Page 46 of Sweet Revenge

He shook his head, dismissing my concerns, and walked toward the door, taking me gently by the elbow and leading me out of the room. Dezzy was still crying, begging for us to get him down, but Daemon didn’t even seem to hear it. He was probably used to hearing grown men beg.

In an adjoining bedroom, Daemon shoved his brass knuckles into his pocket and looked me in the eye. Tiny flecks of blood were splattered across his face and clothes. The temptation to try to wipe them away was overwhelming, but I focused on what he had to say to me.

“Are you ready for this, baby?” He brushed my hair back, and I leaned into his hand. “Your father’s not going to go down easy. He’s gone to elaborate lengths to make it this far. It’s going to be a tough battle ahead. If it comes down to it, you have to be ready to pull that trigger. I can’t lose you in this foray, and I sure as hell can’t let him get away because of emotions.”

I understood what he was saying. He was afraid we’d get into a situation where I was the only one who could end my old man and that I would hesitate and not do it.

The question was a solid one. I’d had plenty of time to wrap my mind around this over the last few weeks. When I was in that hellhole, my face on fire, I wanted nothing more than to shoot my father in the fucking face.

But things were different now that I was no longer in so much pain I wanted to claw my own flesh off to get to the hurt beneath it. No, it would be difficult to channel those inner feelings of hostility in a different situation. Even in the midst of a shootout, if I were given the opportunity to raise a gun and point it at my father, if I was expected to pull that trigger, I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure I’d do it.

After all, Alexander La Rosa wasn’t just my father, my kidnapper, my torturer—he was my own personal boogeyman, the one that had haunted my dreams my entire life. Once again, I thought of myself as an innocent little girl who only wanted her father’s love and couldn’t understand why he refused to so much as look in my direction, let alone hug me. What had I done wrong?

Now, I knew it was not my fault, that it was all on him that he couldn’t love his own daughter, but that didn’t make it any easier to overcome the paralyzing fear that often came over me when I was confronted with my outraged father.

“Honestly, Daemon, I don’t know how I’ll react when I’m face-to-face with him. I’d like to say I’ll blow his brains out, leave him bleeding all over the fucking floor, but I don’t want to lie to you. There’s a chance I’ll freeze. He’s haunted me my entire life, and while I hate him more than anything, I’d be lying if I said he didn’t scare the shit out of me.”

Daemon’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed, mulling over my answer. Eventually, he nodded. “I can respect that answer. Thank you for being honest with me, baby.”

The fact that he didn’t get mad at me or call me a coward said quite a bit about where we’d grown in our relationship, and it was comforting to know he had my back now, no matter what.

“I won’t let you down, though,” I told him, hoping he could understand what I was saying.

“It’s hard to know what we will do when the moment we’ve been waiting for our entire lives, the moment we’ve been dreading, is finally right in our face.” I saw a flicker in his eyes and knew he was thinking of the moment he’d killed his father. I didn’t hate him for that. I respected him for it.

“If only one person walks out of this fight alive, Daemon, I want it to be you. I’ll do whatever it takes. You’ve got my back, and I’ve got yours. Forever.”

A small smile formed at the corners of his mouth as he took a deep breath and smoothed my hair again. “I will not let anything happen to you. I promise.” His eyes narrowed as he gazed into mine. “I’ll die before I let anyone hurt you.”

I arched an eyebrow. “You’d better not. No dying allowed.”

He grinned and let out a soft chuckle. “Try to stop me.”

It was my turn to shake my head and laugh at him. He pulled me into a hug, and I wrapped my arms around him, leaning my head on his chest. Neither one of us could die. We had to be together. We had to get our happy ending. If anything less than that played out, then the monsters won, and I refused to let my father or Daemon’s parents have any more control over me.

Daemon pressed his lips to the top of my head, and I took a deep breath, steeling myself for what was to come. The battle of our lives was just down the road ahead of us.

It was time to get on with it.

CHAPTER28

DAEMON

Elisa wore a path through the carpet with her pacing as we listened to her two brothers whine in the back bedrooms. I sat on the couch with my cell phone practically burning a hole through the pocket of my jeans as I was concerned exactly how to word the message I was about to send.

Fuck it. I just needed to send it.

Before I got the chance, Janis came in and sat down on the couch a few feet away from me. “I still can’t believe it.”

He had been ready to get the car battery out again when we brought Dezzy in. At first, he’d been madder than a hornet, scolding Dezzy for going against the family. My so-called brother and former best friend wasn’t capable of talking at the time, since we’d gagged him to dump him into the last empty bedroom. So I’d answered for him, explaining to Janis how Alexander La Rosa claimed to be Dezzy’s father.

That had sent Janis over the edge, and I’d had to actually stop him from roughing Dezzy up even more. Janis wasn’t furious because Dezzy was allegedly a La Rosa. No, he was mad that he’d chosen that bastard who said he was his father over the rest of us who had been his friends and family for years, and I couldn’t blame him. I was right there with the older man.

But we’d already beaten the fuck out of Dezzy, and beating him more wasn’t going to do any good. When we were preparing to transport him, before I’d shoved that gag in his mouth and taped it to his bloodied head, he’d said he was sorry. I had no idea if he truly meant it or just didn’t want me to kill him, but hearing him apologize was doing a number on me. I knew what it was like to crave fatherly approval just as much as anyone else. My brothers had been starved for it, too. While I would never go behind the back of someone I swore my loyalty to in order to get a bit of satisfaction from an alleged father figure, Dezzy had never been as strong as me. Maybe that was why he’d been so easily manipulated.

I didn’t know, and now wasn’t the time to contemplate it. At the end of the day, Dezzy and Alex were both bartering chips, and it was time to get the ball rolling.

Before I could second-guess myself, I pulled up Alexander La Rosa’s contact information on my phone and typed out, “We’ve got two of your kids. If you want them back, meet me tomorrow.” I looked up and caught Elisa’s eyes before I hit send.