Incendiary (Inferno 4)

Prologue

I’ve been looking out the window for the past hour.

The only regret I’ll ever have is putting that bitch into the well instead of breaking her like I did her mother.

Useless fucking kids, I think irritably as I run a hand over my face.

Maybe I should throw the other two down there too. I could always take the boy and girl into town like I did with the slow one and leave them with someone who might give a shit about them.

But that would be too easy.

He hasn’t had a chance to learn yet and she’s too defiant for her own fucking good.

A good father doesn’t give up on his children.

He molds them, shows them how things go, and when he’s successful—like I am from time to time—can be proud of the kids in front of him.

Granted, I almost got it right with Darby, but she was just like her fucking mother.

She pretended to love me.

A smirk creeps up the corners of my mouth. The sentiment is wasted on me. I don’t want or need anyone’s fucking love. That’s not what makes men strong and sure as fuck isn’t what gets things done.

Luckily for the boy, he’s afraid of me. He knows to fear the hand that feeds instead of bite it, but the girl… she’s a different matter.

She needs to be taught.

She needs to learn.

And even though I’m the only one that can really show her how to survive in this family, I’m more interested in making the boy do it.

After all, he’s going to be a man in a few years, and practice makes perfect.

How old are these fucking kids?

I never did care enough about any of them to guess, but I’m pretty sure that the boy is a teenager by now and the girl has to be a year or two younger than him.

Richter and Skylar.

The last apples of my eye that I have sway over.

The last ones that will have to carry on the Greene name.

The purest form of love is the one kept between family, and I refuse to let the branches grow too far from the tree.

I reach down and pull up the pane of glass and rest my arms on the windowsill, my eyes still on the well.

There’s no ‘Mommy’ to save them now, though I always felt insulted by the thought.

Salvation is for things that are warranted; no one in this fucking house has ever needed saving.

Now that Darby is gone, all they have left is their father.

Eventually I’m going to have to show them how to keep the line pure and the tree growing high into the crisp blue sky.

And I think today is as good a day as any to get the lessons started.