6. Venom
6
VENOM
W hen Hugh comes to in the garage at Sander, Cub, and Fret’s house, he immediately tries to free himself from the chain suspending him from the ceiling. It takes him a second to admit defeat, and when he does, the fear that widens his eyes is more than a little enjoyable.
In truth, I’d find it immensely entertaining if I wasn’t short of time.
It’s not every day that I find myself with an excuse to torture one of the Maddison clan.
Especially one as high up in the ranks as Hugh St. James.
“Wakey, wakey, hands off snakey,” Slash singsongs as he slaps Hugh in the face. Discovering that he’s surrounded by Shamrocks, Hugh tries to speak, but my best friend ignores his muted efforts. “We’ve got a couple questions for you.”
“Should probably remove the gag before you start posin’ those questions.” Hunter shakes his head at his older brother. After he rips the grey electrical tape off Hugh’s lips, and pulls the dirty basketball sock we borrowed from Sander’s overflowing hamper out of his mouth, the youngest Hudson boy runs his knife along Hugh’s cheekbone. The skin parts easily, a thin line of blood wells in the blade’s wake. “Now, my brother likes to joke about… he also enjoys toying with his victims. I’m more to the point, especially when someone I love has been abducted, and a way to get her back has unexpectedly presented itself.”
Tension ratchets up at Hunter’s reminder of the stakes in this situation. This isn’t a normal torture scenario. We have time pressures and our hearts are at risk of complete annihilation if we fail. The brick walls of the soundproofed garage act as a barrier, containing our rage, shielding the neighbours from the desire for violence that grows as we individually contemplate the words he left unsaid.
The window to get Lily back is rapidly closing.
As much as I don’t want to think about what Alex could’ve done to her already, I know that things will get worse for her if he’s able to move her to a secondary location.
“There’s no love lost between me and Alex,” Hugh splutters. “He doesn’t take me into his confidence… I can’t help you.”
Narrowing my eyes at the blatant lie, I step forward. Moving in front of me, Cub presses his palm to my chest to halt my advance. Fret, Lily’s middle brother and a current Shamrocks prospect, comes up behind me and grabs a handful of my cut. Our other prospect, Isaiah, hooks his arm through mine. As much as it infuriates me to ignore my need to slaughter this lying motherfucker, I know they’re right.
I clench my fists and force myself to stay where I am.
Once he’s satisfied that I have myself under control, my technology officer leans into me and whispers, “You can’t kill him… not yet anyway, ’cause we need his help… I’ve got the schematics for the house. It’s a fuckin’ fortress. Reinforced everythin’ … basically bomb-proof glass, state-of-the-art security, a comprehensive system with a live-feed that’s monitored on site and off. If the plans lodged with council are to be believed, this joint is ready for the Rapture.”
“So what?” Breathing hard, I glare at him. “There’s gotta be a way in… nothin’s completely impenetrable.”
“I can’t find a way that doesn’t put Anna at risk.” Cub shakes his head when I open my mouth to argue the point. His gaze flits to Isaiah and then Fret. Even though Lily’s brother rankles at being kept out of the loop, he remembers his place, and allows Isaiah to lead him away so me and Cub can have our conversation in private. “Shit’s complicated.”
Grinding my teeth, I force myself to exhale before I tell him, “Uncomplicate it, ’cause I’m not leavin’ Lily with him a second longer than I have to.”
“It’s not that simple,” Cub protests.
“Stop dancin’ around the fuckin’ point.”
Anxiety emanates from the normally easy-going redhead as he shoves his tablet in my hands. I scan the screen, reading the text messages he’s opened. They’re obviously from Lily’s phone. When I reach a thread between my woman and her stepmother, I point at the last message.
“What’s this bullshit?”
“That’s a text Charlie sent to Anna this afternoon tellin’ her to head home without an escort.”
“Impossible.”
