My dear little broccolis 💚💚💚

💚 So remember that this pic is RATED M, and it is not only for the sexy times. Some dark moments will be approached in this story, and they can trigger some people. This is a fair warning to remind you that this story sets place in a dark world, which means it is bound to mountains dark themes.

Love, Mina 💚💚💚

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Chapter 34: The Grim Reaper (3,7K)

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💚 So I see that hope is a strong emotion amongst my readers. Which is good. We have a saying in French which says, 'Hope makes one live', and I live by that motto. But … well, I will let you see by yourself. Enjoy the new chapter.

💚Also, the story is taking a tiny step back, to when Christian sent the package to Raymond. When he was still all well and alive 😈

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Jose's PoV

As Jose made his way to Raymond's office, he wondered what his boss could want with him. He had never been summoned to the mansion, and Jose always did his best to stay away from it. He couldn't really tell why, but there was this aura around the Steele's residence that gave him a feeling of trespassing every time he stepped into their house. Sure, he still had times when he would have to actually go to the mansion, but those times were so few that he could recall each one of them.

Once in front of the office, he knocked and opened the door, but to his surprise, Raymond wasn't in his chair, but on his way out, his laptop in hands. He started walking away from his office as he told Jose,

"Christian sent something for you."

He didn't ask what it was, and simply followed his boss to his cellar. There, Raymond opened a door leading to a dark room, and switched on the light, revealing a box, large enough to fit a man in it. Raymond made a small move with his chin, indicating Jose that this was the package in question, and his first thoughts went to Christian, thanking him for giving him this little something. The undeniable proof that the man he had hated all his life was dead.

He opened the top and repressed a yelp of surprise when he saw that Andrew was still breathing, struggling to open his eyes. He quickly glanced at Raymond, before looking back at the man who had murdered his mother in cold blood. Would he have seen him in the streets, he would never have recognised him. He was missing an ear, his eyes were bloodshot, and most of the skin of his face was gone, replaced by a mass of blisters.

Still not believing what he was seeing, Jose looked away from the face, and his eyes fell on a note, nailed on the man's chest. A simple note with Christian's handwriting, that explained it all.

Enjoy your revenge.

"How?" He asked in a whisper, trying to understand how did Christian manage to send a living person in a box from across the glob, or even how he managed to keep that person alive, despite the long flight, and the critical health state.

"Give it to Christian to play with his connections to help those he cares about," Raymond said in a patronising tone. Jose nodded in agreement, his eyes going back to Andrew.

Even though he couldn't talk, it was obvious on his face that he recognised Jose. But seeing him so pathetic, so weak, struggling to stay alive, suddenly made all the hatred Jose had bottled up in him, go away. He wasn't going as far as to forgive him, he wasn't that good, or that stupid, depending on the point-of-view. But he finally felt at peace with himself. The hate wasn't eating him away anymore. Andrew was no longer some childhood monster that could creep on him from the shadows of any streets. He was just a pitiful man who thought that abusing people would make him stronger.

And this was why, it was with a peaceful smile that Jose pulled his gun, and simply shot him in the brain, just as Andrew had done to his mother. It wasn't his first kill, and actually, for a long time, it had bothered him that his first kill wasn't this man who had done him so many wrongs. It wasn't even his most gruesome kill or the one in which he felt his own life might be in danger. But this was the most satisfying kill he had ever done.

Pulling the trigger gave him more than peace or satisfaction. It gave him freedom. He felt free of his past. Free of this label that Andrew had put on him. Free of feeling that everything he was, was due to this child-molester. He was free to be himself and to let the past where it belonged.

As this realisation dawned on him, Jose couldn't help but be grateful to Christian. He had gone to avenge him, to do that one thing he couldn't do, but he still managed to find a way to give Jose what he wanted most in the world. When he had asked Christian to go kill Andrew for him, no matter how much he trusted Christian and was grateful to him to do so, it wounded him. In his ego, in his dreams of revenge. For as long as he could remember, Jose had wanted to kill Andrew, and Christian found a way to give Jose his wish.

Sure, he had played with Andrew beforehand, but Jose had expected it from the moment Christian asked if there was any torture needed. Christian was many things, merciful was not one of them. Jose had actually seen Christian torture people and never blink at the gut-wretching supplications addressed to him.

