Still, Matteo and Simon eyed her like she would run at any moment and they’d need to chase her down. Holding out a hand, I waited for her to put hers in it willingly and then drew her to my side. “Calla, help me,” Jason rasped, pleading to my petite wife with all the emotion he could fake.
“Why?” she whispered, and the genuine pain in her voice only enraged me further. “We trusted you.”
“He promised he wouldn’t hurt you,” Jason said. Matteo scoffed behind me, and I could practically feel him roll his eyes.
“You don’t think the accident itself hurt me? You don’t think watching a man drag me off was traumatic for the kids? That was Axel’s greatest fear, and you helped set it up.” The accusation rang through the room, her words holding strong despite the tremble to her lips. She might not have particularly liked Jason as a person, but she’d put her faith in him during a time when she needed that connection to her dead husband.
She didn’t need either of them anymore.
“You deserve what’s coming,” she whispered, and Jason flinched like she struck him physically.
“Calla,” he murmured, and for a brief moment I wondered if he actually cared about her in his own way. I quickly decided it didn’t matter.
“I’ll see you at home when you’re done,” Calla said, turning to me to kiss me briefly. “Don’t take too long.”
“Calla!” Jason shouted, his face twisting with outrage. “You can’t just leave me here.”
She turned for the freezer door, grabbing the handle and tugging it open. “Watch me,” she spat as she stepped through. I had a brief glimpse of Dante waiting for her in the main part of the threshold, draping his jacket over her shoulders as she shivered. Blood and murder weren’t the norm in Calla’s life, and I hoped she’d never have to see something like it again.
But with war on the horizon, she needed to know exactly who I was. Exactly what I would do to protect her and the kids. With Murphy having used her to get to me once, Dante, Sadie and I would all start training her to defend herself. She hadn’t done all that poorly after the accident, but she could have done better with training.
Once the door closed completely, I waved a hand at the headless corpse and turned back to Matteo and Simon. "Do you think that was a quick death?" I asked them.
Simon looked confused, but Matteo chuckled in amusement. "It took ten seconds, so I'd say so. Yes."
"Good," I grunted, turning back to Jason. "Calla made me promise I'd make it quick when she gave me her blessing to kill you. You should be grateful she's more merciful than I am. Good thing she didn't make me promise it wouldn't be gruesome, hmm?"
"Fuck you and her mercy."
"What was he going to pay you? To betray your friend's wife and send her right into the clutches of someone who would hurt her in a heartbeat
? Did you even feel a semblance of guilt? Or did you think it was okay because she wouldn't find out you'd set her up and staged the accident?"
He didn't answer me, choosing to pant his breaths like a dog in heat while he struggled against his binds. "She'll never be yours, you know? Not really," he snarled, and I knew he meant to allude to the fact that he thought Calla belonged to Chad. He might have been the first to have her, but I'd be the fucking last.
That was what mattered.
"Trust me, for that woman to walk into a blood-stained chamber with a headless corpse and kiss me? She’s mine alright," I smirked, lining up my hatchet. "Any last words?"
"Murphy will gut you alive," he growled.
"I'd like to see him try," I returned, and the hatchet whizzed through the air with more force. Anger and rage for the betrayal he'd served Calla fueled my strike.
His head rolled with one.
Nothing sent a message like two heads in a box.
Fifty-Seven
Calla
Ines and I baked cookies so I could distract myself from the knowledge of what Ryker was doing. Of what he’d probably done before I even got home.
I had to deal with that, but I had zero clue how to go about it. The kids were happy to demand my attention, the chaos and trauma of the day before was something that would cling to all of us for a long time. I knew it without a doubt.
When the door to the garage opened, Ines hurried down off the chair where she knelt to help me form the cookies. I heard Axel drop his video game controller, and when I stepped into the living room, I found Ryker kneeling on the floor with his arms wrapped around the kids tightly. "I missed you," he rasped, and I saw the way his hands twitched on their backs as he said the words.
We weren't the only ones who had been traumatized by the day before. I went back to the kitchen, giving them the moment of privacy I suspected they needed. When Ryker finally pulled himself away, he stepped up behind me and swept the hair out of the way to kiss the top of the bandage that covered the worst of my injury. I didn't think I needed it still, but I also didn't want the kids to look at it. Hidden seemed less traumatic since the bruising around the wound itself turned a deep purple overnight. "I missed you too, Sunshine," he murmured as I leaned back into his embrace.