“I double checked, it’s legit. Charlie’s phone was used to send that message after the Special Response Unit locked down the compound.”
“There’s no way Charlie sent that message. Not at the time it’s saying, anyway.” I scrub my palms over my face, suddenly tired of the never-ending club drama that always seems to blow back on my woman. “She was by my dad’s side from the minute we were raided until me, Slash, and Toker were loaded into the paddy wagon. I saw her with my own eyes. Charlie. Did. Not. Text. Lily.”
“I know.”
“Brutus was missin’, though.” We exchange looks filled with a mixture of suspicion and suppressed anger as I say what we’re both thinking out loud. “Seems like our prez is up to his old tricks.”
“Yep.”
“Need that to stay between the two of us, at least until we have our Cherub back… maybe even after then.”
Cub inclines his head. “I’ve got your back, no matter how you choose to handle him.”
“Appreciate it, brother.” After handing his tablet back to him, I return my attention to our guest. The Hudson brothers are still toying with Hugh. They’ve added a couple cuts to his pretty-boy face and carved a shamrock in the side of his neck. Hunter’s deft hand is adding a matching one to his cheek. Crossing my arms over my chest, I wait until he’s finished before informing them, “Needa speed things up, fellas. I’m anxious to get my woman back.”
“What do you want to know?” Hugh babbles.
“We want to know how to get inside that house without Lily gettin’ hurt.”
“I can show you,” he offers in a rush. There’s calculation in his gaze when he adds. “But you’ll have to take me with you.”
“No,” I bark at the same time Slash drawls, “Sure.”
The look that Hugh shoots at me is victorious, even if it dulls quickly when Hunter adds a stem to the shamrock he’s carved in his face. While Hugh whimpers and whines, Slash unhooks the chain tethering him. Hands bound with cable ties, he drops to the concrete floor like a sack of potatoes. His knees take most of the impact, the rest of the momentum is absorbed by his face. The agonised scream that’s ripped from his mouth makes me smile.
My grin widens further when I pounce on him and he cries out again. Gripping his hair, I pull his head back at an awkward angle. Hunter kneels next to him and presses his blade to Hugh’s throat in silent warning.
“Tell us how we get inside.”
“Fuck. You.” He spits the words at me.
I punch him in the mouth.
Bloodstained foam bubbles out of his gaping maw, and his two front teeth follow. I don’t know if the blood he’s choking on is from the damage caused by the bullet hole I added to his gut or the Hudson brothers’ ministrations, and I don’t care.
All I want is information about how I can get Lily back unharmed.
“You must know that you’re dead if anythin happens to my woman?”
“Fuck Anna. She’s more trouble than she’s worth.”
Another quick left-jab to Hugh’s mouth loosens a new tooth. As more blood runs out of his mouth, the incisor slowly dribbles down his chin. “I’m losin’ patience with you. Do I need to start peelin’ fingernails for you to cooperate?”
“Venom,” Cub says my name with alarm.
I wave off his concern, then flip Hugh onto his back. Shoving him flat, I jam the sole of my boot across his throat. As I lean forward, slowly shifting my weight onto one leg, Hugh flops beneath me like a dying fish. He hits at my denim covered ankle. Scratches pointlessly at the thick material. Flails around in panic. I apply more pressure. Terror flashes in Hugh’s eyes. The blood running out of his nose picks up pace.
Slash comes up behind me. He drops to his haunches on the opposite side of me and Hunter. The surgical scalpel he’s holding gleams in the fluorescent light as he examines it. “Whaddya think, Venom? Should I take an eye or do ya reckon he could rock a coke nose?”
“Like a single nostril?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“You think you have the knife skills to pull off somethin’ like that without accidentally killin’ him?”
Scowling at my lack of respect for his craft, Slash tilts his head to the side and holds his hand out flat, palm down, over Hugh’s face. He wedges the handle of the scalpel between his thumb and index finger, then he uses the next finger to flip it over his knuckles. Repeating the movement with each finger, he swaps hands and continues until the scalpel reaches his pinkie. Smirking, my best friend flips the blade one last time.
