A Bloody Kingdom (Ruthless People Book 4) (17 page)

Cora couldn’t take it anymore; she laughed so hard she snorted, which only made me laugh back at her.

“Mommy!” Helen sighed.

“Sorry, sorry, I’ll be a good passenger.” She threw her hands up as I started the engine and pulled onto the street.

Helen hummed in the back seat, nodding her head back and forth, staring at the city while I tried not to notice Cora staring only at me, her hand burning a hole through my jeans and driving me completely crazy.

Finally, when we got to the park, I slowed to a stop in front of the large white screen held up by two trees.

“Where’s the movies?” Helen frowned, glancing around.

“The movies are coming to us, sweetheart. It’s called a drive-in movie theater.” Reaching over Cora’s lap, I took out her Twizzlers along with a can of Sprite from the glove compartment.

“Cool!” She reached up, taking them from me.

“What did you say?” Cora asked her as I slid her a mini bottle of wine, her eyes widening as if she were about to break out in tears. Funny enough, when we’d first gotten married, she didn’t drink.

“Thank you!” Helen replied, leaning back into the seat when the lights came on.

Cora said nothing, simply staring at me and drinking her white wine from a bendy straw.

“What?” I finally asked her.

She just shrugged, not answering.

“Cora?”

“I’ve fallen in love with you again twice today, you know that?”

I wanted to kiss her.
Damn it.

“You’re finally catching up to me.” I fell in love with her at least twice as often every day.

NEAL

Holding the gun to her chest, she leaned against the wall, taking a deep breath before her eyes focused on me. Stretching my hand out, I told her to wait. Peeking around the mound, everything was silent, but I knew they were out there, just waiting to take the shot…if she got hit, then it was all over.

“NOW!” I yelled, and she bolted as fast as she could toward me.

“FIRE!” Mina hollered from up above as she and Sedric took aim, paintballs flying everywhere, hitting her in the leg, arm, and back.

“I’m hit,” she cried out as I ran toward her. They pummeled me with paintballs over and over again. Lifting my hands in defeat, she and Sedric came out of their hiding spots. Mina blew fake smoke off her gun while Sedric kept his pointed at us.

“Do you give up?” he asked us.

Before I could say anything, Nari shot him right in the chest; she was even quick enough to get Mina. Both the lights in their vests lit up, meaning she’d gotten the kill shots.

“HEY! Cheater!” he called out.

“The war isn’t over until we say we give up! Right, Dad?” Nari raised her hand to fist bump me.

“Absolutely.” I fist bumped her before pulling her into a hug. “It’s not our fault you thought you won and came out early.”

“What? Mommy!” Sedric turned to her as if she was supposed to right this injustice. Both Nari and I stared at her, waiting as she sized us up.

“Well played…we won’t forgive you next time.” She finally spoke and Sedric put his hands to his head, falling to his knees as he groaned.

“Noooooo.” He was the most dramatic six-year-old on the face of the planet.

“Come on!” Mina laughed, putting her hand on his helmet. “Let’s all get cleaned up before we eat, we have ribs!”

“Ribs?” Sedric and I both said at the same time, wide grins on our faces.

Sedric took off his helmet and made a run for the showers. “Ribs! Daddy, come on!”

“You would think we don’t feed him.” I shook my head.

“Daddy, you’re making the same face though.” Nari giggled. Bending down, I made a face at her and she just pinched my cheeks.

“Whose side are you on peanut?”

“If it’s between family and others, I’m on family’s side. If it’s between family and family, I’m on the winning side,” she answered proudly. She and Mina were one in the same; it was funny.

“That girl.” Mina came over to us.

Lifting my pinky up to her I said, “And who’s always on the winning side between family and family?”

“You.” She smiled, linking fingers with me.

“Well then…” Mina said dramatically. “I lose one time and—”

I kissed her and she laughed, but before she could say anything else, Sedric came running back out, butt ass naked with no shame whatsoever.

“DADDY, COME ON!” he yelled at me.

“Sedric, your clothes!” Mina yelled at him.

“You said clean up.” He stretched his stomach.

Snorting, she smacked me on the shoulder. “Stop laughing, this is why he thinks it’s okay!”

