The Fate Of The Vengeance Of Luther Trilogy

With The Rebirth of Us having a release date of September 21st, which is 17 days away, I need to be honest with both you readers as well as myself.

I'm struggling with writing this story. Badly.

When I first thought of the idea for this world, I was excited. I'd wanted Luther to be this big, bad, over-the-top, brutally violent anti-hero ready to unleash hell on those that wronged his family. I had no plans of this duet to end in an HEA so I wasn't worried about him being redeemable since I didn't have to get Sevyn to fall in love with him. And when I wrote The Destruction of Sevyn, that was exactly how he was portrayed and everything was going just as I'd planned for this world. When I'd originally planned the books as a duet, it wasn't supposed to end with a happily ever after. It was why I had Luther do all of those things in The Destruction of Sevyn because either he or Sevyn were going to die in The Sins of Luther and that would've been the end of that.

Well, we see that didn't happen.

After The Destruction of Sevyn came out, I was tangled up into a situation that sent me into a very deep depression to where I couldn't write anything. During that time, along with people practically harassing me about a release date for The Sins of Luther, people were still demanding the HEA so that "Sevyn's suffering didn't go in vain" or telling me how disappointed they'd be if there was no HEA when I hinted that there may not be one. The Vengeance of Luther DUET then turned into a trilogy because I had no idea how to wrap up a story with an HEA bow after everything he'd done in the first book.

So here we are at book 3 and I'm at a loss. I've tried to plot this book frontwards and backwards to try to figure out how to give it this pretty bow that people expect and I've got nothing. I can't think of anything that would prevent Sevyn from looking absolutely pathetic and weak or without Luther turning into a complete simp, which would be a drastic contrast from how he was presented in The Destruction of Sevyn. And while I'm being completely honest, I have to admit that I'm not liking the way this book is going. And if I'm putting everything out there?

I'm absolutely hating The Vengeance of Luther as a whole.

It's no longer what I envisioned it to be. This was supposed to be a pitch black, violent revenge story, not a pitch black enemies-to-lovers, second chance romance. I 100% blame myself for this because I should've stuck to my guns and stayed on track to how I intended to write this story instead of falling into reader pressure and just trying to please people. But now, I'm not pleased, and yet I'm the one that still has to write this story. When I started writing dark, I wrote it because I needed an outlet to unleash the negative things within myself so that it didn't manifest into self-destructive tendencies as it had in the past. I didn't intend to write dark romance. I don't even call myself a dark romance author; I'm a dark fiction author. But ever since I released Rules of Bennett, the name Ember Michaels is attached to dark romance regardless of what I put out, so I had to create a new pen name, Lilith Blackwell to be able to write book with dark romance elements that DON'T end in HEAs. Anyway, being the people pleaser I am, I let other people dictate my books just to keep people happy even if that wasn't what I really wanted to do. I gave Bennett an HEA even though I didn't necessarily want to. I'm now having to give Luther an HEA when I DEFINITELY don't want to. And because I've pretty much promised this now trilogy will end in an HEA, it's not something that I can go back on now.

Which leads me to a dilemma that I'm still weighing.

Right now, I'm hating everything I've written for The Rebirth of Us. I haven't even written a blurb for this book despite it being up for preorder for months. A part of me wants to just power through and just get the book over with, but I have too much pride in my world to half-ass a story for the sake of giving you guys an ending. You all deserve better than that, my characters deserve better than that, and I deserve better than that. I've never been in a situation where I hate something that I've created, so this is a bit baffling and confusing for me. But here's where I'm at right now. On one hand, a part of me wants cancel the preorder and put the project aside until I can find a way to become excited about it again.

But I also have a strong urge to just scrap the project completely and remove the other two books from retailers and being done with the world entirely.

These books aren't how I envisioned, almost to the point to where I dread working within this world. I know there are going to be people super disappointed about this, but my hands are tied at this point. I can't continue creating things I'm not happy with for the sake of making other people happy. With my calciphylaxis back and pretty active, I'm not in the mood to write any happily ever afters for no one, and I most definitely won't write a forced one.

I don't know what the future looks like for these books. I do know that the things I'm feeling right now aren't things that will resolve themselves in 17 days, so I'm pretty certain that The Rebirth of Us won't be releasing at the end of the month. And if I decide to cancel this release, this project will be shelved indefinitely until I (major emphasis on "I") decide I'm ready to deal with it. Whether or not that's something I want to do is up in the air. Who knows; I may take down The Sins of Luther and write it how I intended to in the first place: a duet with NO HEA. Or I'll just remove the books from retailers, swallow down the loss of time and hard work, and learn from the mistake of not trusting myself enough to write the way the characters tell me to and trusting that the right readers will find me instead of trying to please ALL readers by writing fuckery that isn't true to me or the characters I create.