"This was also addressed to you," Raymond suddenly said, reminding Jose that he was not alone. He turned, and took the CD out of his boss's hands, confused for a moment. But when he looked back at the dead man in the box, his brain did the math. He suspected that this CD would contain a video of how Andrew came to look the way he did before a bullet lodged in his brain.

"Did you watch it?"

"No. Christian's message was clear. These," Raymond pointed to the corpse and the CD, "were for you. And this is for Elena."

Raymond played with a little black book in his hands, making Jose frown.

"This is Andrew's agenda. With all his contacts, all the different working houses he has in different countries, many of his important and regular customers. Elena is going to have a lot of fun with that."

"Only Christian can find a way to make something personal, suddenly become business," Jose said, making Raymond agree with him.

He glanced at the CD, wondering if he actually wanted to see what transpired between Christian and Andrew. He had already seen people get tortured, he even already tortured a couple of pimps. But this was a whole different thing. This was his best friend torturing the man who had abused him when he was young, and Jose wasn't sure he was willing to see this.

"I have a meeting with Patrick Hyde," Raymond said, putting the laptop down. "Feel free to leave when you want. I will have Ryan come later on to feed him to the pigs."

Jose watched his boss walking to the door, and suddenly, he was no longer that thirty-one-year-old man who managed to survive as he could in that violent and cruel world, he was a ten years old kid, looking at the hand of a stranger. A stranger who simply wanted to help him, a stranger who promised him revenge, a stranger who helped him bury his mother, a stranger who gave him a roof over his head and food in his fridge, a stranger who went as far as to propose him a family, and did not get obfuscated when Jose refused.

Jose knew very well that Raymond purposely kept him from the darkest part of his life. He knew that it was Raymond who suggested to Elena to train him as her successor. He knew that Raymond had put Ana under his care so he could have flexible hours, and still feel useful. Raymond had watched over him, and it all hit him, making him blurt out,

"Thank you, Raymond. For everything."

Raymond turned his head to Jose, his face closed, as always, before he shook his head with a hint of melancholia, and said, "Don't thank me, yet. You haven't lived enough to understand what it means to be in my entourage."

.~°~. .~°~. .~°~.

Jose's PoV

With a little sigh of impatience, Jose tapped the dashboard, waiting for Ana to come out of her house so he could drop her off at her friend's place. This was probably the thing he liked less about looking after Ana, she always took forever to get ready, always making him wait for ages in his car. He knew he could simply go wait in the mansion, talk with Gail a bit, or even with Raymond, but he didn't really like going in the Steele house.

So he was stuck on waiting for the girl, while she got ready doing who knew what. This was something he never understood about Ana. She wasn't the type of girls who never left their houses without a ton of makeup on their faces, her hair was most of the times wild, and she didn't even need to pack a bag to go see her friend. How could one tiny person like her could take so long simply picking clothes to wear?

He was suddenly torn out of his revery by Ryan, knocking at the window, which made Jose sigh of exasperation. If Ryan went to the mansion, it meant that Ana had a seance of self-defence with him, which meant that he was stuck for at least half an hour more while she would take a shower. well, at least, the car would smell nice, he liked the smell of her shampoo.

"Boss wants to see you," Ryan said, pointing the mansion with his thumb, before he added, "He's in a foul mood."

"What happened?"

"No idea. He's just in a really bad mood. He's been locked in his office, and he made Gail cry when she asked him if he wanted coffee. Poor girl only wanted to make him feel better."

Jose glanced at the mansion, before thanking Ryan and going in there, hating the fact that it was already the second time he was going in that house, and the week wasn't even over. He walked straight to Raymond's office, hoping that maybe Raymond had calmed down since Ryan last saw him, and he tried to guess what could be wrong to make Raymond lose his temper like that.

For as long as he had known him, Jose only saw Raymond lose his temper over his daughter. He saw him get upset with boys flirting with her, or with staff with wandering eyes. So, it was only fair of him to assume that Raymond's unexpected fit of temper had to do with her, once again.

He opened the door, but what he saw wasn't what he had been expected. He had predicted to see a Raymond red with anger, pacing in his study to calm himself down, instead, he saw a Raymond drinking wine, his eyes dead and his face hard. The man looked up, and when he saw Jose in the threshold, he told him,

"I am going to Macau. I want you to keep an eye on Ana while I am gone. Luke is good, but I trust you more."

As Raymond was talking, Jose's breathing started to become scarce, his eyes had fallen on the particular bottle of wine Raymond was drinking.

