Sweet Venom by Rina Kent - 34

34

S keletal fingers wrap around my throat, the bones squeezing so tight, I’m wheezing.

Her amber eyes are dead, looking through me as two streaks of blood trickle down either side of her mouth.

She’s sitting on my chest again, crushing my rib cage and stabbing my heart.

“Ma…ma…” I strain, my breath leaving my lungs in short gasps.

“You know.” She adds another hand around my throat. “You’re a curse, Violet. Not only did you ruin my life, but you’re also destroying everyone else’s around you like a useless whore.”

“N-no…that’s not…”

“I told you, didn’t I?” She smiles, her canines looking like sharp fangs in the darkness. “You’ll be the downfall of anyone who cares about you.”

“No…”

“Didn’t Mario like you? Where is he now?”

“That’s…that’s…”

“How about Preston? You killed him in his prime.”

“No!”

I gasp awake, tears streaming down my cheeks and into my mouth. The salty taste explodes on my tongue as I pant, my whole body trembling.

“Vi!”

I startle at Dahlia’s voice, then release a long breath. It…was a nightmare.

The whole thing was a nightmare.

Dahlia, Preston, and I didn’t go to the park. He didn’t get shot.

All of it is…not real.

And yet the weight crushing my chest remains there, heavy and obstructive, and I’m sucking air into my burning lungs with short pants.

I focus on my sister and pause. She’s wearing an oversized jacket—probably Kane’s—and her eyes are red.

Why does she look as if she’s been crying?

Dahlia doesn’t cry. She’s the strongest woman I know.

“Are you okay?” She sits on the bed, taking my hand in hers. “The doctor said it’s just a graze, but…”

Her voice breaks, her hand shaking uncontrollably around mine. And that’s when I notice that my upper arm is bandaged.

“Hey…” I don’t recognize my hoarse voice. “It’s okay. I’m fine.”

“I know…I know that, but all I keep thinking about is when you were in a coma, and I guess I thought you’d be gone again. I’m terrified of losing you, Vi.”

“You won’t.” I pull her in for a hug. “I’m right here.”

She buries her face in my neck, sniffling softly, and I pat her back, my fingers trembling due to the pulsing pain in my arm.

Then I realize the room we’re in smells of very familiar antiseptic .

The type of smell I was surrounded with for months and could breathe even when I was in a coma.

The hospital.

“Dahlia,” I whisper, my voice catching.

“Yeah?” She pulls away, wiping at her puffy eyes.

My gaze strays to the blotch of blood on her sweater, visible beneath the jacket, and my heart burns. “Were you hurt?”

“Oh, no, no.” She touches the dried blood. “This is because I was dragging you away from Preston.”

“So…it’s true?”

Images of Preston lying on the grass assault me. A large spot of blood drenched the center of his jacket, and his usually mischievous eyes were closed.

His lips were already turning blue.

“Where is Preston…?” I stumble from the bed, and Dahlia catches me before I fall.

I’m standing on unsteady feet as my sister hesitates.

“Tell me, Dahl, please.”

“He’s in surgery.” She bites her lower lip. “I think it’s bad, Vi.”

A doom-like feeling tears through my chest as I grab onto both of Dahlia’s arms for balance. “Take me there.”

“It’s better if you rest…” She trails off, probably at seeing my shaky lips and the horrified look in my eyes, and releases a resigned breath. “Fine.”

We walk together down the hall, but everything is blurry—the patients, the walls, and the staff.

It’s like I’m not here.

“Do you know who it was?” Dahlia asks, interlinking her arm with mine.

“What?”

“I heard Jude tell Kane that this has happened before.” She rubs my arm. “I thought the guard who was following you around recently was Jude being overprotective, but apparently, you were in danger. Is that true?”

“I…received a couple of texts asking me to leave and was attacked a few times, yes.”

“Was one of those times before you were in a coma?”

All this time, I’ve tried to shield Dahlia from this mess, but she ended up right in the middle of it anyway. She deserves to know the truth.

“Mario saved me back then, and he ended up in a coma.” I choke on my words as she pushes the elevator button. “Preston saved me, too. Twice. And now… Oh my God—Jude! He shielded me, didn’t he? Did something happen to him… Is he…?”

I’m panting, my chest squeezing so tightly, I think I’m having a panic attack.

