Page 17 of Knot His Beast
Bentley
Four months later
My truck doesn’t makea sound as I pull down the drive and out the gate. Putting the truck into park, I hop out to close the gate, taking a second to look at my childhood home. Everyone is sleeping, which only helps my movements as I slink away.
I would feel guilty if I didn’t know this is the only way to keep my family safe, and also get well needed revenge for my mother’s death. Every single family on my list had something to do with the day I still dream about.
Her scream, my inability to get to her, her trampled body. We couldn’t even have an open casket to say goodbye, she was just too mangled.
The whispers from that day came slowly after her funeral. Some were from the children that were forced to help their parents, others from drunken men who forced our cattle out further than they should have been.
I’ve collected every whisper as an admission of guilt. It has fueled my revenge, and was part of the reason I chose the topics I did for my degrees.
I have animal tranquilizer and syringes in my bag, zip ties, and lots of fun toys. I also have a date with a pig farm whose owners are out of town. Everything is set up to allow me to get away with murder.
Blowing out a breath, I climb back into the truck, quietly shut the door, and back out onto the road. Sometimes, it feels as if the world pulls up the sidewalks at dusk here in Tennessee. All the houses are dark, there’s no one on the road, and it’s just little ole me for miles.
The five families who all worked together at their vanity ranches also lost their shirts together. They’re now living in small, rented homes at the end of a dirt road. I don’t know what their plans are, but I do appreciate that they don’t have any other neighbors.
That’s a lucky break for me.
Stifling the need to whistle tonelessly, I cut the headlights once I turn down the road, navigating the bumps and potholes without them. Eventually, my eyes get accustomed to the darkness, and I park just outside the cul-de-sac of shitheads.
Sitting in the cab, I find my ski mask to put over my face, my gloves for my hands, and finally force a breath into my lungs so I won’t pass out. Just because I’ve been planning my revenge for months if not years, does not mean I’m not nervous. I’ve beaten the shit out of people before, but I’ve never murdered anyone.
Grabbing my black tote, I pull it over my head as I exit the truck quietly. I may be a large alpha, but I’ve learned not to make any noise while walking around.
I barely shut the door to the truck so it won’t make much noise, knowing no one will see it since it blends into thedarkness. No one will try to break into my truck out here either. Walking quickly, I head toward the backyards of the houses.
People tend to forget to lock their doors here. We live in the country, where it’s supposed to be safe. Or at least, we never locked our doors until my mother died. After that, we put in security cameras, an alarm system, and never left the house without locking up.
That’s exactly what I did when I left the house. My family will remain as safe as when I left.
Creeping silently to the back door of Brad Collins’ home, I check for signs of an alarm system. Though I’m not sure where they’d scrape the money together for it when they were barely able to rent this house.
Everyone who is able bodied in this cul-de-sac is picking up work, except for Arlo. I caught up with him a couple of months ago, sporting a black eye, and offered him a way out to anywhere he wanted to go. The shock in his eyes will always follow me.
It was the right decision, and he took the cash and the next bus out to California. He said he wanted to get as far away from here as possible. I support that decision, because it makes my job much easier.
He didn’t even ask about his sisters. I didn’t take offense to that, because sometimes you have to save yourself before you can help anyone else.
Not seeing any signs of a security camera or alarm system, I lift the hood of my black hoodie up higher over my head and slip my lock picking set out of my back pocket. I’ve spent the last four months crafting every part of tonight, which includes lock picking.
It takes me less than a minute to open the back door, and I ease it open slowly. The blueprints to these homes are listed at city hall, which made it easy to pull up. I studied every room,pulled up all the permits in the area to ensure nothing had been added that I didn’t know about, and made my plans.
I have to make it home safely to my family, and nothing can fuck that up.
Setting each foot down slowly to keep the wood floors from creaking, it makes me very aware this particular house is falling apart. In fact, it’s more suitable for demolition than people living inside of it.
The Collins have two children of adult age, and they’re as rotten as their parents. Mary Collins, his wife, just wants to wear the latest dresses and to amass the most wealth, but the mighty have fallen very far from that.
The house is silent as I walk through the three bedroom home. It’s a single story building, which makes things easy. The boys have their own rooms, and I gag and zip tie each of them without fanfare. Mary fights me and wakes up her husband, so I snap her neck before moving on.
While Mary is selfish, she’s not the one who killed my mother and has consistently tried to poison my family’s livestock. No, that honor goes in part to Brad Collins. His shitty children were caught on the security cameras recently, and I removed the evidence so I could take my time with them. I very much doubt that his kids would do anything without Brad’s say so.
Stuffing the gag so far into Brad’s mouth that he chokes, I smirk as I tie a bandana around his lower face so he can’t spit it out.
“Let’s drag you out to die with your children, shall we?” I ask with a smirk.