It lands, sharp edge down, impaled in Hugh’s cheek.
Slash shows me his hands. “Not one nick.”
“Impressive, brother.”
“Givin’ him a coke nose would be easy.”
“If you say so.” I redirect my attention to Hugh. He blinks up at me with alarm in his eyes. Blood wells around the scalpel blade and runs down into his ear. Pressing my weight forward, I enquire in an innocuous tone, “What do you think? Could he give you a coke nose without killin’ ya?”
Hugh shakes his head and Slash scoffs. When our captive pats my ankle in the universal sign for submission, I ease off his throat. Grumbling under his breath, Slash pulls the scalpel out of Hugh’s face. The mangled mobster cries, his body wracked with tremors as he clutches his bound hands to his gut wound. Me and Hunter barely have time to step out of the splash zone when Hugh rolls to the side and vomits all over the concrete.
I roll my eyes at Slash when he turns green. “You can carve up someone’s face without a second thought, but the sight of a little spew has you goin’ out in sympathy.”
“Shut up,” he mumbles, then he gags.
Slapping a hand over his mouth, Slash darts toward the door that leads into Sander, Cub, and Fret’s house, dry retching all the way. Our brothers laugh, their amusement growing louder when the sound of our newly appointed sergeant-at-arms vomiting reaches us.
“Tell me how we get into the house without puttin’ Lily at risk?”
This time, Hugh doesn’t bother trying to fool us.
He shares his insider information in a rush. “Alex scrimped on the back-up generator. Left it vulnerable to sabotage.” When he trails off, I take a step closer to him. He crosses his arms over his face, pressing one of his forearms to his punctured cheek. I can barely hear him as he blurts out the other weakness in Alex’s preparations. “The generator is in the shed that runs along the back fence. A pair of bolt-cutters will get you access… you can drain the fuel from it, then take out the power to the house. All of the systems will go down and the security shutters will automatically lift—that was a fire-safe override the council insisted on. With the perimeter monitors down and no way to get his security system back up and running, Alex won’t know which way you’re coming from. He’ll try to cut and run, and Anna will take him down easily.” Pride ripples through as he voices his awe at my tough woman. “It’ll be like taking candy from a baby since he’s got some misguided belief that if he treats her better this time, she’ll actually fall in love with him.”
I’m rendered mute by his admission about Alex.
Maybe I’ll get Lily back in one piece?
“How many men does he have with him?” My tech officer continues the interrogation when it becomes clear that I’m not capable of it. “What are their roles in all this?”
“As far as I know, there’s only one other person there.” Hugh drops his arms to look at Cub as he tells him, “He sent the other ones away… didn’t like the way they were looking at Anna.”
Relief blooms in my chest.
I guess Alex’s one-eyed obsession with Lily has more than one silver lining.
Still, the idea of my sweet thing being left alone with her rapist makes my mouth run dry. My head pounds with rage. Determined not to spiral into an episode and derail our progress, I settle for digging the toe of my boot into Hugh’s ribs. “If this goes pear-shaped, we’ll be takin’ your eye and fuckin’ up your nose. You feel me?”
“Yeah.”
Leaving Fret and Isaiah to gag Hugh and chain him to the ceiling again, I head over to the stash of weapons our prospects retrieved for us after we realised that Lily has been abducted by the Maddison clan.
“Nice of you to return,” I tease Slash when he stumbles over to me. Sporting a freshly washed face and minty breath, he’s still green around the gills. “I hope you’re ready for your close up.”
“Fuck up,” Slash snaps in his gruff voice. “Wait ‘’til I tell Cherub that you’ve been givin’ me shit all day.”
“Wait ’til I tell Lily that you were off brushin’ your teeth while I organised her rescue.”
