Venomous King (Venom #2)

32. Issy

Chapter thirty-two

Issy

“A blooming love, a beautiful lie. ”

Teenage Wrist, Afterglow

D iego shoves us through the door, and I almost lose my balance, but his strong fingers sink into the skin of my asscheeks, and I release a moan into Kai’s mouth. I’m burning up; fire feels like it’s racing through my limbs, and my body is overheating. Alarms are blaring in the back of my head that this is wrong, that I shouldn’t want this, and that I shouldn’t desire them, but I’m ignoring them. For just a brief second in time, I don’t feel completely damaged, and I can finally breathe again. My heart pounds in my chest, forcing me to acknowledge that I am alive, that I am still here and not lost in some vast nothingness, where every day I lose more and more hope, and the last vestiges of myself.

We stumble into the pool house, Kai’s fingers tightening on my strands, until the fresh bite of pain causes my pussy to further weep as I rub my clit against Diego’s hard cock. Fuck, he feels so good, I need him inside of me, filling me up, until there is no me and him but only an us. I crave that connection, that fire with both of them. I want them to chase the monsters and nightmares away. I want to be the woman I was before, but stronger, so that what happened to me can never transpire again.

A moan sounds loud in the air, and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. What the fuck was that? My whole body locks up tight, and I stop kissing Kai. His lips keep trying to meet mine, but I turn my face away and use my grip on his thick, blond hair to force him away. Fear slithers through me, wrapping me back up in its thick tendrils and threatening to drown me. “NO! Release me!” I push against Diego’s confining hold, the memories of being held down by another monster attempting to rise and strangle me. I force him to release me, and as I slither down his body, revulsion fills me at my wantonness. How the fuck could I have lost control like that. How could I have allowed them to touch me, to use me again to satisfy their own needs? I’m disgusting.

I stumble away, my hands rising to ward off the violence that is sure to come from denying them what they want. A part of my mind is trying to tell me I’m wrong, that I am locked in a delusion, and that neither of them wants to hurt me, but the terror is real, and I can’t risk it.

Another pained moan sounds in the air, and all our eyes turn in that direction. It’s like being stuck in a horror film. There’s a beaten and bleeding naked man, suspended from the ceiling in Stella’s pool house by his chained arms and legs. What. The. Fuck. Bile races up the back of my throat, and I wrap my arms securely around myself, to ward off the chill that envelops me. Jesus fuck, what has my grandmother done?

“Holy shit,” Kai utters as he takes a step in shock, away from the scene before us, but Diego doesn’t. In fact, the psycho moves forward towards the man, with a grin splitting his face. A malevolent energy radiates off of him, as his strides take him within a foot of the man who attempts to desperately open his blackened and swollen eyes.

“Antonio Sanchez, what a beautiful present Stella has made of you for me.” His words have my breath halting in my chest. Sanchez. He said this man’s name is Sanchez. I force myself to look at the man more closely, even as I feel my jaw dropping. Is he someone who was there? Did he help abduct Julia and me? He’s older, closer to my grandmother’s age. His graying hair is covered in matted blood, and plastered to his skull. There are bruises and gashes all over his large, flabby body. He opens his mouth to moan again, and I can see that his front teeth have been shattered, and the inside of his mouth is coated in blood.

“Let... me... go.” The words are almost a whisper, and I have to strain to hear them.

A vicious chuckle erupts from Diego. “Go where, Antonio? Your children are both dead , your family is in ruin , and your cartel will be a mere ghost tale by morning.”

Children? Oh my fucking god, he’s those monsters’ father. He’s the head of the Sanchez Cartel. How was Stella able to capture him? The last I heard, he was on the run, along with any remaining members of his organization. My grandmother was sparing no expense or mercy, hunting them all down, one by one, for what they put Julia and me through. Diego’s father, Manuel, has been helping her, vowing to get vengeance against all that dared touch his family. Their cooperation was terrifying to watch, and even though Stella held back information from me, I was still able to gather bits and pieces about what was happening around me.

“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 understand that 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.