Page 47 of Venomous King
“Diego, this is not right.” Kai shifts closer, his fists clenched at his sides. “He wasn’t even there.”
A mirthless laugh leaves Diego. “You fucking innocent fool. Do you honestly believe that he didn’t know what his children were up to? That he didn’t sanction their actions, based on my rejection of his offer of his vile daughter as my bride?” He pries his eyes away from Antonio, and meets Kai’s glare. “If you’re going to live in our world,pretty boy, you’re going to have to relinquish your moral code. We are all villains here, even Stella.”
“Am I a villain too?” I ask, taking a step forward and forcing myself to withdraw my arms from around me. I meet his green glare, lit with a menacing fire from within. Gone is the passionate Diego from mere moments ago, and in his place is now the killer that I always knew he was. The one I have witnessed, with my own eyes, ending men’s lives for merely touching me. What will he do to this man whose children stole me from him and broke me?
His mouth quirks, pulling the scar tissue up, and giving him an even more nefarious appearance. “You, my beautiful broken doll, are the queen of villains.My queen.You are the queen of serpents, a Cabano queen, and my venom now flows within you.”
Antonio thrashes in his chains, and muffled screams echo around the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I witness Kai flinching. Diego is right. If Kai wants to remain in this world, he will need to adapt, change, and become less forgiving. This is the world Diego was born into, and the world Julia will inhabit. Although I was born into privilege and luxury, I have witnessed and experienced the dark, evil underbelly. My experience has forever changed me, and not for the better. Where once I, too, would have pushed for compassion, now I demand retribution.
“If that is the case, then you will not interfere while I take his life. After all, his children tried to take mine and Julia’s.” I square my shoulders and force my head high. Diego is filled with pretty words, but at the end of the day, will he allow me to get my hands dirty? Does he see me as more than a prize that he can parade around, and then place me back safely behind closed doors when he feels like it? There’s a moment of hesitation, and it helps fuel my anger.That’s what I thought.I will forever be a broken doll to him, just something to play with, even as he professes his love to me.
“Give me your blade.” I motion to the blade strapped to his leg, my eyes daring him to refuse me. My hands clench into tight fists, my nails biting into my flesh, and all that rage that I was feeling outside of the pool house threatens to erupt, and drown me. His eyes narrow, and a dark brow rises, before he reaches for the blade and unstraps it from its thigh holster. He presents it to me, the handle facing in my direction, even as he holds on to the sharp blade with his fingers, clenching around it until drops of crimson appear, and taint the metal surface, as he dares me to take it.A challenge.This fool believes that I will back down, or crumble from the weight of what must be done. He knows nothing.
“Don’t do this, Isabella. There is no need to taint your soul further.” Oh, my precious, sweet Kai. Does he not understandthat my soul is now as corrupt as the man who stands between me and my desire for revenge? He wants the Isabella from before, the woman who came back from the dead, and ran to him for safety. The one who hosted playdates and cooked dinner, the perfect doctor’s wife to hang on his arm.She’s gone.She died in that compound, just like Diego’s broken doll died in the jungle. I am once again reborn, this time metamorphosized into Medusa, a woman whose rape also changed her irrevocably. Like the beautiful creature of vengeance who turned men into stone, I too will have my vindication against anyone who sees me as prey.
I yank the blade from Diego’s hand, and he hisses with the sharp pain as I slice more of his skin. I don’t hesitate, taking the necessary steps needed to reach Antonio. His brown eyes plead with me for mercy, as tears trail down his swollen face while I gaze at him. “Please,” he cries.
I once used that word too. I once begged for my life, and that of my daughter, and was denied. It is only fair that it’s I who takes his life, and ends his suffering. An eye for an eye will have the whole world blind, is that not the saying? It should move me, it should hasten my hand, but it won’t. I’m past that now, past caring, past feeling emotions that did nothing to assist me when I needed help. A Stratford has no mercy for her enemies, isn’t that my grandmother has shown me, by capturing this man and leaving him here, as a depraved offering.
My hand strikes forward, the blade clutched firmly in my grasp, as sunlight glints off the metal through the large pool house windows. I lean my face closer to Antonio’s ear. “Join your children in hell, you bastard.” I slice through his neck, applying pressure to the blade as it parts his thick skin, and a gush of blood sprays up at me, coating me in its essence. He gurgles and chokes on his own blood, the sound disturbing but somehow also soothing, as I watch him take his last breath, and the life goes out of his eyes.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Kai exclaims, and he heads straight for me, but I’m not done. I pull back the blade, my fingers coated in Antonio’s blood, and raise my hand to stop him from taking another step. If he touches me right now, I am not sure that I won’t stab him too.