“No, no.” She strokes my back, ushering me into the elevator. “He did injure his arm, but I think it’s only a graze, just like yours. He’s been in front of the OR with Kane ever since we got to the hospital.”

A long breath rushes out of me, but the weight of dread still sits on my chest like doomsday.

The elevator doors open, and we walk to the OR’s waiting area. My steps are lethargic at best, my energy waning, but I put an effort into placing one foot in front of the other.

The gloomy energy hits us as soon as we arrive.

But then yelling follows.

“Get the fuck out of here, Marcus.”

It’s Jude’s rough and furious voice.

I hear him before I see him. Then he comes into view, slamming Marcus against the wall with one hand twisted in his collar, his muscles tight with unrestrained rage .

A thick bandage wraps his arm, already soaked through, and blood clings to his T-shirt and is smeared across his ink and his knuckles like war paint.

Marcus looks even worse; his jacket is covered in blood, and the same red stains his fingers and streaks across his face, making him look like a demon dragged out of hell. His usually mocking features are blank now, drained of expression, like whatever was inside him just…switched off.

“What is Marcus doing here?” I whisper to Dahlia.

“He came during the chaos,” she murmurs back. “He showed up out of nowhere, almost as if he was hiding in the trees the whole time or something, the creep.”

“I said. I’m not going anywhere.” Marcus’s eyes spark with something violent. “If anything, you’re the one who needs to scram for failing to save him.”

“The fuck you just say?” Jude snarls in his face.

“Want me to spell it out for you?” Marcus’s tone is mocking, but his body is tight.

“Go fight outside.” An authoritative voice echoes around the room.

The man is sitting on one of the leather-padded chairs, his fingers forming a steeple at his chin. He’s a striking older version of Preston, but his presence resembles the deep ocean—calm on the outside but with a turbulent energy on the inside.

“Lawrence. He’s Preston’s dad.” Dahlia tells me in a low voice, confirming my suspicions.

Marcus’s glare slides to Lawrence, even though Jude is still strangling him by the collar.

I’ve never seen Marcus this…mad. No. Enraged is an accurate description. Granted, I don’t know him personally, but I’ve seen him all over the place, and he’s usually more un ruffled than a monk. Even that time he showed up in the club’s parking lot, he was the one provoking Preston, not the other way around.

Right now, however, he looks at Lawrence as if he’s slaughtered his entire bloodline. “Is that all you have to say when your fucking son is facing death? Go fight outside ? You have no other goddamn reaction?” He laughs, the sound unhinged. “God, you’re all the same. Every single corner of your fucking empire is rotten to the core.”

Lawrence doesn’t react, doesn’t even look at Marcus, his full attention remaining square on the door.

“That’s enough.” Kane’s firm voice slices through the tension as he stops pacing. “Leave before I have someone escort you out using unpleasant methods, Marcus.”

“And let you big shots handle everything, right?” He laughs in Jude’s face, clutching him by the collar. “Like you got him shot, right, Callahan? Useless piece of shit.”

“You fucking—” Jude slams him against the wall, the thud echoing loudly, but Marcus just laughs harder like a maniac.

“What? You’re going to stand there and tell me you didn’t, in fact, invite death upon your supposed best friend?”

“It’s not his fault.” I rush toward them, my voice and body shaking.

Both Jude’s and Marcus’s attention swings to me, and my trembling gets worse at Jude’s stare. It feels like it’s been ages since I saw him, and I almost forgot how brutally beautiful he is.

Like a rush of darkness in the light.

An anchor in the wild sea.

His brown eyes flicker over the length of me, observing, assessing, as if he needs to make sure I’m in one piece .

“It’s my fault,” I whisper to Marcus. “Preston did that to protect me⁠—”

“That’s right. It should’ve been you.” Marcus barks, and Jude punches him in the face. Blood trickles down his nose and the corner of his lip.

“Shut the fuck up, Osborn!”

“But I’m right. She should be the one in that room right now⁠—”

Jude punches him again, the sound echoing in the air as more blood drenches Marcus’s face.

And then they’re punching each other, the anger and absolute madness in their violence echoing in thwacks and grunts.

I try to intervene, but Dahlia pulls me away and toward Kane, who’s on the phone, calling someone to come escort ‘a raging bull’ out.

“Jude says this is yours.”

I look up at the sound of Lawrence’s voice, momentarily distracted from the fight.

