Kiss The Villain: Chapter 32

I was born with a silver spoon hanging from my mouth.

Somehow, that spoon transformed into a blade, scraping, stabbing, and rotting my tongue.

You know, rich people’s problems.

My half-brother, Grant, never liked me. He was fourteen when I was born, and we grew up in different worlds. Jealousy was the undercurrent of his disdain, mainly because our father didn’t punish me as harshly as he did him.

Don’t get me wrong—I got my fair share of ‘discipline.’ Being kept in a well with snakes for three days, watching execution-style murders since I was seven, and undergoing poison and pain training weren’t exactly vacations.

But honestly, it was probably better than what Grant endured.

Courtesy of dear old Dad.

Harrod Davenport was the personification of a totalitarian monarch.

As the head of the prestigious Davenport family, he ruled with an iron fist.

Most people know us as pioneers in imports and exports. They think we’re just one of the four founding families of Graystone Ridge, an affluent town in the Northeast US.

But we run much, much deeper.

Like secret society deep.

The name’s Vencor—not that anyone outside the inner circle or conspiracy theorists would know.

The founding families—Davenport, Callahan, Armstrong, and Osborn—are Vencor’s Founder members. We don’t just manipulate power; we redefine it. Maximizing profit, planting politicians, reshaping society’s fabric—we’ve been doing it for generations.

From a young age, I was primed for my role within Vencor. Harrod made sure of that, subjecting me to every initiation and trial to prove my worth. Physical and psychological pain were just part of the curriculum.

If I died, well, that was that.

In our families, weakness is a death sentence. Offspring either prove their worth or get discarded like trash.

But I didn’t die.

I had plans.

Lots of them.

And, truth be told, I had an easier ride than Grant.

Harrod held him to a higher standard, and failure wasn’t tolerated. I watched as he broke both of Grant’s legs for planning to elope with his college sweetheart.

Then Harrod killed the girl.

One shot. Point-blank. Her brains splattered onto a kneeling Grant.

I was seven. And I had to watch.

To learn.

To never become a failure like my brother.

Something inside Grant died that day. His soul, maybe. His humanity. I don’t know what exactly, but it turned him into something unrecognizable.

He’d already been through hell—finding his mother hanging from the ceiling at thirteen—and now the love of his life was taken from him in the cruelest way imaginable.

The tragedy of it all must’ve been so bad that he just…turned the switch off.

Abuse has a way of breaking people. Some escape it through death, like Grant’s mom. Some run, like my mom. And others become the very thing they despise.

Grant chose the latter.

Slowly but surely, he turned into Harrod.

Me? I bided my time. Patiently.

When I was nine, my mom finally left. She’d been planning it with Mom Jina for years, obsessing over every detail and kind of forgetting me in the meantime. She’d be so out of it sometimes, hiding the bruises covering her body like a walking battlefield, that she didn’t see my bruises.

Then, one day, she took me, and we fled. The three of us. All the way to Switzerland.

For three months, we lived like the happiest family in the world. But even at nine, I knew it wouldn’t last.

Harrod would find us. And he’d kill my moms.

So I called Grant and asked for help.

He traced my call and handed our location to Harrod. Because by then, Grant wasn’t just Harrod’s son; he was Harrod.

But before he hung up, Grant told me to wait outside when Harrod arrived. Said if I went with him willingly, the moms would live.

I struck a deal with Harrod.

I’d be his perfect son. The opposite of Grant. I’d give him everything he wanted—power, profit, status. Everything.

To this day, I don’t know why he agreed. Maybe he never wanted my mom. Maybe he feared losing me completely.

Whatever the reason, I had to call my moms and tell them I chose him.

Then I cut contact.

For years, I became Harrod’s golden child. Straight A’s, star athlete, problem solver. Everything Grant wasn’t.

And I thrived on it.

The control. The resources. The killing.

Especially the killing.

Slaughtering for Vencor became second nature—hunting, executing, then sharing a smoke with Julian and the others. Not all of them loved the bloodshed, but we all got off on the power. The knowledge that one day, we’d own everything.

I was riding that high when I met Cassandra on a blind date.

Our dads arranged it—typical rich people shit.

She was smart, confident, persistent. A Senior Vencor member and an executive in the Davenport company. She liked me immediately and decided I was the man for her.

I didn’t argue. I liked her, mainly because I could be open with her since she was a Senior member—the highest position attainable for a non-founding family.

Since I was expected to get married anyway, I thought Cassandra was a perfect fit. My father loved her, and Grant liked her fire. His own wife, another arranged marriage, was meek and he hated that.

Cassandra was a free spirit who didn’t conform to social norms. Despite the marriage, she was anti-monogamy and loved threesomes a lot. I didn’t mind. But we both got bored a few months into our marriage, so we agreed to have an open marriage. She also preferred dishing out orders during sex, and her streak of dominance clashed with mine, so six months after the marriage, we admitted we just weren’t sexually compatible and stopped having sex altogether, opting to satisfy our preferences with other people. But aside from that, we were an ideal couple.