“Wait until I tell her that you two found time for jokes while she was missing,” Hunter interjects. He slams a semiautomatic against my chest, then does the same to his brother. “Both of you better sleep with one eye open because she’s goin’ to be out for blood.”
Ducking my chin to my chest to hide the chuckle that’s trying to escape because it feels out of place to laugh when Lily is still in danger, I bunch my hands into fists and give myself a second to pull my shit together.
Once I’m steady, I offer him a tight smile. “No one likes a snitch.”
“Not true,” Hunter quips with a half-smile. “Anna adores me.”
The energy in the garage shifts as Fret uses the butt of his gun to knock Hugh unconscious.
Knowing that it’s time, I pull my game face into place, and so does Slash. My other brothers crowd around us. We’re ready. The five of us are anxious to get into position, while Cub, who’s staying behind, makes sure we’re operating in optimal conditions. He’s in charge of logistics and keeping Hugh alive, since we’re going to have some explaining to do when Brutus realises that I shot the son of the underboss of the Maddison clan in the gut.
Shooting and torturing him is bad enough.
Killing him would start a war.
If my gut instinct is accurate, we’re on the cusp of war anyway…
The real question is what side our president will fall on when it starts.
“Well then.” Fret breaks the silence with a snarl that doesn’t bode well for Alex when we get our hands on him. “Pull it in, brothers.”
The six of us—me, Slash, Toker, Cub, Isaiah, and Fret—form a circle and thrust one hand, palm down, into the middle.
“Brotherhood ’til death,” I declare. “Deal the devil all-in. Only death deals out.”
“Brotherhood ’til death.” My brothers repeat the Shamrocks creed back to me in unison. “Deal the devil all-in. Only death deals out.”
“Brotherhood and our little Cherub ’til death,” Slash adds. When our gazes lock across the huddle, my best friend shrugs. “She’s one of us, Venom.”
“Always has been,” Hunter adds.
Fret’s gaze shines, the muscle in his jaw working overtime, and he nods harshly.
With a chin lift, I repeat Slash’s sentiment. “Brotherhood and our little Cherub. Deal the devil all-in. Only death deals out.”
Our battle cry resonates around the garage as we strap on our bullet-proof vests, sync up our audio communication, and arm ourselves to the teeth. It echoes even louder in my head as Cub sends through the layout of the house to our phones and we quickly come up with a strategy to surround the house then simultaneously breach it from multiple angles. With Cub’s assurance that he’ll have the power cut by the time we get there sustaining my belief in our plan, I follow my brothers as we split into two groups and we pile into two of the blacked-out vans the Shamrocks use for jobs that call for a little more subtlety than the rumble of Harley pipes.
I’m on autopilot when we arrive at the house where my woman is being held captive.
It’s ordinary looking.
Offering no signs of the depraved soul hiding out inside.
I crouch down behind a bush in the front yard with Slash.
Toker slips off into the dusk to act as our sniper.
Hunter, Fret, and Isaiah make quick work of the back-up generator, draining it of diesel and ripping a bunch of hoses out, just to be on the safe side. They radio that it’s done, then take up their designated positions covering the back exits. The confirmation comes from Cub that he’s cut the power seconds after the house falls into darkness.
“Let’s go.”
Slash nods, then he surges forward. I take his six, handgun drawn, semiautomatic rifle slung across my body. Grinding my teeth, I hold back while I wait for his all-clear to head around the corner after him. Once he waves me forward, I follow, uneasy in the role of VP after spending the past few years as a Shamrocks enforcer.
We repeat the same manoeuvre at the next junction.
As Slash moves ahead, I watch his back and wait for his signal.
“ Aw, hell no.” The humour in Slash’s voice stops me in my tracks just as I round the corner. Being behind him, I can’t see what’s got him biting back laughter at a time like this and I’m about to tell him to get his shit together when he plants his hands on his hips and shakes his head. “Way to destroy my saviour complex, little Cherub.”