He seemed completely disinterested in his surroundings earlier, but he’s standing now, and he’s so tall, with a presence that grabs you by the throat.

Lawrence’s hair is styled, his expression lined with years of experience and the look of a man who’s seen it all but wasn’t impressed. His eyes are a curious shade of blue and green—a familiar color I swear I’ve seen before.

But where?

He shows me his palm, where he’s holding the bloodied bracelet I gave Preston.

My lips tremble, but I shake my head and don’t reach out for it. “Pres…Preston said it’s an important family heirloom, so I must’ve had it by mistake. Mom probably stole it or something… ”

“But Preston said that’s impossible,” Dahlia interjects, then bites her lower lip. “Sorry, Vi. I told Jude and Kane that Preston lost his cool about the bracelet and seemed to have come to a realization.”

“He did.” Lawrence’s voice is cool and collected but has an underlying tension. “I believe I’m coming to the same realization.”

He’s watching me closely, his eyes skimming over my face the same way Preston’s did that first time I met him and he did an imaginary interview.

Ever since then, Preston’s been treating me warmly, completely negating the rumors that he’s malicious and never stays in anyone’s company for more than a few days. That, aside from Jude and Kane, he distrusts and downright loathes everyone else.

That hasn’t been my experience.

If anything, he’s been so welcoming and has always made me laugh and tried to cheer me up. He made my move to Graystone Ridge such a breeze, as if I was always meant to be here and restart my life.

And all he got in return was being shot on my behalf.

Just like Mama said, I’m bound to hurt everyone who gets close.

“Do you mind if I keep this?” Lawrence strokes the bloodied bracelet.

“Not at all.”

“Can you also do me a favor and not discuss any of this with outsiders?” He pauses. “I believe it’ll help me pin down the culprit who put a bullet in my son.”

“Absolutely,” I say.

“Okay,” Dahlia says, sounding suspicious. “But can you tell Vi why her mother had your father’s important bracelet? ”

“I need to verify a few things first. I’ll ask for your cooperation in due time.” His gaze flits to Jude, who’s still trying to fight Marcus as a couple of men pull them apart. “From the little research I’ve managed to gather, you were Julian’s test subject?”

My spine jerks. Julian is the last person I want to talk about right now, but I still nod. “Yes.”

His lips purse, but he sets them back in a disinterested line.

I’m about to ask what that has to do with anything, but the door of the operating room area slides open.

Everyone comes to a halt, as if no air exists and we can no longer breathe.

Marcus, who was fighting off the men, grows still. Jude and Kane rush to the doctor, who removes his cap, revealing damp gray hair.

“How is he?” Jude asks, his voice thick with a tension that matches the knot in my stomach.

The doctor looks at Lawrence, who stops behind the other two and bows his head. “We tried our best, but he lost a lot of blood. My condolences, sir.”

I fall onto the floor, bringing Dahlia with me as she tries to keep me upright. I choke on my tears, my fingers digging into my sister’s arm as a wave of nausea rolls through me.

“What the fuck!” Jude grabs the doctor by the collar. “What do you mean by condolences? Go in there and bring him the fuck back!”

“You’re lying.” Marcus is breathing harshly, like an injured animal, fighting against the men who are trying to drag him away. “This is a fucking lie!”

His roars reverberate in the space as two more men approach, and they finally escort him out .

Kane tries to pull Jude away from the doctor to no avail. Jude’s rage palpitates like a red cloud, engulfing everyone and everything inside it.

As he’s about to punch the doctor, Kane wraps both arms around his shoulders from behind. “Ground yourself.”

Jude remains still for a moment, and the doctor manages to escape.

“I want to see my son.” Lawrence follows the doctor, his expression unchanged, as if he didn’t just hear the news of his son’s death.

Death.

Death?

A fresh wave of pain squeezes my chest, and I tap it a few times, but it only gets worse.

More painful.

“Fuck no!” Jude screams, shoving Kane aside and pulling out his phone. “I refuse to believe this.”

A faint ripple of tremors passes through his fingers as he puts the phone to his ear and speaks, his voice raw with emotion. “Regis… Father . I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll be whatever the fuck you want me to be, and I’ll forgive you for everything if you make Julian bring Preston back. You must have something for this in your experimentation centers. We’re a medical empire, so we can do this much… I’m begging you. Do something … anything … Just bring back him back.”

