I close the door behind me to the room I had never known existed until recently. My parents had shown it to me just in case this exact scenario came up. When I round on the man tied to a metal chair and gagged his eyes widen exponentially. The fear in them is a sight that I have missed entirely more than I should. It gives me a sick and twisted sort of pleasure that I had once thought would leave me when I stopped being undercover. Turns out I was wrong.

"Albano Bano. How the hell are you? Oh, where are my manners?" I rip the gag out of his mouth before backhanding him across the face with everything in me. The action has him spitting out a piece of tooth. "How long has it been since we've last seen each other?" He doesn't answer me but his eyes go to my stomach. "Ah, that's right. The last time we saw each other you were jamming a knife into me and then, what happened after that?" I tap my chin as I pretend to remember. I snap my fingers together with, "you dropped my body like a sack of potatoes on the ground then proceeded to drag away Dani and my son as they screamed and cried." The last of my words had venom dripping all over them.

"You... How?" He stuttered the words out. "You... you should be dead."

"Yeah, I should be. After you did this." I take my shirt off and throw it on the ground and point to my abdomen. His eyes widen even more as the go from one scar to the other. "Do you remember what the men used to call me?" When he doesn't respond automatically I give him another backhand. "I know you haven't forgotten. It hasn't been that long."

"Tradhtar." Traitor. He spits a wad of blood on my shoes.

I grab ahold of his shirt and then land two solid punches directly to his face. The second leaves me with a smile of satisfaction because the crunch sound let me know that I broke his nose. I pull him closer to me and go directly to his ear. "What did they used to call me?"

"Zemërimi i djallit." He sucks in a ragged breath. "The devil's wrath."

"That's right. The devil's wrath." I pull away from him with a sinister grin.

"But you were never really that man. You were just a coward hiding. A tradhtar."

A sardonic laugh falls from my lips. "I was never really that man? Was I not? Your broken nose would suggest otherwise." I pull a pack of cigarettes from my pocket and light one up. There's a chair in the corner of the room that I grab, spinning it around so I can sit backward in. "Do you remember disposing of the bodies after I was done with them?" His throat bobs as he swallows in discomfort, probably tasting his own blood as he does. "Do you remember how they were covered in the stench of piss, vomit, and shit from their terror?" I take a long drag of my cigarette before blowing it in his face. "You broke into my family's home. You held my sister's naked body at gunpoint, exposing her to multiple people against her will." Another drag and blow of smoke. "What the fuck do you think I'm going to do to you?"

✩✩✩

I wipe my hands on a rag as I look over Albano's body. It is beat to absolute shit. His face is unrecognizable. He's currently got a litany of stab wounds. He's sitting in a puddle of his own urine. I can't remember the last time I felt this satisfied or had this sense of catharsis. It should disturb me the peace and euphoria riding through me but it doesn't. For the first time in a while I feel like myself.

When I walk out of the room several men look at me with a face I had missed seeing— absolute horror. It makes me laugh, loudly, which has them looking anywhere but me. I probably look mildly insane. I'd say a little more than mildly since I'm still shirtless and covered in another man's blood. These men are just security, after all. Some had seen active duty but most had not seen or heard the level of torture I'd just provided.

"No one goes in there. Is that understood?" I'm met with a bunch of 'yes sirs'. I take the stairs two at a time feeling rather giddy. A few steps has me walking into the kitchen where Brooks is cooking something that smells delicious. After the beating I'd just delivered I'm starving. When his eyes land on me he freezes. "What?"

"What do you mean 'what'? What the hell did you do to the man?"

"No more than what he deserved." And he's about to meet his maker but first I will let the person who should deliver his dying blow do just that. "I'll be back to eat whatever amazing culinary shit you're whipping up."

"Where the fuck are you going?"

"Upstairs."

"But Tor—" I don't wait for him to finish whatever he's going to say.

The guards inform me that Adri is in the theater room, locked away watching a movie no doubt. Thomas is standing on the outside of the door and when I walk up to him he looks partially terrified. Oh how I have missed this. I almost laugh again but don't. I gesture for him to step aside and he does. When I open the door I'm met with an interesting sight. One that has me arching my brow.