So yeah. That's where I am with this book. There's a high chance that I'll be canceling this preorder in the next few days, as trying to tell this story is like pulling teeth that haven't even broke through the gums yet. I'm sure people will be upset. I'm sure they'll complain about how it takes me forever to put out books now, or how I can't be consistent with release dates, or how they have to wait "forever" for another book, or how they won't read anything else from me for "wasting their time." All of that is fine. But I think that it's past time for me to choose to make my characters happy, to make ME happy for once and putting out this book right now won't achieve that. So, before I wrap this up, I want to make one thing clear so that we're all on the same page:

ONCE I CANCEL THE PREORDER FOR THE REBIRTH OF US, THERE WILL NOT BE ANOTHER RELEASE DATE ANNOUNCED ANYTIME SOON. THE PROJECT WILL BE SHELVED INDEFINITELY UNTIL I FIGURE OUT WHAT I WANT TO DO WITH THIS WORLD, WHETHER THAT MEANS TO FORCE THE HEA AT A LATER DATE OR TAKING THE BOOKS DOWN AND REWRITING THEM TO NOT INCLUDE AN HEAD.

Okay? Okay. I think that's all for now. I hope you guys can understand where I'm coming from with this. I'm sure it's disappointing for those who were anxiously awaiting this book, but as the creator, I can't give you a good story if I'm not happy. It's not fair to you to pay money for a mediocre story and it's not fair to me to work on something that I no longer love at the moment. Let's hope—for the sake of you, my characters, and all the time I invested into this world—that I can find a solution that will keep Luther and Sevyn alive, as I actually really like them. I guess we'll see how things work out in the future for them but for now, I think I'm going to put them to rest for a little while.

Until next time,

Ember

Moreno Forever Chapter Reveal

Hey!

So with the release of the Rules of Bennett boxed set, I figured it would be a good idea to give you a taste of what's to come! If you've been missing the Morenos, check out the first chapter of Moreno Forever, which will be featured in the boxed set!

🤍🤍🤍🤍

Chapter One

Bennett

“Question,” I stated as I sat in the passenger seat, folding and unfolding the pocket knife in my hand while I scanned the moving people on the street. Saint glanced over at me.

“What’s up, Boss?”

“Is there a stamp on my forehead that says ‘fool’ that I don’t fucking know about?” I asked.

Saint chuckled and shook his head. “Of course not.”

“I thought so.”

Saint, Nyxin, and I sat parked in an SUV in the seedy part of downtown Los Angeles, watching as Garrett and Caleb stood across the street surrounded by a gang of whores. The longer I watched them, the higher my anger mounted. With the creation of a new mafia family, that required having to hire new help. Not everyone supported my decision of killing my father, deciding to leave when the Moreno Family fell apart after his death. That left me having to start completely from scratch. New family, new men, new rules and regulations to build a new empire. My gut told me these two fucks were shady, but I wasn’t in a position to turn down people who were hungry to work. I figured I’d put up with them now and replace them when I had better options, but all that did was create another fucking headache for me to deal with.

At first, it started with them coming up just a little short or having fake bills. They claimed they were new to this, not knowing what to look for or not knowing if someone was scamming them. But then it started happening too many times to ignore. I lost count of the number of times I’d heard the excuse, “I couldn’t remember what a fake bill feels like,” or “I could’ve sworn I counted it right. I didn’t realize they shorted me.” They always had a bullshit reason for why the lack of drugs they had didn’t match with the amount of money they brought to me, lying to my face like I was a fucking idiot who didn’t know what was going on. A mistake here and there wasn’t unusual, but every single time was an enormous red flag that forced me to have to take matters into my own hands.

“I knew those guys were full of shit when they first showed up, but of course, no one ever listens to me,” Nyxin tsked from the backseat.

Saint glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “Because your assumption was solely based on the fact that homeboy still sports a bowl cut.”

“Yeah, which is fuckery all on its own,” Nyxin argued. “What grown man still has a bowl cut? I’m pretty sure they get paid enough to see an actual barber.”

“Either way, it was a bad judgement call on my end,” I said as I shifted in my seat, slipping the pocket knife into my pocket. “What’s the report on them?”

Nyxin shuffled papers behind me before clearing his throat. “O’Shea and Mason said the same thing, that the two fucks admitted to stealing product and skimming money off the top by replacing it with fake bills. Mason specifically said that Garrett and Caleb’s plan was to try to find another connect and they were gonna start their own shit.”