Jude’s face pales as he listens to the voice on the other end and then lets his hand fall to his side, the phone cluttering to the ground, the screen smashing into a spider’s web.

“Jude…?” Kane asks, his words strained and pained, as if his throat is suffocated.

Jude looks at him with a dark face, his fists trembling. “ He said no medical empire can bring back the dead. If it could, he would’ve gotten his first wife back or brought me back my mother.”

As Kane clasps Jude’s shoulder and Dahlia hugs me as I sob, I know—I just know—that this will break me beyond repair.

Grief is a strange notion.

I grieved a lot when my mother died, but I think I grieved my tarnished future more than her death. I grieved my loneliness that loomed once my only family was cremated.

That’s what she wanted. Cremation. For her soul to be scattered on the ocean.

Pretty sure the charity that took care of the whole process just discarded her in a nearby lake.

I didn’t understand grief when my mother died. I was sad, lost, and in pain, but it was all abstract.

This time, grief hit me like an intense earthquake—tangible and inescapable.

I’m barely standing, swaying in the black dress and flats I threw on without thinking. My eyes—hidden behind sunglasses—are puffy and bloodshot from crying every day since Preston died four days ago.

We’re at his funeral now.

A ceremony that’s somehow become a spectacle of wealth and grief, wrapped in black silk and gold-trimmed sorrow.

The Armstrong estate looms in the background, its towering columns casting long shadows over the sea of mourners dressed in tailored suits and designer mourning attire.

The sky is an endless stretch of gray, suffocating in its vastness. Drizzle lands softly, silently, some of it sliding on my nose.

A polished black mahogany casket rests at the front, adorned with stark white lilies. The flowers look wrong, too delicate for someone like Preston, who oozed power and playfulness.

The metallic glint of the engraved Armstrong crest catches the light, a reminder that even in death, he belongs to something larger, something that probably demanded too much from him.

I stand in the back, my fingers curled into fists inside my coat pockets, trying to hold myself together when everything inside me is falling apart.

“You should get something to eat,” Kane’s soft voice speaks to Dahlia, who hasn’t left my side, curling her arm around me as if I’ll break if she stops touching me.

And maybe I would. She’s the only reason I haven’t surrendered myself to the shadows in the past couple of days.

Kane’s dressed in a black tuxedo, with a lily in his breast pocket. He looks tired and distraught, and I know he needs Dahlia more than I do. That’s why I pretend to be asleep, so she can spend more time with him.

He’s the one who lost his best friend, whom he knew practically his entire life. I just came into Preston’s life recently and managed to end it.

“It’s okay, I’m not hungry.” Dahlia strokes his cheek. “Have you eaten, though?”

“I have no appetite.” He pulls her toward him in a hug and whispers something in her ear, and she wraps her arms around him, her eyes shining with tears.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs again and again. “I’m so sorry you have to go through this. ”

I use the chance and slip through the crowd, hearing the murmured sympathies mostly directed at Lawrence. His wife stands by his side, looking like she’s straight out of a Vogue magazine in her tulle black dress and sheer black mourning veil draped from her pillbox hat.

In the front row, people bow down to shake the hand of Preston’s grandfather, who’s holding a cane, his face ashen. His wife, Preston’s grandmother, sits beside him, accepting handshakes and saying nothing, looking stern and emotionless as if this isn’t her grandson’s funeral.

Another notable family member, according to Dahlia, is Preston’s paternal uncle, who’s more interested in talking to Julian and a smartly dressed woman at the perimeter.

And then there’s a little girl with curly blonde hair, wearing a black lace dress, who won’t stop hugging the casket and crying—Preston’s sister.

She’s the only one in Preston’s entourage who’s genuinely showing her emotions. But that doesn’t last long. Her mother chastises her in words I can’t hear, then sends her inside with one of the staff members, effectively killing any semblance of actual grief in the Armstrong family.

The only ones who are grieving are Kane, Jude, and Marcus, who seems unaffected while standing in the corner but actually looks like he hasn’t slept a wink in the past few days.

Pretty sure there was a fight when he demanded to be here, and the only reason he got in is because his biological father—and the head of the Osborn family—got involved.

Dragging my gaze from Marcus, I get on my tiptoes to look for Jude in the first row, where Regis and Annalise are sitting, but I can’t see him.

