Chapter 19 #2
They’d left Rank in the middle of the room, his arms and legs strapped to a chair and a large plastic tarp beneath him. I’m sure he knew exactly what it was for. We all knew what it was for. The room wasn’t soundproof, but then again, I didn’t need it to be.
I wanted everyone to know what happened to men who betrayed me. I would’ve gutted him right in the middle of Frank if I hadn’t been worried about cleaning up before Jeremy’s visit later.
I’d told my men not to rough up Rank too much when they found him. I needed him to be able to talk, and I wanted to be the one to deliver the damage.
He began sputtering protests as soon as he saw me.
“You can’t do anything to me. My ex will call the cops.
They’ll raid this place! You don’t have them in your pocket the way your father did.
” Ranke spat on the floor. “You have no idea what you’re doing, boy.
Without me, you’re going to lose half your crew. ”
Without a word, I pulled a knife from my pocket and buried it in his thigh.
Rank screeched in pain. Hack didn’t even flinch, but the sound of his typing got faster. It didn’t escape me how differently I treated Rank than I’d treated Devlin when I had them bound in front of me. From the moment I laid eyes on Devlin, the outcome had been inevitable.
“Who did you talk to, Rank?” I asked once he’d stopped his pointless screaming.
His chest heaved as blood soaked his dirty jeans. “Fuck you!” he hollered, then tried to spit on me. His aim sucked. The last time he’d spat on someone, he’d nearly lost an ear. The small tear caused by Devlin’s teeth was still healing.
I shook my head. Apparently, he hadn’t learned his lesson the first time.
I ripped the knife from his thigh, and he cried out in pain as I moved to the side of the chair, studying his torn ear. “Hey, what’re you—”
I sliced Rank’s ear clean off. His words dissolved into garbled screams as he wept and sputtered. I tossed it onto his lap, and the ear bounced off his jeans before landing on the floor with a wet plop. Blood streamed from the hole in his head.
I sat down across from him as I spun the blade between my fingers. “Who did you talk to, Rank?”
Rank’s head bobbed with each labored breath. His wet eyes shifted over my shoulder to where Devlin stood. Then he met my gaze. “This isn’t right. He’s standing there without a scratch while I—”
I slammed my fist into his gut, then his jaw. I wrenched his chin to the side until his good ear was facing me. “Who. Did. You. Talk. To?”
Rank was a whimpering mess now. He knew he wasn’t getting out of here alive, and he was fighting with whatever pride he had left. But that wouldn’t last. I dropped his chin, disgusted by the snot and tears streaking down his face. Blood dripped from his lips. I might’ve knocked a tooth loose.
“Your father is rolling over in his grave,” he snarled.
Now that made me smile. “Good.”
“I told him to kill you,” Rank lifted his chin despite the blood and pain. “He was thinking about it, too. He knew you’d destroy this crew.”
I really didn’t want to continue this conversation, but I’d entertain it for a little longer. I looked around before answering. “I don’t see much destruction, Rank.”
“You let the devil in,” he forced out. “He’s a cancer. You’re just too fucking weak to see it. Your father saw it in you. Tried to beat it out of you, too. But he was always too soft.”
Patrick had been a lot of things, but soft was not one of them. I was tired of being in this room. It stunk, and Rank’s voice was grating on my nerves.
“Who’d you talk to, Rank? This is the last time I’m going to ask before I start slicing off more body parts. You don’t get some final fucking manifesto to justify why you betrayed me.”
“It was about him!” He bucked against his restraints, and the chair nearly toppled over. Hack looked up from his computer with narrowed eyes. Blood bubbled from Rank’s lips as he talked. “They were supposed to kill Walsh.”
I didn’t care who he thought they’d come to kill—he’d been played by whoever he’d talked to. Someone definitely wanted me dead. Devlin had overheard fragments of conversation while they searched the warehouse for us.
“You start the fire too?” I asked.
He curled his lip. “You weren’t doing your job.”
That was confirmation enough for me. I stabbed the knife into his shoulder, in the exact place I’d been shot.
Rank went apeshit, screaming and tossing himself against the chair and his bindings.
I yanked the knife out, and blood arced through the air.
Rank jerked so hard, the chair finally toppled onto its side, and the newly-earless side of his head bounced off the floor with a dull thud.
For a moment, I thought he’d knocked himself out, like the dumbass he was.
But then he blinked a few times and started screaming all over again.
I shoved a wad of the plastic tarp in his mouth to muffle the sound. I couldn’t even hear myself think. “I asked who you talked to, Rank. It was a simple question that has a simple answer. I know you only have one ear now, but try to keep the fuck up.”
His bloody Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. I could see the fight leaving his eyes, like he knew the end was near. Blood streamed from his shoulder, and I didn’t even bother righting the chair at this point. After his screams had dissolved into whimpers, I tugged the plastic from his mouth.
“Who did you talk to, Rank?”
His lips trembled, and his speech was slow and slurred. “I hired the Russos.”
I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest. Hack met my gaze and nodded, then aggressive clacking filled the small space as he typed, the sound loud over Rank’s pained pants. The Russos were twins who murdered for hire, and they didn’t come cheap.
“How’d you afford the Russos?”
“I-I promised them the code to the warehouse on Fifth if they killed Devlin.”
Which meant the Russos would have made off with half our gun supply. “Why cut into your own profits? You get paid from those sales.”
“It was worth it to make you look incompetent.” He tongued the corner of his split lip. “I had a plan. I wanted you humiliated.”
Jace piped up from behind me. “You dumbass. You were playing checkers while Cian was playing fucking chess.”