Jose knew Raymond's pride in his cellar, he knew that one of the things his boss liked to collect was rare vintage and expensive liquors. But he also knew that he had a small barrel of whiskey for each of his Godchild as well as for his daughter. Each engraved with their date of birth, each put in wood the day of their birth, and each to be opened when the titular would get married. He also knew that Raymond bought a bottle of wine with Christian's birth year, some time after taking Christian under his wing.* And he also knew that there used to be a fifth barrel for Michael Steele. A barrel that Raymond drank after the boy 'disappeared'.

* Wine is one of the only alcohol that you can age in glass-bottle, which is why Raymond bought a bottle for Christian, and not a whiskey because he didn't have the possibility to put the whiskey in wood like he did for his children and godchildren.

And this was the frightening thing. The bottle that Raymond had bought for Christian was the one on his desk, half empty. Jose's first thoughts went to Raymond discovering about Ana's and Christian's affair and getting rid of Christian. But he quickly dismissed the thought for it wasn't possible for Raymond to kill Christian at the moment. Sure he could have hitmen do it for him, but Jose had the impression that this was something Raymond would want to do himself.

That's when a part of Raymond's sentence came back to Jose, making him pale. He was going to Macau. Jose knew that Christian was in Macau, Raymond had told him the day before, letting him know that his best friend should be back before the end of the week. Why would Raymond drink his Christian-special bottle and go to Macau?

Jose shook his head, refusing to believe what his logic was telling him, though his eyes couldn't leave the bottle. Raymond followed his gaze, but the words that Jose desperately wanted to hear never came from his mouth. Instead, he turned the screen of his computer, but at this right moment, Ana popped in, all smiles as she brightly asked,

"Ready to go, Jose?

Jose ignored her, his eyes on Raymond, willing him to refute what logic was saying at this right moment. But once again, Raymond did nothing of the sort, and simply leant his head backwards, closing his eyes as he told his daughter with a saddened voice,

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm going to have to cancel your trip to Peru."

Never before, Jose had seen Raymond so vulnerable, and so, he looked away from the man, his eyes falling on the screen, seeing what seemed the paused image of a security video.

"Dad! It's my twenty-first birthday! It's going to take me nine years to have another important birthday to celebrate like that!"

Jose watched Raymond clench his jaw, his eyes still closed as he told his daughter, "I understand. We will go there together when I will get back from Macau."

"We? You're taking me?"

And finally, Raymond opened his eyes, only to reveal something that Jose did not want to see, sorrow.

"Christian is dead. Therefore, I have no one I trust to take you on your trip."

For a second, there was a dead silence, before Jose shook his head and simply said, "It's a trick. It's what some people want you to think. Christian isn't easy to kill."

Raymond didn't even bother on looking at Jose, he simply pressed play on the video, releasing the pause, and showing Christian being caught in a street fight, and shot by a stray bullet in the chest. Jose shook his head, refusing to believe what his eyes were seeing, and hoping to see Christian walk it off. But his friend only fell backwards, and then into the lake. He kept on looking at the video playing, waiting for his friend to swim up, but it never happened.

His ears started ringing as his heart beat faster than it should, he could barely hear what Raymond and his daughter were saying. If he hadn't asked Christian to take care of Andrew, Christian would have never been in Macau alone, and he would never have been shot. He only regained consciousness of his surroundings, when he heard Ana tell her father,

"It's okay, Dad. I know you're busy. I will find something to do with Kate and Elliott. I will wait for my thirties to do something extravagant." Then, she turned to Jose, and told him, "We should go. Elliott is cooking tonight, and he's really good with food. I don't want to be late."

Jose numbingly nodded, his ears still ringing with Raymond's fatal words about the life of his best friend.

"I have something to tell Jose, sweetheart. Just give me a minute."

Jose watched Ana glance at the bottle of wine, before she left, her head high, mumbling that she would be waiting in the car. The two men stayed silent, Jose simply waiting for his next order, keeping his emotions at bay. When the minutes passed, he cleared his throat, tearing Raymond out of his thoughts, and asked,

"Are you going to retrieve his … him?" He couldn't say the word corpse, it was giving a finality that he was not ready or willing to accept.

"Yes. And I have to finish the business he was on while there. I'll be taking O'Neill with me .." He seemed lost in his world again before he shook his head and took a sip out of his glass. "It's not your fault, Jose."

"Agree to disagree."

"Christian was already planning on going to Macau. You sent him to Russia, not China," Raymond reasoned, and Jose loudly swallowed before he said,

"Your daughter is waiting for me. I should get going."

