The Gift. *trigger warning *

*Ben's POV possible trigger warning*

I found you Casey. I finally found you. I seen the photos of you and your perfect little bundles of joy posted on your mothers page. Freckled cheeks dimpled from smiling as you proudly cradled your treasured babes. The babes you conceived while 'in hiding.' But I know the truth Case. I know who your man really is. And my dealer knows how you two really met. It took no effort to pull a few strings and find your new house. I pulled into right up on maps and memorized the area. Secluded, peaceful, no neighbors.

I quickly got to work preparing the gift. I couldn't show up after all these months to impress Casey without a proper gift. Titus held her down for me as the others stood around us, making sure she couldn't escape. She was gagged and flailing in attempt to flee. Tears soaked her face. Her body littered in bites and handprints from the rough men surrounding us. They had taken turns passing her around between them, all the while she begged me for mercy. Where was her mercy for me, when she was trying to destroy my life? Where was that mercy for Casey when she was missing? If I recall, Laura found it quite amusing.

I shook my head disapprovingly at her bare form, sprawled out used and battered below me. "You lied Laura. You lied to me. About me. On me. You aren't pregnant. You never were. These people here look down their nose at me now. Do you know what that's like?" She whines and mumbles in her gag. Snot now runs. Disgusting little bitch. "Of course not. People love you because of your dear old daddy. I never stood a chance against your lies. Nobody will find you here. Nobody will find you at all. Not even in death. Dear old daddy will cry and post memories. People will drop teddies and candles by the street lamp outside his house. Your folks will end up burying some cheesy picturefrane in a few years, desperate for closure. And ALL, ALL because your vindictive little lies. All this, your doing, because you sought to gold dig from me. Like I wanted to keep your ass up huh? It was ignorant to try blackmailing me." She babbles and snots some more. Titus releases her arms and she pulls her gag loose and crawls to my feet.

"P-please. P-please." She sniffles. "Please don't kill me. I-I'll I'll do anything. I will t-tell everyone my lies. Y-you can take m-me to court. I don't care! P-please Ben! T-think of our m-memories." She pleads. We have no memories outside of sex or foreplay. I realize.

"I'm thinking of them now. Our memories, are much like our current situation really. You naked on your knees before me, begging for release. Only this time to be released." I shrug and the men around us laugh hysterically. She only cries harder and curls up. I kick her hard in the head and she falls back. Titus and Shane pull her arms out and stand on her hands as she squalls out. Two more grab her feet so she can't kick me. I pull the knife from my pocket and cut several lines on her arms and stomach as blood curdling cries sound from her. She bucks and twists aimlessly as I near her throat. I cut her throat sloppily and without hesitation. I expected to feel remorse, but I only feel empowered. She lied to me. She paid. She'll continue to pay. I once again have the upper hand. She convulses and pales as her lifeblood rains onto the forest floor below. Once she is completely still and stares fixed at the sky above us, do we move from her. We dump several buckets out creek water over her and the ground to wash the blood away and into the soil, undetectable to the naked eye. The cheap blue tarp beside us is soon graced with her corpse as we kick and roll her up.

"Hmmph." Titus smirks. "She looks like a big ass blue roach." We all chuckled and deposit her under the camper shell of Titus's new truck. "Where to now?"

"To deliver her. She's going to be gifted, to the woman I love." I snicker. I give him the address and we start out.

"Alright boys, we got to be very careful on our little journey tonight. You are about to be pulling up into a lair of hitmen. We dump the body, set the alarm off and get the hell out of dodge. We aren't trying to fight, this is just a message." Titus informs from the driver's seat. Hitmen? I know of Holden, but who else?

"Hitmen? Who else lives with them?"

I ask Titus, curious.

"Yes, three hitmen to be exact. You have Holden, his father 'Holt' Cline, and you have your Casey." The dad is a hitman too? CASEY??!

"CASEY??" I blurt.

"Yes. A friend of mine has informed me his daughter was murdered. A guard at Simon's said the murderer was Acacia. He believes someone hired Acacia to kill her and her husband, but she killed his daughter and ran."

