Chapter 43 Rook
ROOK
By the time I caught up with Aidan in the stairwell, the weasel-faced wanker who’d laid hands on my wife had finally realized he wasn’t getting tossed out of the party with a stern warning and had started fighting back.
Too little, too fucking late.
“Unfinished apartment. Two floors down,” I said.
Aidan nodded, barely struggling with the irate fool he had in a choke hold. My cousin had dragged heavyweights across the octagon by the throat. Weasel Face didn’t register on his scale.
The apartment door creaked open. No electricity, no flooring. Just concrete, scaffolding, and shadows. The perfect place to play a little game of torment the pervert.
Aidan dumped Weasel Face onto the unfinished floor. He hit the concrete with a meaty thud, and a bloody tooth skittered past my shoe.
I glanced at my cousin. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Aidan fished a wallet from Weasel Face’s back pocket. “Greg Holbrook,” he read from the license. “Local. Still employed at The Inquirer.” He held up the press card between two fingers.
“Not for long.”
Holbrook rolled onto his back, coughing and wiping blood from his mouth. “I said I was sorry. What more do you want?”
I crouched beside him. “I want you to feel what she felt. That panic. That helplessness. That goddamn fear when someone stronger decides they won’t listen to your pleas.”
His brow creased. He still didn’t get it.
“You know, I was going to offer you a choice—jump from the roof or take your punishment like a man. But then I learned tonight wasn’t the first time you touched my wife.”
His eyes widened. “Wait. No. You’ve got it wrong. I never hurt her.”
I stood slowly. “You calling Asha a liar?”
“She wanted it.” He crawled backward but ran into a pillar.
Aidan made a low sound in his throat. “Gobshite did not just say that.”
White-hot fury boiled through me. My fist cracked across his face. Once, twice. I yanked him up by the collar and slammed him against the pillar, my forearm to his throat.
He gasped and clawed at my arm. His face turned red, then purple. Right before he lost consciousness, I eased off.
“I have money,” he rasped. “I can pay you.”
Aidan and I shared a laugh.
“That’s grand, mate, but I don’t want or need your money. I want your confession.” I tilted my head. “Are you a religious man, Greg? Do you pray to God? Beg him for mercy?”
He shook his head.
“Now might be a good time to start.”
I pinned his forearm to the edge of the pillar and pressed down hard. “You praying yet?”
“No, no. Wait—”
Snap.
The crack of bone and the howl that followed were fucking glorious.
“Not going for the classic stabby-stabby tonight, cuz?” Aidan asked casually, miming a knife jab.
“This way’s more satisfying. Do you think they can hear him wailing from the party?”
“With the music? Nah.”
“Good. I want to hear his pain. Are you ready to confess now, Greg?”
“Don’t hurt me, please,” he sobbed.
Aidan scratched his jaw. “Not real bright, this one, is he?”
“Hey, wanker.” I grabbed Holbrook’s elbow and waved the floppy part of his broken arm about. Fresh screams erupted. “This is a not-so-friendly reminder that you have three unbroken limbs at my disposal. Tell me what you did to her, or I’ll get to work on them.”
“I fucked her. I did it. Three years ago.”
I leaned in close. “Because she wanted it?”
“No. She tried to push me away. She—she told me to stop, and I didn’t.” Snot, blood, and tears streaked his face as it twisted in pain.
A beat passed, then I flicked open my blade. “Time to pay for your sins.”
I pinned his good hand to the pillar, and he tried to wrestle it free. “You said you’d let me go.”
I raised a brow. “Did I?”
“Doesn’t sound like something you’d say,” Aidan replied.
“Just be thankful I’m not cutting your dick off and feeding it to you.” I pressed the blade to the base of his pinky and sliced.
He howled, but I took my time. Blood jetted onto my cuff.
“It’s easier when you break the bone first,” Aidan said loud enough for me to hear over Holbrook’s commotion.
I paused and cast my cousin an unamused look, pointing the blade at him. “I fucking know that. I don’t want this to be easy for him, do I?”
Holbrook thrashed. “Stop, please—”
“Shut your fucking mouth.” I shoved the blade into his nostril and carved up through cartilage.
He shrieked again.
I returned my attention to Aidan. “As I was saying, I’m quite happy letting this arsewipe flap about while I take my time, all right?”
Aidan gave a sweeping gesture. “All yours, then.”
One by one, I took off each finger that had touched Asha tonight.
Holbrook crumpled to the floor, keeping his mangled hand close to his chest while the broken arm hung limp.
“You ready to finish this?” Aidan asked.
“Aye. I want to go home to my wife.”
Aidan gestured to the severed fingers on the dusty floor. “What are you going to do with those?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Shove them up his arse for all I care.”
His eyes shifted between the digits and the piece-of-shite journalist at our feet. “Fuck that. I have a better idea.” Aidan jerked his chin toward the elevator shaft.
Nice. Saved us from lugging this twat’s corpse down twenty flights of stairs.
I hauled Greg upright while Aidan pulled away the plywood covering the shaft.
He leaned over and peered down. “Long way to the bottom.” Then he collected a couple of fingers from the floor and held them to Holbrook’s mouth. “Say ah,” he said cheerfully.
Weasel Face kept his lips sealed tight.
“Stubborn fuck.” I pinched his nose.
The second his mouth opened to gasp, Aidan shoved the fingers in deep. Greg gagged and tried to spit them out, but Aidan clamped a hand over his mouth.
I held Holbrook over the open shaft by his bloodstained lapels, my eyes feral and unblinking. The last thing this bastard would ever see.
But I didn’t want him thinking of me. I wanted him to understand that his life was over the moment he laid a hand on my wildfire.
“This is for Asha,” I growled.
Then I let go.