He started closing the door, when he stopped, realising that Raymond was losing more than his right-hand man, he was losing his son by substitution. Christian might not like admitting it, but to Jose, it was evident that Christian had replaced Michael in Raymond's heart. And now, once again he had to grief a son. He hesitated a moment, but still said,

"I'm sorry, Raymond. I know what Christian meant for you."

Raymond did not say a word, making Jose feel that maybe he had crossed the line. But just as he was about to leave, Raymond silently proposed him a glass of wine, finishing the bottle. Jose almost refused, aware that taking it was admitting that Christian was no longer of this world, but it felt like he would be insulting his friend's memory by doing so. So he took the glass, and drank it in silence with Raymond before he went to his car where Ana was waiting got him in the back.

It was only when he started driving that Jose realised that Ana was not just Ana. She was his best friend's lover. The girl he bent his code for. The girl he risked it all for. The girl he was falling for, no matter how much he was trying to ignore the signs. She was probably broken by the news, and she had no one to help her grief.

He glanced at the review mirror and saw that she was doing her best not to cry, which was probably why she sat in the back. Ever since she was fifteen, Ana always sat in the passenger seat when it was just the two of them, because she didn't want to put invisible barriers between them.

He wasn't sure what he should tell her to make her feel better, because he was suddenly feeling more guilty. If it hadn't been for him, she would be planning her birthday with Christian, and Christian would be doing his best to give her exactly what she wanted.

"Christian had a cat … He will need a new home," He said, knowing that Bastille was a gift from Ana and that she might find comfort in taking care of Christian's pet.

"Christian has a cat!" She snapped, making Jose sigh with a condescending voice,

"Ana …"

"You know! He told you about us!" She accused him, catching him off guard. For a moment, he was at a loss, not sure of what he could have said that could have triggered that in her mind. But then, he realised that it wasn't what he said, but how he said it. If he hadn't known about their affair, he never would have used that tone.

"Christian didn't tell me anything that I didn't know. I found you in his bed, he could hardly deny the whole thing. But I still think that he would have wanted you to take Bastille."

"Bastille is where he is supposed to be. Christian will come back, and Mia can take care of him until then," She stubbornly said.

"You saw the video," He reasoned, pulling over in front of the building where Christian used to live. He turned just in time to see her wipe her tears with anger as she declared,

"He promised to come back!"

"Ana …"

"I don't want to hear it, Jose! I don't want your rationalisation or your sweet words of comforts! I want to see my friends!"

And on those words, she stormed out of the car and rushed to the building to go see her friend. Jose followed her there, taking his time and stopping at the first floor to see Mia. And when the blond opened the door, he realised that he was not prepared to break this news to anyone. She watched him freeze as he was trying to will the words out of his mouth, and finally, he blurted out,

"Christian is dead."

Mia blinked, as if not sure of what she heard, before she burst in tears, taking refuge in Jose's arms. He patted her hair while she cried on his shoulder, and he did his best to stay strong, not wanting to break down in front of the young girl.

When she was calmer, he asked, "Can you still take care of Bastille while I find someone to replace you?"

"What about his girlfriend?"

Jose stared at the blonde girl, surprised that she would know about it. "He told you about her?"

"Christian never talks … talked about his personal life. Not much. But I still know that he has … had a girlfriend. Oh my god how is she going to take it?!"

"She .. knows already. She's just in denial. I'm sure she'll ask for the cat in a few days."

Mia nodded, accepting to take care of the kitten meanwhile, and Jose headed back to the elevator. He was waiting to be in the comfort of his own house to break down, but when came the time to press the button to the main floor, he realised that he couldn't go through the night alone. So he pressed the button leading to the Kavanagh floor, and there, he knocked on Ethan's door.

Ethan opened the door, confused as to see Jose there since they haven't spoken to one another since their breakup. But before he could say anything, Jose sought comfort in his arms.

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💚Your thoughts and opinions are always welcomed💚

~ Anyway, question time:

💚What did you think of Christian's gesture toward Jose, and finding a way to let him have his revenge after all?

💚What did you think of Raymond breaking the news?

💚 Do you hate me? Hihi

💚What did you think of this chapter overall? And what do you think will happen next?

💚What was your favourite part?

💚Anyway, E L James owns the names of the characters from the Fifty Shades franchise, everything else is mine.

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Love, Mina💚💚💚