Adri is sound asleep and wrapped in the arms of the guard Braxton, I think that's his name. He is also asleep, lightly snoring behind Adri. Dad would fucking lose his damn mind if he'd walked in on this. I clear my throat loudly which has Braxton grabbing his gun and aiming it at me.

"I would put that away if I were you."

"What the hell happened to you, Torey?!" Adriana is on her feet and hurrying over to me in an instant.

"Nothing." I let out a little laugh. "This isn't my blood." I wave offhandedly. "It's that asshole's that stuck a fucking gun to your temple earlier." Braxton comes up behind her and I don't miss the hand he places on the small of her back. "Now come on." I signal for her to follow me.

"Where the fuck are we going, Torey?" I don't answer her but she follows anyway. I can sense the large man accompanying her too. It would appear he isn't leaving my sister's side. Dad is going to be absolutely thrilled about that when he gets home. "Seriously, Torey, where are we going?" Her voice hesitant as we enter the staircase to the basement.

"To get you your vengeance." I lead them to the door and when we're right outside I address Braxton. "You, stay here." He gives me an uneasy face as he assesses me. "Do you have a fucking problem with that?"

"No." He takes a step back.

When I open the door the putrid smell hits my nose directly but it's something I'm used to, Adri however, is not. She immediately gags as I close the door behind us. "Oh my god, what is that smell?" She gags again as I walk toward the chair with the pulverized man in it. Adri sucks in a sharp breath when she sees the sight before her. "Is that—?"

"The guard who nearly took you— yes."

"Jesus fucking Christ. What happened to him?"

"Me." Her eyes fly to mine in mortification. "I happened to him."

"Yyyy— you did that?"

"Yes."

"Did he... did he piss himself?" She's eyeing his pants and the floor.

"Yeah, the pussy soiled himself after I blew out his other knee."

"I think I'm going to be sick." She starts to back away but I put my hands firmly on her shoulders.

"You've got this."

"I've got this? What are you talking about?" I pull out my Nighthawk from the back of my pants and hold it between us. "What do you want me to do with that?"

"It's not rocket science, Adri."

"I— I can't do that."

"Yes. You can." She shakes her head profusely. "Do you know what he would've done to you if he would've taken you? Do you know what they do to women like you?"

"Torey stop."

"They would've passed you around like a rag doll. Pumped and dumped in you repeatedly." Tears fill her eyes but I don't care because she needs to understand the gravity of the circumstance we are in. "Do you know what they would've done after that?"

"Torey please, you're scaring me!"

"They would have beaten you over and over and over again. Then they would've put you in a cage until they felt like doing it all over again. Once they had their fill of you, you would've been killed in one of many ways, Adri. Your body dumped like trash and left for no one to find. A piece of you would be cut off and mailed to our parents, to me, as a big fuck you." She sobs. "That could have been your future tonight. So I would begin to rethink what you can and can't do." The door to the room flies open which has me aiming a gun at Brooks and letting go of my sister. She bolts out of the room, crying hysterically the entire way out.

Brooks looks at me and then at the chair before walking inside of the room, closing the door behind him. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Torey? Your sister knows nothing of this life or the brutality of it. Why would you want her to see this?"

"Because she needs to see it!" I spear a blood-drenched hand through my hair. "She needs to understand that this is serious. She could have lost her life! They—" I choke back on the emotion threatening to overwhelm me suddenly. "They could've taken her like they took Dani. Like they took my... my—" a ragged breath leaves my lungs and has me dropping into a crouch, putting my head in my hands. All of the euphoria I'd felt previously is long forgotten.

"Hey, hey," Brooks is in front of me, crouching now as well. "They're okay, you know that." I let myself drop to my knees thinking about what I would've done if they would've taken Adriana, if I would've failed her too. There's a garbled laugh to my right and I remember exactly where we are.

"Zemërimi i djallit." Another wet laugh comes from his throat. "The great wrath of the devil. Brought to his knees." Before I can react Brooks does, snatching the gun from my hand and standing to his feet. He aims the Nighthawk at the man's head and pulls the trigger, silencing him forever.

A/N:
Happy Hump Dayyy!