“Interesting,” I answered as I continued to watch them. They passed small baggies of white powder to the women that rubbed against them promising them a good time, and all I could think about was cutting those fucking smiles off of their faces.

I didn’t take too kindly to assholes who stole from me. For them to think I was too fucking stupid to notice was downright disrespectful.

And we all knew how I felt about disrespect.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, pulling my gaze from the window. I idly retrieved it, glancing briefly at the screen to see a picture of Aurora and Liam.

“Yeah, babe?” I said upon answering.

“Ah, Mr. Moreno. How lucky am I to be graced with your voice?” she teased.

I grinned. “Did you call me to be an asshole?” I asked.

“No, I just had a little question for you.”

“And what’s that?”

“Well,” she started. “There’s a chilled bottle of merlot here, a delicious dinner on the table, and a horny wife waiting for you at home. Any particular reason why you’re not here right now when you promised you would be?”

Shit. I had every intention of making sure I got back home in time for dinner after Aurora complained about the lack of time we spent together. After breaking dates and promises for weeks, I swore to her that she’d have me tonight to do whatever she wanted. But when I got the report from my guys about Garrett and Caleb, I knew I couldn’t let them live past tonight. I refused to let those dickheads think that they outsmarted me for another night, and I damn sure wouldn’t continue losing money because of them either.

I glanced back out of the window just in time to see Garrett and Caleb strolling toward the dark alley a few feet away from them with a few of the streetwalkers. “Something came up that I have to handle. I’m gonna be pretty late tonight.”

She sighed. “Fuck, again? Bennett, you promised,” she exclaimed, disappointment and frustration lacing her voice.

“I know, babe, and I’m sorry. But I finally got the information that I—”

“And it wasn’t something the guys could handle on their own? You’ve been blowing me off for weeks now because of business shit and I can already tell you that masturbating is getting pretty fucking old. Maybe I should go buy a guy to fuck me since my own husband won’t.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be fucking ridiculous. You know I wouldn’t allow that.”

“It’s not like you’d know if I did or not. You’re hardly even home,” she snapped.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. I had to admit that I’d had a shit ton more work on my plate now that I’d branched off and created my own mafia family. Managing all aspects of what used to be Moreno businesses instead of just the human trafficking sector was a lot more than I’d anticipated. I had to give my father credit. How he managed to run everything on his own without completely losing his head was impressive. Every single day that I had to clean up bullshit problems like this current one made me even more homicidal. At the rate I was going, my entire mafia family would be dead if shit didn’t change around here.

“It’s not intentional, babe. You know why I’m hardly home.”

“I wish you’d find something else to say. It’s ‘not intentional’ when you break promises. When you miss meetings with the wedding planner. When you don’t have five fucking minutes to have a conversation with your wife or hold your son,” she snapped.

I ground my teeth. Even though having this same conversation over and over for weeks was frustrating the shit out of me, I couldn’t be upset. She had every right to feel the way she did. I hadn’t been the most attentive husband and father. Work had kept me so busy that I barely even had time to sleep, a new problem seeming to pop up out of nowhere. She and Liam were usually always asleep by the time I got home, only for the cycle to repeat the next day. We were supposed to be planning an actual wedding to make our marriage feel “more real”—her words; damn sure not mine—and she wanted to experience having the beautiful dress and the other unnecessary shit that came with a wedding. Because it made her happy, I went along with it, but my absence during this process did nothing but land me in the doghouse most nights.

“Aurora—”

“Don’t,” she interrupted with a deep sigh. “Just don’t. I’ll find something to do tonight and I’ll see you when I see you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Then I hope it’s something you can do at home.”

“No, I’m going to go out. I’ll ask Carrie to look after Liam until I get back.”

“Like hell you’re going out. I’ll be home in a few hours, Aurora.”

“Then I’ll see you when I get back.”

“I swear to god if you—”

She hung up before I could finish my sentence, leaving me even more frustrated than I already was.

“She must really want me to fuck her up,” I mumbled, more so to myself as I stared at my home screen in slight disbelief.

Saint looked over at me. “Everything good on the homefront?” he asked.

I put my phone in the inner pocket of my jacket and shook my head. “Aurora’s upset that I’m too busy these days.”

“You’re overworking yourself, man. You might wanna consider delegating some shit to us so that you can spend more time with your family.”

