Rule and Ruin

twenty-six; the usurper

chapter twenty-six.

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THEY CAME IN and they came in shooting.

Oh the way Selene marvelled as the room of men went cowering under the table.

"Listen up, you old asshats," she declared as she slammed her gun on the table and positioned herself at the front of the conference room. It wasn't long ago when she had sat idly at the side, watching Dino spew his nonsense from there.

The men peeked up to look at her. The traitor.

"Dino is dead," she announced. She loved how easily the words slipped from her lips. She had forgotten what it was like to hear the power behind that silver tongue of hers.

The men murmured amongst themselves. They yelled accusations at her. They reached for their guns.

Selene had not been back in this room since the day she left. It felt different this time.

In that room meant for those men to speak their feckless thoughts, Selene decided she did not care for anything they had to say. Without hesitation, she shot the person closest to her who had reached for his gun.

"The next person to reach for his gun will have his lungs pulled out from his throat," she said impatiently. "I have people who have lusted for blood far longer than you have."

She gestured at the door. Nix grinned and waved with his knife. Ren twitched his lips and twirled his gun in his hands.

"Besides, you'll want to hear what I have to say," she said. "So I suggest you all sit tight."

The men exchanged glances and reluctantly retook their seats.

"Great," she smiled daintily. "So I take it you all know my father?"

She examined each face in the room as they nodded.

"Whether or not you knew Dino killed him does not matter. I do not care that you all lied to me for 10 years. All that matters is that now Dino is dead, and now, you will all obey me, as you once did to him, as you would have to my father. It's no secret I practically ran Dino's empire, so if you do, you will be compensated with riches and power far greater than Dino could ever provide. And if you don't...well..." she swivelled her gaze to Wang, who she had purposely avoided looking at until now.

The usual arrogance in those eyes had disappeared. He turned for the door but was met with Nix's knife to his throat.

"Take our lovely friend Wang here," she said as she slowly walked over to him. "Traitorous and devious. Loyal to no one besides himself."

She pushed him down to his knees and held her left hand out for Nix's knife.

"First, I will cut off his ear for listening to my screams." And so she did, watching the men look away as Wang screeched in pain. His screams tasted so much better than his moans.

"Then, I will take his eyes for the vile way he always looked at me." And so she did, once again bathing in the sounds of his misery.

A ruler like her should learn to enjoy ruin like this.

The men around the table breathed through caution and blinked with fear. She wiped her hands and handed the knife back to Nix, who was looking at her with a dark look that deeply resembled bloodlust.

"Oh he's not dead yet, by the way," she assured everyone. "I have plans for him. Just know that he is in extreme pain right now."

"I have been in this trade a long time. I have watched Dino use and abuse the power he held, and before he died, I told him it would just be business when I take everything from him. And it is just business. He killed my father for this power, and in return, I killed him for it. An eye for an eye. A wrong for a right."

She regarded the men and smiled.

"I am only taking back what is mine," she said, placing her hands on the table and leaning forward with menacing promise. "And I guarantee you would rather be mine than sympathizing with a dead man's kind."

The room basked in silence.

With Wang's bleeding eyes and Selene's winning demise, there really was only one option.

"Selene," said Lyon, the older man's eyes twinkling with some kind of pride. "Dino had always been too simple-minded, in my opinion. And you have already proven yourself more than enough. You have always had my support."

She smiled warmly, "Thank you, Lyon. You will be rewarded generously."

The other men began nodding, and it wasn't long before Selene had that bloody crown she had come for. She knew it wasn't that easy, and that there would be attempts of rebellion, but she wasn't afraid of what was too come. She knew this trade inside out.

"Alrighty," she said. "Now go along and spread the news. We're changing a lot of things around here."

She turned and leaned back against the table to take a deep breath while the men cleared out. Ren dragged Wang's leaking body out of the room, to a room where Selene would soon enjoy his destruction.

There it was. All the power she wanted. All the power she needed. Right in the palm of her hands.

Selene was practically high from it all. She stared out at the window, smiling at her own glassy reflection.

She was still smiling when Nix rounded the table and appeared before her.

"Miss Casey," he said, with a slight bow of his head.

"Nicholas," she said back.

He took a small step forward, his eyes as dark and dangerous as ever. "How does it feel? Having everything you've ever wanted?"

"Fucking fantastic," she said, enunciating each syllable. She let out a laugh. "My god, I could cry right now."

"All those men," Nix mused, "vowed to be yours."

What a thrilling thing it was to have men like that under her strings.

"Mine," she mouthed the word, because it felt so foreign to her. Not Dino's. Not her father's. Hers.

She looked up at Nix, who was watching her with that dark expression - a mixture of pride and what looked like desire. It was an expression that made all that power seem small.

He moved closer to her with slow and steady steps, following her as she slid back into a seat on the table. She couldn't get enough of the way he was still staring at her.

"If you'll have me," he murmured as he stepped between her legs and leaned even closer, "I could be yours too."

Power allows you to take what you want. Power allows you to think without consequences. Power was all Selene had.

"Mine," she whispered, before grabbing the collar of his shirt and pressing her lips to his.

She kissed him and realized she had wanted to kiss him for a long time now. His hands came up to cup her cheeks as he kissed her deeper. She moved into him like he was the source of everything. For air, for passion, for need, for power. He was everything and he was everywhere and he was all she wanted.

His hands travelled down her shoulders and her back, touching her in ways she had never dreamed she would ever allow a man touch her again. Somehow, his touch did not feel dirty. It was fresh, exhilarating, and passionate. She snaked her hands over her shoulders into his hair as their lips continued moving against each other in desperate recklessness.

Kissing Nix felt like the biggest power trip of them all.