“Come on, Sedric, before Mommy shoots you.” I laughed, moving toward him.

He jumped back, holding his arms out like he did for karate class. “I’m too fast.”

“Not too fast for me.” Nari held the gun out and he went running.

“Don’t tell me you are scared of your big sister, Sedric,” I teased him as I entered the locker room, where all his clothes were scattered on the floor.

“I’m not scared…you guys are tricky.” He crossed his arms at me.

“Tricky or smart?” I asked him, taking off my vest and shirt.

“Both,” he grumbled. “But it’s okay, Nari is going to be on my team next time.”

“What? You are ditching Mommy?”

He shrugged. “Boys gotta do what boys gotta do.”

“Sedric.” I didn’t even know what to say; I just put my hand on his head, walking with him to the sauna. I adjusted the temperature before we both walked in. We grabbed towels and hopped onto the seats, laying back. I had bought the paintball center when he started walking as a place for him to train but also have fun. It was open to the public Wednesday through Sunday, so most Mondays and Tuesdays, we were all there.

He was so used to it here, he even knew when to add water to the rocks without me saying anything. He just lay back and relaxed. Was he spoiled? A little bit. But I was glad; life would get harder, at least he was still innocent now.

“Is something on my face?” He frowned, wiping his nose.

“Yeah.”

“Really?” This time, he rubbed all over his face. “Now?”

“Even worse.”

“Daddy!” he hollered as I laughed, crossing his arms again as he lied back down. “Why don’t you make fun of Nari?”

“Because Nari is good at comebacks.” She really was a fast thinker just like her mother, but she was shy. Mina wasn’t shy, she just preferred to only speak when she had something important to say. Other than that, she wore her emotions on her face.

“I’m not good at comebacks,” he replied. “All the girls are. Helen is the best, she even got Nari.”

“Nari and Helen were fighting?” Nari didn’t fight with anyone.

“Yeah. Nari thinks Kevin from Plane Owl is the
cutest
and Helen thinks Ian is…they all look weird to me.” He yawned.

Wait.
“Nari likes a boy?”

“Duh, Dad.” He frowned. She was kind of young for boys, right?

“Do you like anyone?”

“Yes, me,” he said seriously.

Grabbing a small hand towel, I threw it at him. “You are just like your uncle sometimes.”

“Uncle Declan or Uncle Liam?”

“Both.”

He grinned, “I want to be cool like Uncle Declan, be the best at video games like Uncle Liam, and as strong as you. Won’t that be cool! I’ll be Superman.”

Good to know that the combination of the three of us is his version of Superman.

“We get to eat ribs…” He sang happily, then stopped, sitting back up. “Mommy eats a lot. She’s going to take the best ones.”

I couldn’t stop laughing; he was just too damn funny.

“Daddy!”

“Relax, girls take longer,” I reminded him, and he relaxed, leaning back. It was true though: for as tiny as Mina was, she could eat.

He went back to singing. “We get to eat ribs, we get to eat ribs.” Six years, that’s how long he’d been in my life, and I could not imagine not having a son.

“We get to eat ribs,” I sang along with him.

THIRTEEN

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

~ Sun Tzu

MELODY

4:59 AM

I stood waiting, watching each second pass on my watch. I thought about it: how I would do this, how I would start over dozens of times and could come up with nothing…nothing but my own past. I would start the same way my father had started with me.

57.

58.

59.

“Dona.” I shook her shoulder. She tried to roll away but I ripped the cover off of her. “Dona get up.”

“Mommy—”

“Now.”

She rubbed her eyes, slowly sitting up, clearly confused. Her dark hair was a complete mess around her and she made it worse by scratching the side of her head. I wanted to brush it down for her but instead, I stepped back.

“Take her,” I said to Fedel, who emotionlessly picked her up.

“Mommy!” Dona panicked as he grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder. Ignoring her, I held the door open for them, walking forward as I pulled my hair up into a ponytail.

“Fedel? You’re holding on too tight!” She squirmed but he didn’t say a word, just kept walking, and I knew his grip wouldn’t loosen. “Mommy, what’s wrong? Mommy?”

I could feel her starting to panic; it was probably because she was confused, but also because she was tired. Opening the door, Fedel walked quicker, shifting her into his arms before throwing her into the deep end of the pool.