The moment he says Lily’s nickname, I’m on the move. I close the distance between us, reaching him at the same time as he carries my woman around the side of the house. Her hair is wild, and she’s wearing a pair of men’s boxer shorts and a wife-beater. Her face is a mess of swelling and bruises. She pushes against Slash’s chest, dropping back to her feet when she sees me. There’s a clear limp hitching her stride as she heads for me. A bite mark bleeds on her neck, her earlobe is torn with similar teeth marks, and the gun she clutches to her chest isn’t hers.
Despite the obvious damage, my eyes eat up the sight of her, and relief engulfs me.
Lily’s okay.
I might’ve failed her, but she saved herself.
My feet have a mind of their own, covering the rest of the path in a rush, and I gather her in a bear hug. Lily’s arms immediately close around my neck, her thighs wrap tight around my hips when I lift her in the air. Heart racing, I hold her in an iron grip as I rush out of the yard to the closest van.
Through my earpiece, I hear Toker’s voice. “We’re inside. Back door was already open. Place is empty… rear gate is ajar. Think we missed ’em.”
“Shit.” Slash unclips the receiver attached to his shoulder to bark an order at Lily’s cousin. “Wait there, I’m comin’ to you now.”
“No,” Lily whimpers. She buries her face in my neck, her next words muffled. “He was there. I-I… I shot him.”
The despair in her voice hurts my heart. Failure hollows out my stomach. I wrench open the sliding door to the van and climb inside. My arms refuse to let her go, so I settle in the seat with Lily on my lap. After I pull the semiautomatic over my head and drop it onto the seat behind us, she snuggles against my chest again. I hold her tight while trembling racks her body and she hides her face in the crook of my neck to sob silently.
A damning silence grows within the vehicle until it’s too heavy to ignore.
Even so, I bite back the questions on the tip of my tongue while I wait for her to regain control of herself. There’s nothing Lily hates more than feeling weak, and I have a nasty feeling that Alex’s escape will haunt her more than anything else that happened tonight.
We need to find him.
Finish him.
A few minutes later, when the shaking stops, I chuck a finger under her chin and force her to meet my eyes. “How bad was it?”
Her blue gaze fills with tears, but Lily blinks them away. “Not as bad as?—”
“Shit, Venom, she’s got a gun.” Slash announces as he climbs into the seat behind us.
Lily laughs when he gingerly plucks the forgotten handgun from her grip. It sounds as genuine as we can expect in the circumstances, although the nonchalant shrug she offers Slash when he softly scuffs his palm over the top of her head is obviously fake.
“I used it to shoot Alex a couple times after I handcuffed him to his bed.”
My best friend shakes his head at us, slowly breaking into a grin that dies as her unspoken accusation hangs between the three of us.
Lily handcuffed him.
She shot him.
We let him get away.
“That’s my woman. Tough as fuckin’ nails.” I kiss her hard, trying to distract her from the reality of our fuck up, only to pull away when she winces. My thoughtlessness has made her split lip bleed. I can taste her blood on my tongue as I say, “Damn… I’m sorry, metukà shelì. ”
The expression that invades Lily’s battered features tells me that her reaction wasn’t just caused by the kiss. Ghosts of her trauma stare back at me from her brilliant blue eyes. She curls in on herself, shaking her head to ward off the question she knows I’m going to ask next.
“Did he?” When Lily averts her gaze, looking anywhere but at me, I lift my eyebrows. “Lily…”
She shakes her head faster. “No… not… exactly.”
A growl rumbles in my chest at the implications contained within her halting revelation. I try to keep my reaction from escaping, but it’s impossible. The knowledge that he has violated her again sits like a boulder in my gut.
I failed her.
And, if Lily hates her own perceived weakness, then it must be said that I hate knowing that I put her in a position to feel weak.
The fiasco at the clubhouse should never have happened.