I shook my head. After what I’d gone through with my father, I wasn’t even sure if I could even trust anyone to do business on my behalf. Dealing with that kind of betrayal wasn’t something one could get over so easily. It wasn’t every day that your own father had your ex-girlfriend killed and tried to have you killed as well. After that, I didn’t know who I could fully trust anymore. The people that I logically knew I could trust with my life sometimes made me think twice, wondering if they’d turn on me one day, too. But I had to constantly remind myself that they weren’t like that. I had to remind myself that Bruce, Saint, Nyxin, and KC had been with me from the beginning and stuck by my side through everything thrown at us. Hell, Saint nearly lost his life defending me, so his loyalty shouldn’t have even been a question. But when betrayal cut as deep as it did with my father, it could seriously fuck with you mentally.

“It’s just something she’ll have to deal with. When we’re better established and have more permanent members, shit should calm down,” I mumbled.

“Pretty sure your marriage problems are a situation that sex can fix,” Nyxin stated from the backseat. “She’s probably sexually frustrated and lonely.”

“Yeah, I’m with Nyx on that. Pretty sure a good back-blowing session will take that attitude of hers down a few notches,” Saint said, nodding.

I chuckled and shook my head. “Shut the fuck up, man.”

“Seriously though. It’s not like we’re wrong. Hell, you probably even need it, too. You’ve been really high strung these last few weeks.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’d be high strung, too, if you’ve been doing nothing but putting out fucking fires for the past couple of months,” I mumbled. Because trying to find new men, going back and forth in disagreements with the fucking Russians, dealing with thieves, liars, and idiots who think they could outsmart me, and now an unhappy wife, I was stressed the fuck out.

“All work and no play makes for a sad dick, man,” Nyxin tsked. “The only thing you have tomorrow night is that meeting with that one lady about the new shipment of girls. Maybe you should fuck your wife afterwards before we all end up dickless.”

“Speaking of girls,” Saint said, changing the subject. “Where’d the last shipment come from? The throats on some of those chicks are fucking immaculate.”

“Really? I haven’t been down into the basement in a while. I may have to check out these ‘immaculate throats’ when we get back,” Nyxin said.

I shook my head. “You guys are fucking nuts. Besides, the basement isn’t a fucking free-for-all just because you’re my main men,” I reminded them.

Saint shook his head. “Nah, I paid for the girl I had. I know the rules,” he said. “She was a fucking gem. I mean she’s built like a T-Rex, which isn’t what I usually go for but—”

Nyxin snorted. “Wait, what? How the fuck did you come up with that comparison?”

“Because she has small tits and a big ass. Small top, big bottom, like a fucking T-Rex.”

Nyxin and I laughed. I could always count on my men to make shitty situations less shitty. One of them always had a joke stashed somewhere to remind me to feel something else other than anger and frustration these days. “That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard in my life,” I said with a grin.

“Call it what you want but it doesn’t take away from her amazing throat,” Saint said with a content sigh. “She literally has no gag reflex.”

“Does she really not have a gag reflex or does your dick not have enough inches to even touch her uvula?” Nyxin asked, leaning forward in the seat until he was visible between us.

“It can touch your mother’s uvula, bitch,” Saint threw back. “Anyway, this girl takes whatever you give her, so she’ll be a huge moneymaker with clients. In fact, her mouth was so good that I actually remembered her name.”

“Then what is it?” I asked.

“Katrina,”Saint answered confidently before frowning soon after. “Or was it Kennedy?”

“Fucking idiot,” Nyxin snorted.

He chuckled. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m gonna start calling her giraffe from now on, so her name won’t matter.”

“Is she tall?” Nyxin asked.

“Nah. But the way she can take a dick down her throat, you’d think she had the neck of a giraffe,” he replied.

“Saint, if you wanna fuck animals, just say that, man,” I teased, laughing when he playfully pushed me.

“Oh fuck you, man. You’re the one that’s gonna end up with blue balls for a long time unless you figure out how to juggle both business and family life,” he said.

I frowned. “Can you believe she said she was gonna buy a guy just to have him fuck her? It’s like she wants me to come home and fuck her up.”

“Or…she just wants you to come home and fuck her,” Saint said under his breath, chuckling when I glared at him.

“If it were me, I’d postpone this meeting with these two dickheads for a couple of hours to put my wife in their place,” Nyxin said and tsked. “Then again, I wouldn’t have this problem to begin with because I’d be fucking my wife every night, especially if she looked like yours.”

“Mind your tongue if you want to keep it in your mouth, asshole,” I growled.

He held his hands up. “I’m just saying, man. You’re the boss; no one is saying that you have to take care of this situation tonight. You control that decision. So how about we go back to the house for a couple of hours so you can take care of business with your wife and then we can come up with a plan to deal with these assholes once they get to the club.”

