Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 80664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“Glad to hear you two fucking idiots finally figured it out.” He looked right at me when he said, “I was kind of hoping you’d kill your old man before you put it all together. But, oh well. That can be fixed.”
“You little shit,” Chop said, standing up from his chair.
Gus gritted his teeth and switched his aim from me to Chop. “I really fucking hate it when you call me that!” Gus roared, tapping the barrel of his gun on top of his head before pointing it back toward us. “And I’ve been good. So, so good. But I’m done being good. I’m done being your bitch. I can’t wait to take you apart piece by piece, just like she said I could. I can do whatever I want, because you’re mine. You both are. You’re my gifts from her.” Gus said, with a huge manic smile on his face.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “I spared your life and took you in, and this is how you fucking thank me?” I asked my one-time protégé. “I should have pulled the fucking trigger when I had the chance.”
Gus took another step into the room. “Yeah, but you didn’t.”
“Who the fuck are you talking about, boy?” Chop chimed in. “Who the fuck is she?” I already knew who he was talking about and I had a feeling Chop did too.
“He’s talking about me,” said a feminine voice. The clank of heels against the concrete echoed in the hall until she appeared in the doorway.
My mother.
“Sadie,” Chop said, dropping his already broken glass. It shattered on the floor, cutting through the momentary silence as Chop and I both glared at the woman in the doorway. “You evil fucking bitch.”
She rolled her eyes and waved Chop off dismissively. A curt smile on her once again red lips. “Here,” she said, tossing a pair of handcuffs on the floor and kicking them over to us. “Cuff yourselves together.”
“Fuck you,” I spat.
Her voice was sweet and high, like she was practically singing when she said, “Cuff yourselves together or I will make a call right now that ends with your darling Thia being dumped off the causeway within ten minutes.”
“If you so much as fucking—” I started, taking a step toward her. Gus held out his gun and Sadie held up a phone.
“Save it, Abel. Cuffs. Now. Or the girl dies.”
I picked the cuffs up off the floor and did as she asked, cuffing my hand to my old man’s whose gaze was still fixed on Sadie.
“Can I kill him now?” Gus asked, shifting from foot to foot. “Is it playtime yet?”
“No, sweetheart,” Sadie said, like he was a toddler that needed to be taught a lesson. She sauntered over to Gus and planted a kiss on his lips. He closed his eyes while she kept hers open, tugging the gun from his hands. “You’ve been a very, very good boy to me all these years. You took very good care of me while I was that pig’s captive, and I thank you for that.” She patted him on the top of his head and raised the gun. Gus opened his eyes just long enough for the shock to register. “But I’ll take it from here, baby.” She pulled the trigger, firing off multiple rounds, sending Gus’s brains splattering against Chop’s old trophy case in a mist of pink and red.
* * *
“What the fuck?” I asked as Gus’s brains slid down the glass and fell on top of what was left of his forehead. Sadie pulled her own gun from a holster on her thigh and held one on each of us.
Sadie not only acted very different from the woman who visited me in County, she looked different too. She wore a high-waisted red skirt with a tight black blouse and shiny black pumps. Her long hair was now an auburn color, void of silver streaks. Instead of flowing down her back it had been cut short to her chin. She looked easily fifteen years younger than she did only months before.
“So what? You’re here to seek revenge?” Chop asked, and I wondered if she would really shoot if I took a run at her. I glanced down to Gus’s bloodied corpse and decided that it was highly likely she would.
“Something like that,” she purred, perching herself on the edge of the couch.
“You should be thanking me for not killing you,” Chop said flatly. He hadn’t once taken his eyes from her since she’d stepped into the room. Not even when she blew Gus’s head clean off. He barely even blinked.
She moved back a few inches, physically putting more distance between herself and Chops statement. “Thanking you? I should be thanking you?” she yelled, getting up from the couch and pointing the gun at Chop’s head. “You hunted me down and shot me!” Sadie screamed, pointing to the faded scar on the side of her forehead. “You left me on the side of the fucking road for hours before you came back for me, but only so you could keep me prisoner you sick, SICK FUCK!” Her hands visibly trembled. So did her lower lip. “The humane thing would have been to kill me! The only human interaction I’d had in decades was that piece of shit,” she said, pointing the toe of her heel at Gus, the pool of blood growing beneath his body. “And the wails of whoever else you decided to torture.”
The bigger picture was coming together, but not fast enough. “Why Gus? How?” I asked, and when I raised my hand, I raised Chop’s as well, reminding me that I was still cuffed to the cocksucker.
Chop spoke up. “Because he was the one who fed her,” he muttered. “I thought he was the only one I could trust with that type of thing. Given his…oddities and all.”
I looked at Sadie as it all fell into place. “Chop was right. It was you. You were the rat,” I said, pausing only to watch as Gus’s blood reached the toe of my boot. My eyes darted back to her. “Well, you and that fuck,” I said. “It was you all along.” Still not quite believing what I knew then to be true.