How the fuck were we able to be ambushed on our own turf?
“I’m sorry, I should’ve?—”
“Stop,” Lily tells me, laying a finger across my lips. “It’s not your fault.”
As someone with a torch approaches our van, illuminating the interior, Lily’s expression morphs into concern. For a moment, I’m confused at her reaction, unable to decipher the reason for the change in her, then she brushes her fingertips over the bruise at my temple.
“What happened to you?”
I’m about to explain the diversion that was put in place at the compound when we’re interrupted. Brutus shoves his head inside the van. He glares at Slash, then at me, before surprise invades his stern features when he spies Lily sitting on my lap.
“Not a fan of bein’ kept in the bloody dark,” he announces in his gravelly voice. “This is my club. I should?—”
I cut him off before he can settle into his whining. “There’s a whole host of things I’m not a fan of right now… startin’ with your behaviour back at the compound. Wanna explain why you tried to stop Cub from accessin’ her tracker? Woulda thought you’d do anythin’ to get your daughter back?”
Lily’s spine stiffens when I mention the tracker. I wrap my fingers around the alien charm hanging from the necklace I gave her when she first got her learner’s permit, offering her a wordless response to the question she’s about to ask. Although I can feel her irritation at my sneakiness, she turns her wrath on her father. “Is that true? If I find out you’ve tried to?—”
Her rant is cut off by Toker, Fret, Hunter, and Isaiah returning to the van. Lily’s cousin is on a mission, his fingers linked at the back of his neck, as he catches sight of Brutus and stalks over to us.
“The whole fuckin’ house is clear. There’s no one there, but somethin’ went down. One of the bedrooms has blood all over the bed. She must be hurt bad . I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him when I find him.”
“It’s not my blood. I shot him.”
Toker stares through the dark at Lily, blinking twice as if he can’t believe his eyes. He crosses himself as he strides through the group to stand in front of her. “I like knowin’ you made him bleed, lil cuz, but the fucker’s escaped…. must’ve had help.”
After peering at Lily’s face, he kneels down on the bottom step and gently puts his big paws on either side of her head to examine her injuries. Satisfied that she’s okay, he kisses her forehead. “How bad is it? You need the hospital, or will Doc do?”
His questions drive home how hard I’ve dropped the ball. While I’m asking Lily about Alex and taking potshots at her father, Toker is picking up my slack, and taking charge of my woman’s needs. Despite the sense of failure that’s making my gut churn, I offer him a sharp nod of appreciation.
Toker salutes me.
There’s sympathy in his gaze.
I ignore it.
I don’t deserve his understanding, not after letting down his cousin again.
“I’m fine,” Lily declares. She rests with her back to my chest and pulls my arms around her middle. With her fingers linked in mine, she tells Toker, “Doc can check me over, but I mainly need a shower, some pain relief, and sleep… wouldn’t mind some answers to Zeke’s questions as well. Why did you try to stop Cub from tracking me?”
After exchanging a loaded look with Toker when Lily’s comment about answers hangs in the air, I wait for Brutus to finally step up today. From the rear, I feel Slash stiffening, readying himself for whatever outburst is sure to come from our president now that Lily’s drawn attention to his strange behaviour in front of everyone.
It doesn’t eventuate.
Instead, Brutus prods his twin brother with his elbow, who then nudges Toker’s father with his shoulder, and the trio of old-timers turn on their heel and leave in the direction they arrived without saying another word.
“Fuck,” Slash grumbles. “He’s not even tryna hide it.”
“Hide what?” Lily asks.
I narrow my gaze at my best friend when it looks like he’s about to fill her in, then I swing around to face the windscreen. As Fret and Isaiah load up the other van, Slash kicks his legs up on the seat next to him while Toker rounds the front of our vehicle and hauls himself into the driver’s seat. Hunter climbs inside, slamming the door shut behind himself.