The priest’s voice drifts through the cold air, speaking of redemption, peace, a life taken too soon .

It all sits wrong with me. Preston never wanted redemption. Never wanted peace. He wanted war, chaos, and to have fun.

He wanted to live his youth to the fullest and didn’t deserve for it to be interrupted right when it was getting started.

My breath comes in short, sharp bursts, the cold slicing through my lungs, but it’s not the air that’s suffocating me. It’s the truth. The ugly, inescapable truth that I should be the one in that casket.

A sudden gust of wind cuts through the crowd, sending the flower arrangement flying, their fragile petals trembling but refusing to drop. For a moment, I let myself believe it was him. That if I close my eyes, I’ll hear his voice, his sharp wit, the mocking lilt of a man who pretended he felt nothing but burned with too much inside.

But there’s only silence.

And the crushing realization that Preston Armstrong is gone.

I walk for as long as my legs can carry me, suffocated by the lack of love from people who are supposed to be closest to Preston.

My feet come to a halt by a tree at a side garden away from the funeral.

Jude.

He’s standing by the trunk, stroking the surface over and over again.

He turns around, and my heart jolts because his cheeks have sunken, and he doesn’t fill out the black shirt and pants like he usually does. His eyes have lost their light, and his shoulders are crowded with tension.

“You should get some rest, Violet. You haven’t slept properly in days. ”

“How do you know? Unless you’ve been there?”

He was.

I could feel his warmth beside me on the bed every night. I pretended to be asleep as he pulled me to his hard chest, then let out a sigh as if he needed something to hold on to.

I did, too, which is why I pretended not to notice. I was scared that if I opened my eyes, he would disappear.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He faces the tree again, staring at a mark.

“So you’re fine coming to my room every night but not fine with admitting it?” I storm toward him, then stop. “Forget it. I don’t know why I even care. You’ll do whatever you want anyway, and I’m done making excuses for you.”

I’m about to leave, but his rough voice echoes in the air. “I needed you.”

I start to look back at him, but big arms wrap around my waist from behind, and he buries his face in my hair. “Your warmth, your smell, even the sound of your breathing calms me, sweetheart.”

My thumb strokes my wrist. “Then why did you have to do it in secret?”

“Because you’re mad at me, and I can’t handle your rejection. Not now, when my world is falling apart.”

“Jude…”

“Preston was… is my brother, more than Julian ever has been.” His voice is thick with pain. “Julian and I have a generational gap, and he was already a snake while I was growing up and rarely treated me like a brother. When I was young, I wanted to be close to him, but he was in college and plagued with power, so it was impossible. When I told Pres, he said, ‘No worries, my dude, you have me! I’m the best and the most reliable and charming brother anyone could have. The last one in stock. Better snag me now before I’m snatched up by someone else. Also, let’s be friends. No one likes me.’” Jude chuckles humorlessly. “He said that while his face was bruised because some kids beat him up after he talked shit about them and I saved him. We shook our bloodied hands as a blood pact and said we’d always have each other’s backs. We even engraved it in this tree over ten years ago. The mark is starting to fade, and I can’t fix it. Because he’s gone now, and I can’t bring him back, no matter how many things or people I punch.”

My fingers stroke over his busted knuckles, tears streaming down my cheeks and slipping into my mouth, down my chin and onto the collar of my dress. “I’m sorry. It should’ve been me.”

“Violet!” He whirls me around so fast that I almost fall until he grabs my shoulders with both hands. “Don’t you fucking say that.”

“But it’s because of me that he’s…he’s…” I choke on my words, my mouth flooding with saliva and pain.

“Then you better live for him.” His eyes bore into mine, his voice growing steady and resolute. “I know you’re thinking you’ve cursed both Mario and Preston, so you believe the world would be a better place without you.”

“How…”

“You’re obvious. It’s why Dahlia and I have been keeping an eye on you in case you do something stupid.” He shakes my shoulders. “I’m telling you, Violet. Your death wouldn’t bring back Preston or Mario. It’ll only make their sacrifices die in vain. Do you hear me? Live for them if you can’t live for yourself. You owe them that much.”

A new wave of tears stream down my face, clinging to the sunglasses .

“Live for me,” he whispers, his head tilting down, and when his lips capture mine, all I can do is kiss him through the tears.