Chapter 23 Wesley
Wesley
“I’m more of a man than you’ll ever be,” Ro said.
Something in me had gone still, watching him cross the room toward the glass cell that held Elias—his abuser, his teacher, his pimp, his nightmare. The bastard was sitting on the floor, his wrists cuffed, his posture lazy. His eyes held a strange sort of excitement for what was to come.
Ro stopped just short of the glass, close enough that his reflection overlapped Elias’s face. I could see the tremor in his fingers and the tension in his jaw, but he didn’t flinch.
“I was beginning to think you’d never come,” Elias rasped, his voice gravelly from dehydration. “That you planned to leave me here to rot.”
“I had to recover from being shot by one of your men, so yeah, it took a bit of time,” Ro said. His tone was level—too level. I’d seen that tone before, in killers who’d learned to turn their emotions into armor. It made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
“I’m sorry about that. But it looks like you’re healing well?”
“Yeah.”
“How are you going to kill me?” Elias tilted his head, eyes still bright with the curiosity that comes with being insane.
Ro didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just stared, expression unreadable. Then, softly, he said, “I’m not sure yet.”
Elias laughed. “You always were more of a spur-of-the-moment kind of man.” His gaze flicked toward me. “He’ll get bored with you soon enough.”
My stomach turned. I could feel every pair of eyes in the room shift toward me, waiting for a reaction. But I forced myself to stay where I was. This wasn’t about me. Not right now.
Ro leaned closer to the glass, voice still calm, but I could hear the tremor of adrenaline beneath it. “Don’t talk to him.”
Elias smiled, looking back at Ro. “I made you, Ronan. Every instinct, every impulse that crawls under your skin when you touch him—it’s me. You’ll always be mine. You’ll kill me today, dump my body, but you’ll never be free of me. Maybe you’ll even miss me in a few years.”
Ro’s breathing hitched. He pressed his palm flat to the glass, eyes burning. “I will never miss you.”
Elias’s smile faltered—just for a second—but that was enough. Ro had him. The power had shifted.
Ro continued as he began to walk around the glass wall, towards the cage door, “No one will. We may remember you, but no, we’ll never miss you. You will die unloved, unnoticed, unwanted.”
Ro’s words hung in the air like smoke—bitter, poisonous, and final.
He moved slowly, circling the glass enclosure with an eerie calmness, his hand trailing lightly along the surface as he walked. Elias followed him with his eyes, like a snake watching something it couldn’t quite tell was prey or predator.
When Ro reached the far wall, he stopped. His gaze flicked to the array of weapons displayed there—organized with clinical precision—knives, scalpels, pliers, hooks, saws, even a branding iron.
Ro tilted his head slightly. “Can I use any of these?”
Hayes’s grin was instant. “Be our guest.”
I exhaled quietly, the faintest sense of dread tightening at the base of my throat.
Yeah, I ran an underground group of killers, but I actually disliked the killing part. I’d killed a lot in my past, especially when I had just gotten started in this business. But as soon as I brought on people who could do the killing for me, I had happily retired to a life of desk work.
So why did I head an operation of selective contract killers if I didn’t like killing?
Maybe it was because the government failed to deliver justice to those who needed it; maybe it was because I was too empathetic for my own good, to the point that I had a need to hurt those who enjoyed hurting others.
Maybe it was for the same reason I’d raised my nephews intending to put their homicidal tendencies to use without harming innocents.
As much as I supported the fact that some people just needed to die, I wasn’t keen on watching. Especially not when it involved my boy.
Ro’s fingers brushed along the metal table, lingering briefly over a blade before sliding toward something smaller. He picked up an ice-pick—thin, wickedly pointed, almost delicate in a way. It gleamed under the fluorescents like a sliver of frozen light.
He weighed it in his hand, nodding to himself.
Then he walked to the reinforced door leading into the enclosure. Every step echoed like a countdown to Elias’s demise.
“Unlock it,” he said softly.
Without hesitation, Hudson keyed in the release code. The door clicked open with a hiss of air.
He stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
The sound of the latch sliding into place registered deep in my gut. I wanted to move—say something, stop this—but Lane’s hand brushed my sleeve, light but firm. A silent don’t.
Lane whispered, “He’ll be okay. He needs this.”
Greyson caught my eye, giving me a single nod of agreement.
Inside the cage, Elias shifted his position, sitting up a little straighter. “Have you decided?”
Ro didn’t answer right away. He just stood there, head bowed, the ice-pick hanging loosely in his grip. His pale hair fell into his eyes, shadowing his face. Then, slowly, he looked up.
“Yes, I think so,” Ro said softly.
Elias smirked, but I could see the faintest flicker of unease in his eyes. “So what’ll it be? How will you exact your revenge?”
Ro took a step closer. Then another.
And I found myself holding my breath.
Because I realized, in that sterile, humming basement, that this wasn’t just Ro confronting his abuser.
This was Ro confronting himself.
The boy Elias had made—the one who’d been trained to seduce, to obey, to survive by submission—was walking toward his maker now, weapon in hand, not as a victim, not as a pawn.
But as a man.
“Taking your life is a mercy,” Ro said. “True revenge would be to have you gang-raped for twenty years, to destroy you to the point of wanting to end it yourself, but then forcing you to keep living, enduring day after day of drowning in the deepest, darkest pit in your mind.”