I looked back to the alley just as Garrett and Caleb walked out of it, both of them zipping up their pants. Nice to know everybody is getting laid but me. Even though the guys were right, I didn’t have the same luxury as everyone else. Business waited for no one and I knew I wouldn’t be able to fully relax until those fucks paid for what they’d done.

I shook my head. “I’m going to deal with them tonight. Somebody text those two knuckleheads and tell them I want to meet them at Club Secrets. And tell them to bring me the product they haven’t sold yet as well as my fucking money. Now,” I finally said and glanced at my watch. “I want to try to have this shit done in less than three or four hours.”

“You got it,” Saint said, retrieving his phone from his pocket.

Nyxin clapped his hands together. “Well, since we’re gonna get off earlier than usual tonight, I think I’m gonna take a little time to experience these immaculate throats Saint boasted so highly about when we get back,” Nyxin said, rubbing his hands together.

Saint shook his head. “It’ll be a waste of money for you considering that you won’t even be able to reach her throat from what I’ve heard from the other girls,” he teased, causing me to chuckle.

“Oh, ha ha ha, you fuck,” he muttered.

I shook my head. “Let’s get the fuck out of here. Time’s ticking.”

*

The yellow lightbulb flickered above me as I sat on the corner of the rickety wooden desk. It’d been a while since I’d been down here, the last time being when I removed a few organs from the twins that worked for my father. I ground my teeth as the bitter memories from last year filled my head. It was always bittersweet walking into a property he used to own that I now took over. There were times were I wished I could get his advice on how to properly set things up instead of going through this trial and error phase right now, but the fact of the matter was that he was dead. Even if he were still alive, he’d still be my enemy and nothing would’ve changed that.

I thought to my son, realizing that I was slowly turning into my father. Never at home, hardly seeing my son, putting the business over making sure to help my wife raise him right. I’d promised him the day he was born that I’d be a better father to him than mine was to me. And here I was already letting him down.

“Boss?” Nyxin called, snapping his fingers in front of my face. I blinked and brought my gaze up to him, frowning as I waited for him to continue. “They’re here. Should we put the plastic down now?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. I don’t want them to see it as soon as they’re in the doorway and try to run. Let’s just play it cool right now,” I said as laughter filtered down the hallway. You fuckers won’t be laughing very soon.

I motioned for the two of them to grab four chairs and to put them in in a semi-circle in front of me. No sooner than the chairs were in place, a rhythmic knock sounded on the heavy door.

“It’s showtime, boys,” I said with a grin. “Get the door, will you?”

Nyxin strolled across the room and unlocked the door before pulling it open to reveal Beavis and Butthead on the other side of it.

“Nyx! My main man! What’s up, buddy?” Caleb exclaimed when he walked into the room. He waved when his eyes landed on me. “Boss! Looking sharp as always, my man! I’m trying to get on your level.”

I gave him a small grin and gestured to one of the seats. “Good evening, fellas. Come join us,” I said.

Garrett looked a little uncomfortable, his green eyes darting around the room as if he were looking for something. They both came over and had a seat as Nyxin closed the door, discreetly flipping the lock on it before joining us with Saint in tow.

“Here’s everything you asked for,” Garrett said as he put the bag beside me on the desk.

“Thanks.” I reached for the cigar box behind me. “Cigar?”

“Oh shit, sure,” Caleb said with a big grin on my face.

Garrett shook his head. “Nah, I’m good, Boss. Thanks though.”

I tsked. “It’s almost rude, Garrett. I’m offering you a cigar from an $18,000 box of Cohiba Behikes and you don’t want to try one? I’ll be insulted if you don’t,” I said with a grin.

He stared at me for a short moment before forcing a grin onto his lips. “Sorry. Sure, I’ll take one, Boss,” he finally said.

“Good. I felt that we had a little to celebrate, so I thought a nice cigar would help with that,” I said as I passed everyone a cigar. Pulling the cigar cutter from the small pocket lining the lid of the box, I clipped everyone’s cigar and then lit my own, passing the lighter to Nyxin.

“What are we celebrating?” Caleb finally asked, taking a long pull from his cigar and immediately coughing.

I smirked at him. “Have a little finesse, kid. It’s a cigar, not a joint. But anyway, I wanted to thank you two for the work you’re both putting in. I know you’re new to this life, but I speak on behalf of the family when I say that you guys are doing pretty well for this to be a new venture for you.”

Out the corner of my eye, I noticed Garrett’s tense position begin to relax at my words as he finally took a pull from his cigar. “Thanks for giving us a chance. I know we probably have a long way to go before we can advance to something higher than slinging drugs on the street, but we definitely appreciate the opportunity you’ve given us,” he said.

