“Just prepping him for you, babe.” I kissed her cheek but let my lips linger near her ear. “You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.”
Ashtyn nodded, looking back at Reynolds. She took a deep breath and stepped up to him. “I've been thinking,Daniel, and I can’t live my life worrying about you. When you’re going to show up again. If you’re going to continue stalking me. Who else you're going to attack.”
“Pl–please, I won’t do any of that. Just let me go,” Reynolds groaned.
He howled in pain when Dani kicked his bad knee. “Let her talk, you sick fuck.”
Ashtyn smiled before continuing. “We planned to just…take care of your little problem,” she looked at me, remembering how she picked on me with that same phrase just weeks ago. “I can’t do it. I can’t let you live, because even without a dick, I’d still be fearful of you. I’d still wonder if you were out hurting someone the way you hurt me. How many others have there been? I know I wasn’t the first.”
Axel piped in, looking up from Reynolds' cell phone. The cops had searched it but didn't find anything incriminating. “Found it! He's been using a ghost folder. He’s got files of different girls. Young. Teenagers. Photos of them from afar like he’s been stalking them. Based on the dates, I’d say he has a new target every few months.”
“Did you hurt them?” Ashtyn asked, crossing her arms.
He started shaking his head–as much as he could considering he’d just gotten the shit beat out of him. “No, I just watch, that’s all. I didn’t mean to take things this far with you.”
“Oh my God. He’s got a video,” Axel said. “He’s–he’s, fuck, I think I’m going to be sick.” Axel swallowed thickly and put the phone on his lap. He ripped his glasses off and began rubbing his eyes.
“Well?” Dani asked what we were all thinking.
“He deserves to die. That’s all I’m going to say about it,” Axel said without looking up at us.
“Call off the doctor,” I ordered Kane. He nodded and began making a call. We’d planned to do the humane thing and patch up the sicko. The doctor that Uncle Gio had on-call was going to stop in and perform a little amputation on Reynolds’ dick. He was going to stitch and staple and rearrange whatever else needed it.
But that treatment was too good for him.
I wanted to leave Ashtyn’s conscience as clean as possible, but there was no way out of this without ending Reynolds for good. There was no way I could let him live and send him back out onto the streets to terrorize unsuspecting girls. Even without the dick, he would never change.
He’d probably get a prosthetic or some shit and be back to his wicked ways by the new year.
The fucker had to die.
Remington pulled the gun from his waistband and turned it around, handing it to Ashtyn. Her eyes glittered, probably reflecting on everything she’d been through because of Reynolds. Because of her mom. Because of Pete Hannigan–rest in pieces.
“Unless you want me to,” Remington said. Ashtyn took the gun, keeping her finger off the trigger and the gun pointed to the floor.
“I want to do it,” she said, her face full of strength and bravery. My trigger finger twitched, ready to finish him myself, but I stayed still. She needed to be the one to end this. “Axel, let me see the phone.”
He sighed and handed it to her. Her blue eyes darkened, her brows furrowed, and her breathing picked up. After a few seconds, she looked up at Reynolds. He was covered in blood and his skin ghost white. A sinister grin clawed at his face, and with the blood and snot, he looked like the devil.
Ashtyn raised the gun to him. She was steady and calm, which wasn’t normal for her. I knew then that she would be okay after this. She would heal after this.
“You’re not going to shoot me.”
“I am. I’m going to shoot you and then I’m going home with my boyfriend, and he’s going to fuck me all night long. Once I finally fall asleep, I’ll dream of the way you look right now. Helpless. Defenseless. Just like the girl you raped. How old was she, Reynolds? Fifteen? Sixteen?”
“Fourteen actually,” he laughed, throwing his head back like it weighed a hundred pounds. “She was my first. Then I realized I needed to go a little older if I wanted to find a wife. Father’s been riding me to get married, have children. You were the perfect woman for me. My Queen. You just wouldn’t cooperate. Such a waste.”
“You are the lowest of low. The ultimate scum of the earth. I hope every girl you’ve hurt can rest easy knowing you’re getting feasted on by maggots,” Ashtyn said, closing in on Reynolds.
“The girls loved it. You see how they treat me at school. Every single one of them begged me to put my cock inside of them–”
A gunshot cut off the rest of his sentence as a splatter of blood coated the wall behind him. The room was padded with some sort of noise-swallowing protection because the ring of the shot wasn’t as loud as I expected. Ashtyn lowered the gun to her side, turning it around to give it back to her brother. Her eyes filled with unshed tears and for a moment, I saw a tinge of regret.
She turned to me and I pulled her in, closing my arms around her and holding her.
It was fucking over. No one was ever going to hurt her again.
“It’s over, baby,” I said as I rubbed her back.