Under his breath, Lane let out a broken sound—a sound of disgust, of recognition, of pain. “Jesus,” he whispered. Grey stepped between his legs and pulled Lane into his chest.
Quietly, he told him, “It’s okay if you want to leave, baby.”
When Lane looked up into his eyes, Grey cupped his jaw.
“No, I want to stay, please, Daddy.”
Greyson pressed his lips against his husband’s forehead. “You’re so strong.”
Lane smiled at him. “Now be a good Daddy and move so I can see when the bloody stuff starts happening.”
That surprised a soft laugh out of me. As my nephew shifted so that he could still hold Lane without blocking his view, I smiled at him.
I really had missed too much. Maybe it was time to implement family dinners once a week.
My attention returned to Ro as I shelved that idea for later.
He was still talking to Elias. “I couldn’t stand to do the things to you that were done to me. I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone, even you.”
“Oh, baby,” I murmured, my heart aching for him.
“So soft-hearted, my Ro,” Elias crooned.
Ro ignored him and turned to address our group. “Can someone bring me a mallet or a hammer?”
Hayes made a show of riffling through the wall of tools until he found what Ro had requested.
Hayes grinned, satisfied, and tossed a mallet toward the little pass-through slot in the glass. It thudded into Ro’s hands with a stupid domestic finality, like a handyman’s tool, not an executioner’s instrument.
I watched Ro cradle the mallet, like a man checking the weight of a guitar before the first chord. He ran his thumb along the worn wood. There was no bravado in the gesture—no cinematic flourish. Just the simple mechanics of choosing the right tool for the job. It made it worse.
I was about to speak up, to suggest that we leave the twins to handle it, but Lane’s words echoed in my head, “He needs this.”
So I held my tongue.
I felt Lane’s hand lace with Greyson’s behind me, their presence a steadying counterpoint.
Ro raised the mallet slowly, testing the balance, the arc. He flexed his wrist, set his jaw, and lifted his chin as if measuring distance and consequence in the same motion.
Elias’s eyes followed the mallet. “Stalling?”
Ro’s hand tightened, knuckles whitening. “Just deciding where to start.”
I swallowed.
Ro turned his head slightly, not to Elias, but to the small group gathered—my nephews, Lane, and me, the makeshift jury that had decided to stand with him. He didn’t look for approval. He looked for presence. For the knowledge that he wouldn’t be alone, even if what he did made him alone afterward.
He set the mallet down beside him gently and picked up the ice-pick again. His hands did not tremble. He drew a breath that made the muscles in his throat move.
Ro stared at Elias’s handcuffed hands.
In an instant, he’d tugged Elias forward, pushed him down flat on his stomach, and sat on his arms.
Elias looked up from the floor where he’d fallen, and smirked at Ro’s ass. Even when facing death, he was a fucking creep.
Ro shifted so that he was kneeling on his arms, and Elias winced from pain. Ro then picked up the mallet once more, angled the ice-pick under Elias’s thumbnail, and struck.
Elias shouted as his thumbnail tore from the finger.
Ro wasted no time, moving to Elias’s pointer finger. Again, he struck, and again, the nail popped off, causing Elias to yell from the pain.
He continued this until all five fingernails on Elias’s right hand were on the floor of the cell.
I cringed at the gore, but didn’t look away.
Ro needed me to see this.
Hayes laughed from beside me as Ro asked himself out loud, “What next?”
When I glared at him, he shrugged. “He’s a good fit for the family.”
Setting down the pick and mallet, he peeled the dirty bandage from Elias’s gunshot wound, wrinkling his nose once it was uncovered.
“That’s super infected.” He was still for a moment, then shoved his finger into the wound, resulting in Elias screaming and thrashing.
He dug his finger around in there for a few minutes, making me nauseous. Elias had turned a pale green color.
Once he’d had enough of that, he pushed Elias into a sitting position with his back against the wall. Ro was easily able to maneuver him, as he’d quickly lost the fight he had in him.
I froze as Ro began undoing Elias’s pants, pulling out his flaccid cock.
Ro seemed to sense my unease, and looked over at me. “I’m just going to smash it.”
I frowned, not sure if I was following. “Smash it?”
He nodded, sending me a hesitant grin. “With the mallet.”
All four men beside me shuddered at his words.
There was a chorus of “Damn,” “Holy shit,” and “Wow.”
Hayes applauded, to which Ronan rolled his eyes. “That’s my new uncle!”
I smacked him on the back of the head.
We all watched as Ro raised the mallet above his head and brought it down on the head of Elias’s dick.
Elias screeched weakly, his face covered in snot, tears, and spit.
“Just one more. I don’t want you to die until the next round,” Ro said, his voice void of emotion.
And like he said, he raised the mallet and brought it back down. Elias looked to be on the verge of passing out. Honestly, I didn’t understand how he hadn’t passed out yet. I’m pretty sure I would have.
Ro then stood, a little too gracefully for what he was doing, stepped over to where Elias’s feet lay, and roughly yanked his body to the floor.
He knelt beside Elias’s head and grabbed the ice-pick.
Taking a deep breath in and out, he positioned the ice-pick directly over the inner corner of Elias’s eye.
“Bye, Elias,” he murmured, almost too quiet to hear.
Then, he lifted the mallet, a slight smile on his lips. In the next moment, he hit the ice-pick, plunging it past the eye, into the brain.
“I think I love our new uncle, guys,” Hudson said, brows raised.
I couldn’t fucking agree more.