A perfect match. No deep feelings, no mess.

I think that’s part of the reason my moms never liked Cassandra. They wanted someone to love me and for me to love them back, but they’re hopeless romantics, and I don’t do love.

Our marriage was a practical, harmonious partnership. We were close friends who told each other everything and had the same goals and aspirations.

It worked.

Until it didn’t.

When Cassandra was taken from me, I didn’t feel heartbreak. I felt rage.

Rage at the audacity that someone dared to touch her. I needed revenge, to kill every single person who hurt her.

I didn’t trust the justice system, so I delivered it myself.

One by one, I made them bleed.

All except one.

Maybe it was because Alexander Carson was the last on the list. Maybe it was because I wouldn’t have a purpose after he was gone.

Sandra would remain dead and I’d be alone and aimless. With nothing to tether me to life.

So I went with a different approach and decided to cut Declan from the equation. To go after Carson with needles, stabbing him slowly, until he died by a thousand cuts.

And the best way to do that? Kill his grandsons. Then his son. Then his daughter-in-law.

Break him completely before finishing him off.

The first time I met Gareth, my suspicions about his rotten blood and inherited bad habits were confirmed, and I wanted to punish him by reversing the positions. But that only planted the seed of fascination.

Because ever since then, even though I told myself I could kill him at any moment, I’ve only managed to grow more infatuated with him.

Enamored.

Obsessed.

Addicted.

Obviously, my original plan went to absolute hell, because I’m in the back of a van, heading straight to where that cockroach Declan is keeping my little monster.

While staring at a selfie he took of us the other day.

He’s lying on my lap, grinning at the camera, dimples deep in his cheeks, blond hair messy, and Moka curled up on his shoulder.

I wasn’t even looking at the camera. My hand was in his hair, stroking absentmindedly while I watched the game.

We do.

We did.

Now, I keep staring at his face, wishing he’d sent me more pictures of him. Especially since I know he always takes pictures of us when he thinks I’m not paying attention.

I slide the back of my fingers on the screen as if it’s his face.

You better be safe, little monster.

He can hate me all he wants. I know I deserve it and more considering what I planned to do to him and his family.

But he has to be safe.

The image of his blood and what that degenerate Declan could have been doing to him in the thirty-six hours it took me to find him has been causing pressure on the inside of my skull.

“We’re twenty minutes out from the target,” Simone’s voice echoes in the van as she speaks in the earpiece to my security team in the other vans.

She’s sitting opposite me in full combat gear, holding her rifle down.

Her braided hair is held in a bun, special night vision glasses resting on her head as her dark eyes silently shoot a laser in my direction.

“You’ll kill him with those eyes, Simone,” Jethro says from his position beside me while tapping on his computer. “Not that he doesn’t deserve it.”

Jethro is tall but lean and wears frameless glasses that sit low on his nose. As a typical nerd, he usually dresses in hoodies with anime characters or metal band logos, but Simone forced him into combat gear today. Something he hates more than getting his prim, soft hands dirty.

I met Jethro—then Eduard—in college. Soon after, he got arrested for breaching some Pentagon security. I knew I needed his services, so I arranged his murder during the transfer, made him a ghost, and gave him a new identity. Ever since then, he’s been my right hand.

He’s the one who found Simone a year later. She quit the army and was wasting away in a mid-range security firm and he said she’d be perfect for our team.

Cassandra never liked them. Neither of them. I think the feeling was mutual. She didn’t appreciate how they expressed their opinions and didn’t mince their words. And they didn’t like how she treated them like servants—the only thing I clashed with her on.

Jethro and Simone are, in a sense, the siblings I never had—Grant doesn’t count—and I never liked how she disregarded them.

But while I appreciate their input, they really don’t know when to shut up.

Like right now.

“Be quiet, both of you.” I pocket my phone. “Go faster, Sal.”

“Yes, Boss!” the driver says.

“With all due respect,” Simone says, throwing a quick glance at her watch. “We wouldn’t be in this situation if you’d just stayed in the States.”

“And miss fucking around with a college kid?” Jethro whistles. “And being the cause of his death?”

“He’s not dying.” I pull at the collar of my combat gear.

Jethro lifts a shoulder. “He wouldn’t have if you hadn’t gotten into his life.”

“I’ll knock your teeth out,” I snap.

“No, thanks. That will probably hurt, and I don’t like that shit.”

“Jethro’s right.” Simone, who’s usually less argumentative than Jethro, is still glaring at me. “Gareth doesn’t deserve this. No matter what his grandfather did.”

“Save the I-told-you-so moment.” I pull harder on the collar, nearly ripping it.

Of course, they were both against it. Even Jethro has been saying there’s proof Alexander was there that night, not that he was present when Cassandra was violated and killed.

Lately, they’ve both been trying to get me to come back. Abandon the whole thing. Leave Gareth alone.