I took a puff of the cigar and slowly exhaled the smoke. “Out of the two of you, who would you say is the smartest?” I asked.“For example, if I gave you guys…say…a kilo of cocaine and told you to sell it. Who would come up with the plan to get it done?”

“I would,” Garrett answered confidently. The smug look he sported gave me the urge to slash his face, but I needed to pace myself.

“So you’re pretty much in charge of your little duo when you guys go out to sell on the street, yeah?”

“Right.”

“Interesting,” I said with a nod before puffing on my cigar again. I looked over at the bag and patted it. “How much am I to expect in here when I count it?”

“I’m actually not 100% sure. We came straight here when we got the text, so I didn’t have time to count,” he said, his eyes darting between me and the bag.

I looked to Saint. “Could you get the money counter for me, please?” I asked. He nodded and stood, walking across the room to retrieve the small machine. I pulled everything out of the bag, forcing myself to grin at the small amount of drugs. “Looks like you guys nearly sold a good bit of it. Good job.”

“The demand is high,” Garrett said with an uncomfortable smile. I fought the urge to scoff. From what I’d seen on the street earlier, I was very confident that he was paying for sex with drugs and that he’d given a lot of shit away. Just looking at the pile of money, I already knew it was short.

“Good, good. That’s what I like to hear,” I said idly as Saint put the machine on the desk. I pulled the rubber bands off the stacks of money and put three of the stacks in the machine, turning it on. The money flipped through the machine for a few seconds before stopping, the counterfeit alarm beeping. “Looks like we already have a problem.”

“Is the machine broken?” Garrett asked. “I can count it if—”

“No, it’s not broken. It’s detecting counterfeits,” I interrupted and removed the money by hand. “So now I have to go through each bill and pull out the fake ones.”

The entire room was silent as I went through stack after stack of money, pulling out counterfeit bill after counterfeit bill. By the time I was finished, the stack containing the real bills was a lot smaller than the fake ones, which filled me with irritation. I glanced at Garrett and Caleb, both of them shifting nervously in their chairs as they put their cigars out on the wooden leg of the chair they sat in. Their eyes watched the machine as it quickly counted the real bills before displaying the total on the small screen.

“Out of all this money…only $5,000 of it was real,” I said and shook my head. “You can see how this is a major problem for me, right?”

Garrett stood and moved toward the desk. “Are you sure? I made sure to check every single bill—”

“I’m very aware of what a fake bill looks like. And considering how many times I’ve had to point that out to you two every time you bring money to me, I was sure that you knew what one looked and felt like by now.” I stroked my chin thoughtfully. “Let’s do a little math, yeah?”

“Okay,” Garrett said cautiously.

I looked down at everything next to me. “You were given 200 8-balls, right?”

“Yeah, 200.”

“And they’re going for what? About $250 on the street these days?”

“I guess.”

“You guess? You don’t know how much your product is?” I asked with a raised brow.

“Yeah, $250, Boss,” Caleb quipped, looking to Garrett with nervous eyes.

I counted the remaining baggies of white powder. “There’s 32 baggies left here, so that means you’ve supposedly sold 168 baggies. That would mean that there should be…” I calculated the total in my head, “…forty-two big ones in this bag.” I held up the stack of real bills. “But strangely enough, I only have $5,000.”

“Yikes,” Nyxin mumbled under his breath before puffing on his cigar.

“There’s no point in counting the counterfeits because I can’t do shit with them. So…somebody better tell me where my drugs or $37,000 is and why it isn’t in this bag,” I said as I put out my cigar and narrowed my eyes at Garret and Caleb. Garrett held my gaze, wiping all emotion from his face, but I could see the panic lurking in his irises. Caleb looked to him nervously, as if he didn’t know what to say or if he was keeping his mouth shut before he said something that would put them in a fucked up situation.

“I swear those bills felt real, Boss. I wouldn’t have intentionally given you that many fake bills if I was trying to cheat you,” Garrett said as sweat begin to bead along his forehead.

I thumbed through the fake bills. “Yeah, you say that every time I find counterfeits in my money, so I’m going to ask you again. Where the fuck is my money or my drugs?”

“I’m just gonna tell the truth,” Caleb blurted out.

“Shut the fuck up, Caleb,” Garrett ground out.

“The truth would be nice. Please, do tell,” I asked, folding my arms across my chest. Caleb glanced at Garrett, who slowly turned red before me as he became angry.

