Welcome to the Dark Side: Chapter 34

The night was mine.

It always had been.

I’d never been scared of monsters in the dark or things that went bump in the night. I was part of that world, been born into it and grown up with intrinsic knowledge of how to tame those beasts and corral those demons toward my ends.

The shadows embraced me as I stalked across the Lafayette yard ’round to the back door where I’d broken in before, using the same lock picks and the same alarm code Curtains and Lou had confirmed for me beforehand.

The house was quiet.

But I could smell the fear and shame waftin’ through the house like the scent of some baked thing, this one cookin’ deep in the gut of the man I’d come to scare.

It was just me.

King had wanted a part, Mute too, and Bat, Nova and Buck had been so fuckin’ enraged I was sure there’d be a drive-by shootin’ on tomorrow’s front page of the paper.

But I was Prez and what I said fuckin’ went.

So, it was just me. Wearin’ all black beneath my cut, leather gloves on my hands and steel toes in my boots.

I had a message to send like the angel fuckin’ Gabriel.

Warm yellow light spilled out the door of Benjamin Lafayette’s study and the quiet rustle of papers sounded within.

Alone and workin’.

A normal night.

Not one where he’d beaten and verbally abused a seventeen-year-old girl with cancer.

Just a normal fuckin’ night in the Lafayette Mansion on Entrance Hill.

Fuckin’ dickbag.

I debated stormin’ into the room like an avengin’ angel but decided that my wrath couldn’t be settled with bluster. It sat cold and vibrant, complex like a multifaceted diamond. That hatred had sat like a lump in my gut through the years of writin’ Lou, hearin’ about the neglect her father shoveled out and the pressure to be perfect he shoveled in. But now it’d been condensed by the monumental weight of his latest fuckin’ transgression.

He’d beaten his fuckin’ daughter.

Hit her right in the face.

It burned in me that I’d been at the root’a that action, but I knew with clarity that this was not my fuckin’ fault.

I wasn’t the man bringin’ her a lifetime of pain.

I was the man healin’ her, from the inside out.

So, instead of dramatics, I slipped around the door and took advantage of his fuckin’ self-absorption and walked through the shadows clingin’ to the wall until I was just behind him.

He was older than me, not by a lot, but there was grey in his hair and thinnin’ at the back of his head that had to have made him self-conscious. He reached back to rub at the spot like he unconsciously felt something behind him puttin’ pressure there.

I grinned as I stepped forward, my 9mm in one hand.

Quick as I flash, I took his thin neck in a headlock and pressed the cold butt of the gun to his temple. He let out a shrill kinda garble, the sound a man makes just before he pisses himself.

Loved knowing he was such a pussy that the first sign of a threat put the fear of God into him.

“Shh,” I hushed him and tightened my grip so he’d stop his struggle. “Just here to have a chat, Benny Boy. Father to father. Man to man. See, I got my girl at home with a black fuckin’ eye and she tells me it was who did it.”

I laughed in his ear and felt him shudder.

“Hard to believe though, ain’t it? A man throwin’ a punch at the face of his own daughter, a young woman with half of his fuckin’ DNA and all of his fuckin’ love inside ’er? Honest to Christ, Benny, it’s hard to wrap my fuckin’ mind around. So, I thought I’d come here and ask you straight up, you hit Lou tonight?”

His Adam’s apple scraped against my forearm as he swallowed hard.

“I’m her father. This is between me and my daughter.” He tried to say it strong, like the mayor he was, only he didn’t have shit to stand on and he knew it.

“See, that’s where you’re just fuckin’

. That girl you hit tonight, she mighta been your daughter once and she might still have your fuckin’ genes, but she’s not your daughter now. And to be honest with you, Benny Boy, she started bein’

fuckin’ girl the first time you left her down in a colossal fuckin’ way, when there were bullets flyin’ everywhere and you ducked down to save yourself ’fore your kid. She became my girl the second she saw me ‘cross the lot and knew in her soul she’d found someone to take care of ’er true.

She was right about that. I take care of my brothers and unlike you, Benny, I put my kids ’fore my every fuckin’ breath. And now I have Lou? Now, you’ve gifted her to me on a fuckin’ platter? I’m gonna keep ’er. She’ll be warm in my bed, safe in my house and protected from anything that might fuckin’ hurt her, for the rest of her goddamn life.”

I tightened my hold on his neck ’til he gasped for breath and then I shoved the barrel of my gun into his mouth until he choked on it.

My voice was low, almost too low and rough to understand but I spoke close to his ear so he wouldn’t miss a fuckin’ word’a it.

“I’m not gonna hurt you like I wanna, Benny. I’m not gonna string you up from your balls, rip off your pathetic little dick and shove it down your throat or skin you alive and dip you in fuckin’ acid. Hush,” I ordered when he let out a scared little whimper. “I’m not gonna do any of that ’cause I got a beautiful fuckin’ girl to get home to, but I am gonna share somethin’ with you. The next time you touch Lou, the next time you degrade ’er or fuckin’

on ’er the wrong way, I’m gonna end your life and I’m gonna do it with my bare hands around your neck so that I can have the satis-fuckin’-faction of feelin’ your pathetic life leave your body. You get me, Benny Boy?”

He nodded as enthusiastically as he could with my arm wrapped around his throat.

I shoved the gun a little farther down his gullet just to hear him choke and then removed it so I could hit the motherfucker hard over that thinnin’ spot on his fuckin’ head so he passed out.

He’d given Lou bad nightmares with his shit that night.

It was only fair I gave him some in return.

And I was only too fuckin’ happy to be the monster that starred in that show.