“This…us,“ I motion with the blade between the three of us. “It’s done. I want you both out of my grandmother’s house within the hour. Walk out of your own will or be carried out; it matters not to me.” I meet Kai’s eyes first and then Diego’s. “I will not stop either of you from keeping in contact with Julia. I would never deprive her of her fathers, but as far as our relationship goes, the woman you both love is dead.” I turn on my heels, and don’t give either of them a backward glance, as I walk out of the pool house, covered in the blood of my enemy. One of many I am sure that I will have going forward. Stella rules alone, and she is not afraid, I will follow my grandmother’s example, and do the same.
I walk across the grass, the sunshine heating my face, and cementing my resolve to never feel anything other than rage again. I will never be a pawn again. Never allow myself to be moved unwillingly across the chessboard of life. I’m a mother fucking queen, and it’s time I behaved as one.
The world better watch out, Isabella Stratford is about to make it her bitch.
Chapter thirty-three
Diego
“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”
Leo Tolstoy
“Don’t do this, Stella, please. You know something is wrong with her,” Kai pleads with Stella, but I don’t even bother. I can see the sadistic gleam of pleasure on her face at the turn of events. Clark, and a group of twenty or more of her armed soldiers, point guns at the both of us, as they attempt to force us to leave Stella’s residence, per my broken doll’s instructions.
When she stood there defiantly and declared, with a blade in her hand, that we were over, I thought conceivably it was all the adrenaline and emotions of the situation getting to her. Perhaps her actions shocked her, and that was what she was doing to cope. Never did I fucking think that I would be forced from the premises at gunpoint.Surprise fucking surprise, here we are now, and I am ready to murder everyone before me, for daring to think they can take myPrincesafrom me.
“I warned you that one day I would see the back of you both. My only wish was that I’d be able to put a bullet in both of your skulls as you leave her life, but alas, I was refused that pleasure by Isabella. My granddaughter has finally come to her senses, and realized the error of her ways.” Stella motions to Clark with a tilt of her chin, and the men move forward, forcing Kai and I to take steps further down the driveway, right outside the front of Stella’s house. “If I ever see you near her again, if either of you attempts to forcibly change her decision, I will not hesitate to have you murdered.”
“I’m going to kill you, Stella. My face will be the last you see on this goddamn earth,” I growl out through clenched teeth.
She laughs haughtily at me. “Better men than you have tried, demon, and yet here I am.” She turns her attention to Kai. “You had better select more suitable company, young man. The one you are currently keeping will get you slain.” She turns her back on us, and walks back into the house as if we mean nothing, as if neither of us is a threat to her. Fuck that shit, I am a fuckingthreat. I am going to prove to that old conniving cunt just how much of a danger I am to her.
“Don’t do anything stupid, asshole. Isabella will come to her senses, she’s just angry right now.” Kai grabs my arm and pulls me backward with him. It’s as if the cunt can now read my thoughts. That alone is worrisome, because pretty boy shouldn’t be trying to talk some sense into me. He should be helping me break through these men to get to Issy.
“You mean like kill all of her men and snap Stella’s fucking neck?” I shrug off his hold and take a step forward, challenging one of Stella’s toy soldiers, and throwing a punch at his face, which he takes with a stoic and menacing expression. Fuck, did she hire robots? Where’s a fucking rocket launcher when I need one?Oh, right, I can’t use one of those because myPrincesaand daughter are still in that fucking house!
“Leave, gentlemen. Mrs. Stratford has made it very clear that neither of you are welcome here again. Please don’t force me to kill both of you, I would hate to leave Miss Julia fatherless.” Clark’s angry expression is just fucking icing on the cake of this shit experience.
A pitch-black SUV racing up the driveway at rapid speed gets my attention, and has me turning so that I can keep both it, and Stella’s men, in my sightline. What the fuck, has she sent more men to massacre us? Clark’s fuckers took away all of my remaining weapons, so other than my hands and feet, I am shit out of luck. The SUV comes to a screeching halt, and the doors slam open, and the last two people I expect to see pop out of the front seats.Carter Pemberton and Theo Saint-Lambert.What fresh batch of hell is this shit? “Get in the fucking car, Diego, before Clark shoots you,” Carter yells at me.
“Fuck that,puto (asshole), I am not leaving without myPrincesa!“ I shout back, and try taunting one of Stella’s othermen. The fucker responds by pointing his gun straight at my head and winking at me.Asshole.
“I say we allow him to get shot. The world would be a better fucking place if he was gone. I don’t even know how you talked me into coming here to rescue the cunt,” Theo replies, his arms crossed over his large chest, as he leans nonchalantly against the SUV. “I don’t need rescuing,prissy rich boy. I’ll fucking take all of you on,“ I roar.