“We…we were robbed. Yeah, we got jacked while we were on the streets. They took majority of our drugs and money and—”

“Okay, stop, because now you’re both fucking pissing me off,” I interrupted, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I’m not in the mood for bullshit stories. First, Garrett said that he swears they were real bills. Now you’re saying you were robbed. Did you two not properly rehearse the lie you were going to present to me or something?”

“I-I’m not lying, sir,” Caleb stammered, looking to Garrett to save him. Garrett only stared at the wall behind me, refusing to make eye contact. I turned my gaze to Saint and Nyxin, nodding slightly to signal that they get themselves ready. Both Caleb and Garrett snapped their eyes to their burly men who positioned themselves behind them, their guns drawn and at their side. I slid off the desk and walked over to Caleb, whose eyes widened as he looked up at me.

“You’re in charge of your little duo, right, Garrett?” I asked out loud, but I already knew the answer. “So I want you to answer my question. Oh, and think carefully before you answer. You don’t know what information I may or may not already have.”

“I swear, Boss. The bills were all real when I put the money in the bag. I don’t know what Caleb did when I wasn’t paying attention,” he replied, his eyes watching Saint’s every move behind him.

“You’re a fucking liar, man! You know I never touched that money! You never let me touch it!” Caleb protested before looking up to me. “I swear I didn’t take anything, Boss!”

I tsked. “Strangely, I believe you, Caleb. I don’t believe you’re smart enough to try to scam someone,” I said as I grabbed his hand. “But until your partner here tells the truth, you’re gonna lose a finger every single time a lie comes out of his mouth.”

“No! No! Wait!” he exclaimed as I took the cigar cutter from my pocket, and put his pinky finger through the opening that was supposed to be for cigars.

“You can thank your partner for this,” I said and released the sides of the cutter, taking his entire pinky off.

“FUCK! FUCK!” he screamed, jerking against Nyxin’s hold. I looked to Garrett.

“You wanna try your answer again?” I asked.

His breaths came in fast as he assessed the situation, guilt flashing across his features as he looked at his injured friend. “Okay, Caleb was right. We were robbed!” he said quickly. “I was going to work overtime to get the money back, but then you called us in here to bring you what we had before I got the chance!”

Another lie, but I wanted to see if he would continue digging his own grave. “Do you know who robbed you? How were you gonna get my money back if you didn’t have enough product to sell?”

“It was one of the local gangs that roam around that neighborhood. I was going to get it back directly from them by getting some people to help us rob them. I swear we were gonna get it back,” he said breathlessly.

I nodded. “I see. And when were you robbed and why am I just now hearing about it?”

“About four days ago. I’d wanted to try to get the money back first because I didn’t want you to think we were stealing from me.”

“….so you thought putting counterfeits into the bag and lying to me was a better option?” I asked with a raised brow.

“I’m sorry, man. I just wanted to find a solution myself.”

I sighed and shook my head. “That’s…what, three lies you just told in less than three minutes? You must really not give a fuck about your friend here,” I said.

Caleb struggled against me, trying to close his hand into a tight fist, but I wouldn’t let that deter me. I pried the bloody ring finger from his fist, slipping the cigar cutter down to the first knuckle and sliced it off without a word. I did the same for two more fingers as Caleb wailed in pain, but Garrett didn’t seem to be moved enough.

“We’re down to one last finger on this hand. You’re running out of chances to tell me the truth,” I said. “So how about we do it this way: how about you just answer my questions I have for you. Can you do that?”

“Y-yeah,”Garrett stammered, his skin slightly turning greenish in color as he observed all the blood coming from his friend.

“Rumor on the street is that you’ve been stealing money from me and looking for a new connect so that you and your fingerless friend here can start peddling your own drugs. Anything you want to explain about that?” I asked as I slipped the cigar cutter onto Caleb’s thumb.

“Yes! Yes, that was the plan!” Caleb screamed, as he watched the cigar cutter with wide eyes. “Fucking tell him, Garrett!”

“That isn’t even fucking true! I wouldn’t be stupid enough to—”

But he couldn’t even get the complete lie out of his mouth before I took off Caleb’s thumb. Caleb screamed and jerked around in his chair in pain, Nyxin holding him in a headlock with a gun pointed to his temple to keep him seated. I shook my head as I looked back to Garrett.

“Five times. You’ve lied five times now. It’s like you have no regard for your friend here because you don’t give a damn as long as you’re not the one suffering the consequences. So let’s shift the tables a bit,” I said nonchalantly, stepping away from screaming Caleb.

“No, no, no, no,” Garrett quickly said as I moved closer to him, stopping only a few feet away.