Simone even saved all the money Gareth paid her for the PI side gig in a different bank account, intent on giving it all back.

Unless I’m imagining it, I’d think they both like him. Which is ironic since they don’t even like me most of the time.

“Let’s get this over with first.” Simone jumps out of the van before it properly stops. “One and two, with me!”

A few other men jump from the vans and I follow suit, a gun in my hand.

We’re surrounded by trees on all sides, their dark branches stretching upward, cutting into the sky. The air is thick with the earthy scent of moss and damp soil, muffling the world beyond the wilderness. In the distance stands a large, brutalist-like structure, its sharp angles and imposing concrete facade looking lifeless against the natural chaos of the forest.

“All security disabled,” Jethro says. “Fifteen minutes.”

We rush into the formation Simone devised with the little knowledge we have on Declan’s house in the forest.

Which isn’t much since I didn’t even know he had this place. It’s more like a compound.

Declan and his men only carry untraceable phones, especially since they knew I’d try to find him through them.

We only managed to locate this place through the tracker I had Jethro insert in Gareth’s bracelet. We lost the signal when Declan took him on a plane, but we got it back again once they landed in Chicago and then they headed all the way here.

It took us time to arrange the plane and the plan, but we finally made it—without a wink of sleep on my part. I couldn’t do that when Gareth’s fate is unknown.

Declan’s men start shooting at us immediately, but Simone and the others cover me as we kill our way in.

Simone’s presence is like a wall of steel at my back. The air is thick and suffocating inside as she shoots and wrestles men twice her size with brutal efficiency, tossing one of them into the wall.

I grab one by his hair and slam his head on the concrete, watching as it cracks open.

Jethro gives me directions to where Gareth is, and I follow, letting Simone and the others take care of the men.

The floor beneath me thuds with each step, but I barely hear or see anything. Not the shouts, the alarms, the gunshots.

As I shoot open the door to the room where Gareth is, my heart pounds so violently in my chest, I feel the sickening sound of it in my throat, like it’s trying to rip its way out.

Gareth’s arms are bound in a straitjacket as he bangs his head on the wall.

Again.

And again.

The thuds are a disturbing silent scream.

Blood spatters across the wall, splashing over a projected video, and drips in jagged lines, carving small veins that trail down to the floor, pooling beneath him. It stains his bare feet, and his white pants, and there’s a red blotch on the arm of his straitjacket—messing him up.

You messed him up.

I rush toward him and pull him back by the shoulders. There’s a gaping wound in his forehead, blood trickling over his nose, his eyes, his entire face.

Fuck.

I wipe it with the back of my sleeve, keeping the gun out of reach.

His eyes stare at nowhere, his pupils are so dark and blown up, he looks like an entirely different person.

My little monster, who often takes pride in his unearthly beauty, is now all bloodied.

Because of me.

“Gareth?”

He pulls from my grip with inhuman strength and bangs his head harder on the wall. It’s so powerful, I think he’ll crack his skull open.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” he mumbles. “Stop laughing, shut up.”

I press my hand against the wall, and he slams against it as I shoot the projector in the ceiling, making the video stop.

Gareth stays still, his bloody forehead resting on my palm. His breathing is so low, it causes my skin to prickle.

“Gareth? Can you hear me?”

No reply.

Goddamn it.

I pull him up straighter and he stands on unsteady feet, swaying as if he can’t feel his legs while still looking at the wall with those blown-up eyes.

Eyes that used to only look at me.

Following me everywhere.

Even when he pretends he doesn’t care.

Now they’re not seeing me.

“Gareth?” I stroke his face, beneath his eyes, his cheek. “Say something.”

The wound in his head is still bleeding. I need to have that looked at⁠—

“Sir, we’re leaving!” Simone growls from the door. “Now.”

I gather Gareth in my arms, and he’s so stiff, his limbs resemble a rigid cord. I manage to lean his head on my shoulder.

“I’m getting you out of here,” I whisper, but he’s not responding, his lips trembling, his face pale, his eyes still staring nowhere.

Like they’re dead.

No.

Simone covers me as I rush back to the van and then we speed away, Declan’s men still shooting at us. The man himself wasn’t there, but I’ll find him and rip his head off his shoulders for what he did.

I cut through Gareth’s straitjacket with a knife as Simone forms a makeshift bandage for his forehead.

My molars grind when I see the long slashes along his arm, and the sloppy stitches Declan probably did to torture him further are mostly ripped open. Bruises on his torso, his collarbone, his chest.

I’m going to torture that motherfucker Declan before I kill him. A week for every goddamn wound he put on my Gareth’s previously perfect body.

You ruined him, not Declan.

It’s you.

“Gareth.” My lips tremble around the word. “Talk to me. Say something, baby, please.”

He blinks twice, and I think he sees me, even for a fraction of a second, but then his eyes stare up.

At nothing.

No. At something.

Anything.

Just not at me.