Being a recent patch, he should be helping the prospects, but it’s clear he has something to say. In his face, a younger version of Slash’s, I find the same helplessness that’s infiltrating me in the wake of Brutus’ strange behaviour. He offers Lily a nod, rage flaring in his gaze as he takes in the marks that cover her, then squats down on the floor at the rear with a semiautomatic clenched in his hands so he can keep a lookout through the tinted back window.
“We gotta find this cunt fast,” Hunter tells us all in a terse tone as Toker starts the drive back to the compound. “Found a telescope and a shrine to little Cherub in the front room… It’s sick. He needs to be put down.”
“Yeah,” I agree easily. My arms tighten around Lily as the full extent of his observation sinks into my head. A shrine. While I figured his men had been keeping an eye on our house—why else would they go to all the trouble to build a fortress across the park from us—I don’t want to think about what a shrine would entail or how he could’ve created one in the few hours since his release. “Slash, text Cub and have him scope out the house and catalogue its contents tonight. If anyone can find a lead, it’ll be him. If he needs help, you and Hunter can come back tomorrow morning.”
At my order, the final vestiges of tension seem to leave Lily’s body. She turns sideways on my lap, leaning her entire weight on me as she rests with her cheek against my shoulder. Content to just hold her, knowing that we have a shitty conversation ahead of us at the clubhouse, I tilt my head back and stare at the roof.
“I know there’s more to this situation than I’ve been told.” Hunter voices his suspicions a few minutes later.
“Need ya to turn that bloodhound nose of yours off for now, little brother,” Slash replies before I can. “Let’s get Cherub back to the compound and checked out by Doc before you start your head games.”
“Sure,” Hunter responds immediately. “But I need to be filled in soon, though… I’ll miss vital?—”
This time, I’m the one who cuts him off. “Look, sometimes patterns bring more answers than we have questions for… just give us a day or two before you go all Spencer Reid on the situation.”
Hunter’s unbridled indignation flows from the back of the van. He isn’t a fan of Criminal Minds or the character who dampens all the panties of the nerd-loving girls. Unfortunately for him, his one-track, obsessively compulsive mind, and his ability to see patterns where the rest of us see chaos, has earnt him the comparison a time or two.
“I hear ya,” he mumbles. “But, there’s no need to be an arsehole about it… I’ll rein myself in until you give me the go-ahead.”
“Did you really just call him Spencer Reid to his face?” Lily whispers against my neck.
“Yeah.”
She snorts.
Slash chuckles from behind us.
“Do you realise that he’s going to gut you in your sleep and make me watch?”
“ Nah ,” I reply in a too-loud voice. “I’ll leave a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle near the door to distract him… we’ll have plenty of time to escape.”
“I can hear you,” Hunter snaps. “And you should know that it’d take more than a thousand pieces to distract me long enough for you to get away… I have an eidetic memory, dumbarse.”
Lily’s shoulders shake as she bites back her laughter.
“Do you reckon he’ll go vertical or horizontal with the gut cut?”
My woman breaks into full-blown giggles at my question, struggling to catch her breath as she tells me, “Definitely horizontal.”
“Least one of you has a brain,” Hunter mutters. “Who the hell disembowels someone with a vertical incision?”
“Horizontal disembowelment, it is,” I inform the van. “Spencer Reid has spoken.”
From the driver’s seat, Toker laughs, then Slash joins him with a booming chuckle. Lily is too far gone to chastise me for taunting Slash’s little brother. Eventually Hunter can’t contain himself any longer, and he starts muttering under his breath about idiots who think Criminal Minds is based in reality.
It’s a light moment in a whole heap of darkness, but it’s enough for now.
Because shit’s about to get real grim as soon as we step foot inside the clubhouse.
I’m not looking forward to explaining to the few brothers that I trust that I believe one or more of the Shamrocks had something to do with today’s events… and that my gut is warning me that our president is the driving force behind the entire debacle.
Including the abduction of his own daughter.