Chapter Four: HEAD ON A PLATTER
1645 Words
"Today is the day I break free." She thinks as she feels the knife and little gun up her thigh.
The Slayer walks into the hall, which looks like the prequel to a horror movie. Velvet hangs heavy on the walls, chandeliers dim low, and the music throbs. The scent of perfume mixes with that of a cigar.
Her leather gown fits her to her very skin. Her legs make a zip-zap sound as she sways her slim hips to the music. As she enters, the hall gets quieter.
Heads turn.
A glass slips from someone's hand behind her and shatters. A few wows escape, half awe, half hunger. Some wows escaped as she passed some of the guests. Women, the concubines and w****s alike, watch with jealousy and admiration.
She knows she owns the room.
All of these men would take her right there if she were tied, vulnerable, and bloody. They picture it the way they picture a cigarette after dinner. Easy. They hate her for what she is, and they want her for what she refuses to be.
Except one.
She walks toward Dominic Blackthrone, whose eyes are fixed on her from his throne-like chair. Men around him stand still in clean suits and blank faces.
On her eighteenth birthday, she tried to seduce him. Not because she wanted him, not really. But because she wanted to find a weak spot in his armour. He answered with violence.
He looked at her with disgust. Followed by the beating. He landed on her heavily, punishing her mistake such that she never repeated it.
His words that day hurt more than the blows to her body.
"You're disgusting, much like your mother. I expected her to train you better, but I guess blood is thicker than water. Now I'm caught thinking if she'd be proud of you or disappointed in you. Little slut."
Every day, multiple times a day, every time she takes a person's life, the question returns like a knife turned slowly.
Would my mother be proud of me or disappointed in me?
And now, she walks towards the man who has called her his daughter but treated her like a dog for the past 15 years. He watches her with respect and appetite as if she were something he made. She does not give him the satisfaction of a flinch, even when her stomach is in knots.
Dominic lifts his glass.
"Ah," he says, drunk with expensive liquor. "The queen of the moment arrives. A beautiful representation of my dynasty. My daughter, Xenia Blackthrone in whom I am well pleased."
With him, she never knows what to expect, cruelty or care. Today, he plays the proud and doting dad, and that unsettles her more than his rage.
She puts a straight smile on her face and climbs the steps toward his throne with measured steps.
He stands. 5'9 ft, broad and rounded, no longer as intimidating as the man who took everything from her 15 years ago, but still heavy with presence. He holds out his hand, and Xenia knows that she has no choice but to take it.
Then she places her fingers into his palm. His thumb presses once against her knuckles.
"You look magnificent," Dominic says, quieter, for her.
"I do what is required," she replies flatly.
From the corner of the room, Marcus stands in shadow, scorned and forgotten. He rolls his eyes at the ceremony, but his gaze lingers on her breasts. She catches him and holds his eyes until she realises he has been caught. He looks away, but not before his eyes drop again in a reflex he refuses to control.
She is repulsed.
Men are babies with very little control over their appetite. Animals.
Dominic Blackthrone continues.
"On this grand and auspicious occasion," he says to the room, "where we celebrate my beautiful daughter's achievements in this world of ours, I have a little gift for you."
A gift.
The word lands wrong. She turns her head toward him and catches a mischievous glint in his eyes. This is not kindness.
He makes a small motion with his fingers.
One of his men, dressed in an apron, rolls in a singular buffet cart. The wheels squeak softly in the silent room. The cloche on top gleams too clean, too formal
Nothing makes sense until the absence hits her.
Where is Lucas?
Ordinarily, he'd give her information like this. But it was unlike him not to have given her a heads-up or to have been absent. And then a gnawing feeling grew in her chest. She did a quick sweep around the room.
Dominic leans in, mouth near her ear. His breath smells of aged liquor and mint.
"You may want to open it yourself, birthday girl," he murmurs. "Come on, let me help you."
The Don leads her to the front of the table and edges her towards the single large buffet.
She inhales and lifts the cloche. The smell of rotting blood cuts through perfume, cigars, and expensive cologne. She freezes.
