn't have to force them to do anything. They loved every minute. I had to sit in the training room many times to keep Juan from going overboard and killing the girls he was in charge of."