I grinned at him. “Oh, you think I’m gonna cut your fingers off?” I looked at the bloody cigar cutter in my hand. “Nah. That’s way too easy for someone who masterminded something as intricate as you.” I tossed the bloody cigar cutter onto the desk and swiped the money and drugs onto the floor with my arm. “Saint, bring him over here, please.”

Saint wasted no time roughly grabbing his arm and yanking him over to the desk. Garrett looked at me with wide eyes, following me with his gaze as I walked behind the desk and opened a drawer.

“Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Come on, man! It was an honest mistake!” he exclaimed as he eyed the sharpened cleaver I pulled out.

“An honest mistake that you keep lying about, right?” I asked as I came back around the desk.

“Okay, I’ll tell you whatever it is you wanna know!” he exclaimed.

“I’m listening.”

He took a deep breath, his chest quickly rising and falling. “Okay, so we did want to start our own thing. We weren’t trying to cheat your or anything; we were just going to—wait, wait, wait!” he screamed when I grabbed his hand and tied a piece of rope around his wrist.

“I’m losing my patience, so you better talk fast.” I wound the excess rope around my hand and grabbed the cleaver, lightly tapping it against my thigh as I waited.

“Okay, okay.” He took in a gulp of air. “You were right. W-we were trying to pull the wool over your eyes, thinking you wouldn’t notice until we were ready to leave. We were gonna just take a little off the top and then repay it when we started our own business, but then we got greedy!”

“What happened to all the drugs? There’s no way you sold all of that; otherwise, you’d have more of the real bills and not a bunch of fakes.”

“W-we exchanged it for sex with hookers,” he admitted, tears filling his eyes. “We’ll get you your money, I swear!”

I scoffed. “Considering how you’ve been lying to me since you stepped foot in here, why the fuck should I believe you now?”

“I can get you the money. I can get it for you right now—”

“Don’t worry. I already have people retrieving my money as we speak,” I said with a grin. “You know, I’ve been working really hard to build my empire. I don’t appreciate when people try to cheat me, Garrett.”

“I swear it won’t happen again, Boss.”

I gave him a soft smile. “I know it won’t, kid,” I said, lifting my arm and bringing the cleaver down on his wrist, chopping off his hand. A little blood splattered my face as he immediately fell to his knees and screamed in agony.

“FUCK!” he screamed. “My fucking hand!”

Saint wrapped his arms around Garrett’s body, pinning his arms to his side as I tied another rope to his other wrist, pulling it to straighten out his arm.

“Please, Boss! Don’t!” he screamed, but his pleas fell on unsympathetic years. The cleaver sliced through his bone like butter, his blood quickly covering the desktop as his severed hands lay on top of it. I cracked my neck and inhaled deeply, the coppery scent of blood calming my frayed nerves.

God, that fucking felt good.

Saint let go of him, watching as he crumbled to the floor screaming. It was only a matter of time before he bled out after cutting through his radial arteries. Caleb screamed in shock and horror as he watched Garrett convulse on the floor, not noticing when I gave Nyxin his signal. Without a word, Nyxin moved to stand in front of him, emptying his gun into Caleb’s chest as Saint did the same to Garrett on the floor.

I looked around at the bloody mess around us. “We probably should’ve put that plastic down,” I mused, grabbing a towel from the black bag behind the desk.

Saint chuckled. “I was gonna mention that when you started cutting off Caleb’s fingers, but I didn’t want to take you out of the zone when it’s something trivial. I’ll get a clean up crew in here to deal with it,” he said, just as my phone vibrated in my pocket.

I cleaned the blood off my hands as best as I could, rolling my eyes when I saw Gio’s name on my screen.

“Yeah?” I said upon answering, expecting more fuckery to appear tonight.

“Hey, Boss. First Lady is here. I wanted to know if you wanted us to keep an eye on her? She um…seems to be dancing with some random. Never seen him before,” he said.

I ground my teeth as renewed anger rushed my veins. It was one thing to try to piss me off for attention, but to disrespect me publicly when she was supposed to be the queen of my empire wasn’t something I would fucking stand for.

“Where is she exactly?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

“Uh…” he was silent for a moment as music thumped in his background. “It looks like she’s heading either toward the VIP rooms or the bathroom.”

“Is she alone?”

“Nah, the guy is still with her. Should we escort her or have her wait for you?”

“No. I’m in the basement; I’m on my way up,” I growled and hung up.

“What’s up?” Saint asked.

I pulled my gun from my waistband. “Apparently I need to go remind my wife who the fuck I am since she forgot,” I growled. “I’ll be back.”

I wouldn’t tolerate disrespect from anyone, not even my wife. And by the time I was done with her, she’d fucking remember it.

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