A human head sits on the platter. Her eyes move over every feature, verifying the unthinkable. She wants it to be someone else, but it isn't.
His once-bright eyes are dimmed to a grey. The hair is wrong, greying in patches, different from his natural blond. His skin is saggy and white.
It is Lucas, her right hand. The one who has truly been like a father to her all these years, teaching her everything she knows.
But he is far from how she remembers him. Not his liveliness. Not his quick thinking or his jests. Not the man who always stood behind her and supported her.
She shut her eyes tightly, unable to cry. Indignation rose in her chest, and all she could think about was why.
When she opens her eyes again, she sets the cloche down beside the platter with steady hands.
The guests watch her closely, grasping for the tiniest bit of entertainment.
She looks at Dominic.
He watches her like an artist studying a canvas. He revels in her pain.
Then he leans closer, pleased with himself, voice low but loud enough for the nearest men to hear.
"Wondering why Lucas' head is on a platter?" Dominic asks, smiling small and viciously."
"Why did you do this?" she says.
"I gave you a gift, you should say thank you."
"What did he do?" Against her better judgment, Xenia finds her voice cracking. She refuses to look at Lucas again.
Dominic lifts his brows, feigning innocence. "He forgot his place."
"You killed him for that?" she asks.
"You have grown sentimental. You mistake loyalty for love. You mistake usefulness for devotion." Dominic replies.
Her gaze flicks once to Lucas's face. Memories of him flash through her mind; Lucas berating her for being careless. Lucas is moving without being told. Lucas watching the doors while she sleeps.
"One day when I'm gone, you'd miss me. I promise you." He'd told her after one of their missions.
"You want to unsettle me," she says to the Don.
Dominic's eyes gleam. "No. You belong to me and that won't change. Next time you send someone sneaking in my chambers, beware of the consequences. There is no escaping here for you."
Xenia scoffs, "You speak of love and devotion, but tell me, did you kill Lucas because he betrayed you, or because he refused to betray me?"
Dominic's silence stretches.
"That," he says at last, "is the right question."
The Don walks around the buffet of Lucas's head to her side.
He whispers, as if to taunt her.
"So you see, this is all your fault. You sent Lucas spying on me and now, this is the result."
The Don holds Xenia's crimson hair and forces her to look at Lucas's head.
The guilt she has been suppressing rose in her. Lucas's head was on a platter, and it was all because of her stupid journey to get revenge. Her shoulders slumped.
The Don grinned. He releases her.
"Yesss. You see it now? Just so we don't have any more of your friends' heads on our dinner plates, you are going to stop your nonsense now."
Dominic Blackthrone looks her squarely in the eyes. His shorter frame intimidating her 6'1 stance. Xenia felt like that little girl again, helpless with her parents' blood smeared all over her arms. The room spun. And she let herself go.
"Which is why I have a wonderful assignment for you, my dear daughter," he drags the 'dear daughter' to emphasize something to her. "To celebrate your birthday and further cement your reputation as The Slayer." Dominic Blackthrone said loudly as he turned towards the crowd. They cheered loudly.
"You my dear little Slayer, will kill Gaston Saltline. Last we checked, he was rallying some teenagers on 200th street to destroy our supply chains."
Xenia turned, unable to understand. 200th street? Teenagers?
"But we cannot risk a war with the Saltline family."
"Small itches can lead to big wounds. And we can afford a war. They can't." He said matter-of-factly.
"Why can't they?"
"Let's just say they'd never see us coming. Their guard is down so we can go in guns blazing. It's the easiest task for you. That's why it is one of your gifts today. Go, have fun."
"Teenagers are involved. Minors." She said desperately, in hopes he'd understand and drop the madness.
"When has a cluster of underdeveloped pinchons ever held us back?"
The Don turned to his throne and sat.
"Go. I'd be waiting for the good news. Who knows, I may even forget about your misdeeds."
She looked at him as she remembered her mother's last words to her, "Live."
Her killer instincts told her this one mission may save her life, but she turned and walked away down 200th street.
- Writer