“MOMMY!” She screamed and a quiver went down my spine, but I ignored it. She was still better off than I was. No one woke me up with Orlando. I was grabbed while sleeping and thrown into the deep end, no explanation, nothing.

“Swim, Donatella,” I said as she flapped her arms around uselessly. She knew how to swim; I’d made sure of it. At the moment, she was just scared. Wrapping her arms around herself, she stared at me, her wet hair sticking to her face. She didn’t move, just stared at me as I sat down on the pool chair.

“Why aren’t you swimming?” I asked her.

She frowned. “It’s cold.”

“You will live.”

She swam to the edge of the pool and got out. “I don’t want to swim.”

Fedel picked her up with ease and threw her right back in, more harshly this time. The sound of her face hitting the water made my throat dry. It took a second but she swam back up, brushing her hair off her face, gasping out for air.

“I don’t care if you want to swim. Top to bottom.”

“Mommy!”

“Now!”

She took a deep breath, moving to the edge of the pool before taking off. I wanted to smile at how naturally good she was, but my face felt frozen. She swam smoothly from one side to the other.

“Happy?” she snapped angrily at me, trying to get out again, but she paused the moment she saw Fedel hovering over her.

“Do it again.”

“What?’

“Do it again.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“Mommy!”

“Now, Donatella!”

She smacked her hand on the water but did what I said, this time, faster, faster than me at her age…but this wasn’t about speed. She’d learn that the hard way.

“Again,” I stated when she finished.

“How many!”

“100.”

“Mom!” Her mouth dropped open.

“You’ve done two, only 98 more to go,” I stated. “You stay in there however long it takes, Donatella.”

She bit her lip, her green eyes glaring at me as the water reflected in them, but she swam anyway. It wasn’t possible for her to get to a hundred yet, but that wasn’t the point. It was to break her, to make her so weak she couldn’t stand, so weak she felt sick. Swimming on an empty stomach with no prior training, with her furry pajamas weighing her down—this was going to hurt…a lot, and it was just a start.

It took ten laps before she had to stop, gasping out for breath. Again she looked to me and there must have been something on my face because she looked hurt but didn’t say anything, just went back to swimming.

“She has probably another ten laps in her before she sinks. Get ready to jump in,” I told Fedel, and he just stepped out of his shoes.

I was wrong.

She was weaker than I thought. It wasn’t ten; it was six. She did six more laps before her legs cramped up and she cried out.

“Mom—” She tried to call out at me before her head dropped under the water. My heart dropped. I gripped the edge of my seat, but I didn’t move. Fedel dove in and even though I knew she wasn’t under for long and that he would easily get her, I still held my breath.

She coughed when he brought her back up and pulled himself over to the side. She pushed up off him, trying to stand even when she could barely breathe. She made it an inch before her legs gave out and she fell to the ground. She cried out, rolling into a ball.

“Why are you crying?” I asked her, but she didn’t reply. Kneeling next to her, I shoved her onto her back. Staring up at me, she grabbed her heart. “Does it hurt? Does it feel like your heart is about to explode and your legs are gone? You feel like you’re going to die?”

She nodded, her lip quivering, but she couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down the sides of her face.

“Well, let me tell you a secret my father told me: when you feel like you are dying, that’s when you know you aren’t really dying. You’re growing. Get used to this feeling, Donatella, because you’re going to be growing a lot from now on. Get up, we’ve just started.” I stood as two maids walked in with a change of clothes and her breakfast: bread and enriched milk.

8:27 AM

“Stop it!” she yelled at me, throwing her hands in the air. “I’m tired! My legs hurt! My hands hurt! Everything hurts!”

“That’s sad, do you want me to kiss it and make it feel better?” I mocked, circling her in the ring. “Our poor little princess. Her legs hurt, her arms hurt—oh no!”

Her face bunched up, and like a raging bull screaming, she ran to me blindly. All I did was step to the side, stretching out my fist and hitting her right in her mouth. Her head snapped to the side, her whole body went down hard, and she didn’t get back up.

“What the fuck, Melody!”

I knew that voice. I didn’t even bother looking at him and in a flash he was in the ring, kneeling down beside her as I untaped my hands.