"Simon's? Why was she there and not with Holden? You told me she was sold directly to Holden. That's why she's with him right, he owns her?" This makes zero sense. I have heard talk of Simon's, through Chance and Titus. I know they sell drugs, weapons, 'services', women. Why was Case there? Holden surely wouldn't buy a woman and trust her to run wild and not rat him out. She's only there as against her will. "He did this. He made Casey kill that woman. She hasn't got it in her. She cries if I gut hooked a fish!" I scoff angrily. The thought of him forcing Casey into murdering and doing his budding makes me nearly as sick as the thought of her having his kids.

"She was at Simon's, because I sold her to Simon." Titus shrugs. "He then sold her to Holden I'm guessing, then she was returned, and sold again to Claire and Richard according to Claire's father. Claire's father said she was purchased because she was pregnant and Claire intended to adopt them. Then Claire dies, and she ends up with Holden again. We believe either he or her were paid off to kill the couple and half succeeded. Either way, Acacia killed her is word from the guards."

"You told me you sold her to Holden. I'm sorry but there's no fucking way that meak anxiety riddled Case killed a woman! The idea is laughable."

"That woman got away from me and nearly took my head off, basically with Maria on her hip. She's not who you think she is, Ben. She stole from me. She beat me. She stole my car and then left Maria to die in the road while she tried to escape. I did abduct her, and I sold her to Simon. I lied to protect your feelings at the time. I would have killed her, had it not been for your soft spot for her. It was a favor to my nephew that she lives. When you get her Ben, she can never leave. She is a loose end. She will roll on us or kill us. She is not stable, never has been. For heavens sake she is in love with the murderer who bought her. She's only coming into herself now, embracing her shit heritage and finding her skills. Maria was a thief. Bill was a murderer. The rest of them rats, thieves, and drug fiends too. Kevin had history of sexual assault and battery. Your Casey seems to have the same skill set as Bill had. He's now in prison. Where she will be, and us too if you let her slip. She killed that woman with oxygen hose, syringes and blunt objects. She's deranged!" My head spins with this information. I can't picture her doing any of this. She did get away from Titus and Simon's obviously though. She was bold enough to outsmart them. Resourceful enough to use anything on hand. If she can take down a man with a piece of a vent, she could kill a woman with hoses and injections. It's not a far stretch. My stomach turns over. I feel sick. The woman I've yearned for is devil. I'm in love, no obsessed with a sadistic beautiful monster. I think back to the looks she would give Lauracand I as we wrestled and flirted in her sights. The watery betrayed glances eventually became heated suspicious glowers. The fire was always there. The crazy must have always been there, and I never seen it. Would she have killed me later on for wronging her? She threatened to kill Titus.

We approach their driveway and park just up the road, on the shoulder. Our gloved hands drag the tarp with Laura to the wood line next to their driveway and dump her out and a man rolls the tarp up and takes it back to the truck. The rest wait in the woods guns trained on the house as I stealthily near the door. It's so silent outside I can vaguely hear with my ear to the door. I hear light tv sounds from the main floor. I nose around the house and try to peer in the windows, but the blinds are drawn. One window has a faint light behind it that flickers. TV. They are in the bedroom. Standing below the window I hear creaking and soft moans. The collision of bodies. My anger is boiling under the surface. I can hardly contain it. I slowly keep snooping around the outside. No sounds now. TV lights are out. Cars are probably locked. I near the flower beds and rip up the flowers. Dropping them down to lead to Laura. I pop a tire on the car. I sit in the wood line now just fuming. It's been several hours and I can't bring myself to go set off the alarm.

"What the fuck Ben? We've been here all night. We were supposed to dumb the damn girl and set off alarm or beat the door and dash so they'd find her. You've jacked up their shit and hid here." Titus gripes.

"I just needed a moment." I huff. "I think I heard them fucking upstairs or something and I lost it."

"Oh. Well, I mean you had to expect that they do it. She got pregnant somehow. Not science. Now go do your shit. Go do it or I will." Shane snaps. The men all look to me annoyed, even Chance. I turn to them in fury and run towards the door. I grab the knob violently and twist. The alarm blares and I book it to the woods so we can all leave together. We do not stop to see or listen. The alarm silences instantly and I know they are up and will find their gift shortly. I hope you like it Casey. We hit the truck and speed off.