Chapter 29
WARREN
For the next while, Jed and I beat the shit out of Blackwood as Mara watches with a twisted smile from the other side of the room.
That smile is what keeps me going. What makes me hit him just a little bit harder each time.
No one in her life ever cared enough to get revenge on her behalf until me, and I want her to know he’s gonna fucking pay for what he’s done.
“That’s what you get for putting your filthy fucking hands on my pregnant wife.” My brother punches him so hard I almost expect his fist to come out the other side. The both of us already have split knuckles, but that’s nothing compared to Blackwood’s face. “And this is for my momma.”
Such a spineless coward. To tie up two women and to kick a dog?
He’s a worthless piece of shit. And yeah, that lights my fire again.
My boot meets with his ribs, and I smile grimly at the resulting groan.
“That’s for hurting my dog.” Ready to wrap this up so we can get home, I spit on his fucking ugly face and reach for the shotgun.
Ever the voice of reason, Jedidiah stops me. “Not here, Warren. Let’s take him out back so the kids can’t hear.”
And he’s right, especially for Sullivan.
Only God knows what the boy’s been through, and the last thing he needs is to hear a dying, dickless man’s screams. There’s no convincing Mara to stay back with Pop and the children, though.
Truthfully, I don’t want her out of my sight so soon either, not when I’d only just found her again.
“Just gotta do something first.” I kick Blackwood’s disgusting, shriveling stump of a dick next to his head and force him to look at it.
“See this pathetic waste of skin? You’re never gonna use it to hurt any woman or child ever again.
” Stepping back, I pull out my revolver instead and cock the hammer.
“No,” he wheezes, sluggishly trying to move away as I take aim. But my trigger finger is too fast and accurate.
Boom!
The tiny dick explodes, raining bloody bits of flesh onto his face. “There,” I say coolly. Blackwood gapes like a fish out of water when he realizes he’s still alive. “Wouldn’t have been right to leave it for a wild animal to come across. Might’ve upset their stomach with how foul it is.”
“Mara, help—”
Blood flies from his filthy lips as my boot makes contact. I crouch down and stuff a dirty cloth so deeply into his mouth that he almost gags on it. “You don’t fucking talk to her, you son of a bitch. She’s not gonna help you. No one will.” I nod to Jed. “Let’s go. Time to end this.”
After we truss him up nice and good, I have Mara walk in front of us so she doesn’t have to see Blackwood’s face as we drag him deeper into the muddy woods.
At least I don’t have to worry about her catching chill now that the rain’s stopped.
That dress, though…once we’re back home and changed, that’s being burned. All of our clothes are.
“Here’s good,” I say when we reach a clearing. The densely packed trees and vegetation around it will work perfectly to dampen any noise Blackwood might make.
I shove him to the ground, and he glares at the three of us as best he can as blood drips into his squinty, swollen eyes.
Tied up nice and tight, there’s nothing he can do but slowly wiggle like the worm he is.
Add in the blood loss from his beatings and unexpected castration, and it’s clear that he might be going into shock if he isn’t already.
But if this has taught me anything, it’s never to take your eyes off the devil.
And if Montgomery Blackwood isn’t the very devil himself, I don’t know what is.
Mara leans into me, and I kiss the top of her head as I angle her away from him.
I’m so fucking livid. Because of Blackwood, yes, but mostly because of myself.
From guilt, I suppose. And rightly so. He stole my wife and child right from beneath my nose, and I fucking let him because I wasn’t paying attention.
And it wasn’t just my wife and child he had.
My new son Sullivan was trapped with him, too. God only knows how Blackwood treated him for his little face to be so sad.
Terrible, unthinkable things could have happened, both to her and the children.
But I’m so fucking proud of Mara for her quick thinking in leaving a trail for me to follow.
I don’t know how he found this cabin here in the woods, but I suppose the devil stoops to low ways when he sets his sights on something.
It’s not like he could bring her to the hotel in town in front of everyone.
That’s how I knew to take the road away from Hope’s Stand.
And that bloody scene I walked in on? I shouldn’t be surprised. Hell hath no fury like a woman avenging herself and her children. And she’s always been strong, beginning the moment I found her in the back of Crowley’s wagon. Even if she didn’t know it herself.
Jed takes a closer look at the bloody gash where Blackwood’s cock used to be and whistles, his shock now settled into a pained chuckle of amusement.
“Still can’t believe you sliced it clean off.
Smooth as cutting off a pat of butter.” Pretty sure his knees involuntarily crossed to protect his own crotch when he saw me do it.
Cutting off the ugly weapon of flesh Blackwood used to inflict pain on her for so long wasn’t in my plans. At least not at that moment…not before I’d had a chance to mete out punishment on him.
But once I saw his naked cock, shrunken and exposed, it was like my knife had a mind of its own.
No man threatens to force himself onto my wife.
And to watch her feed our baby and grow aroused by it?
Fucking jerk himself off at the sight of such a sacred moment between mother and baby he had no right to view?
No way in hell was I letting him keep it for one second longer.
Matter of fact, maybe his eyes need to go, too.
“Yeah, sometimes things just happen like that.” I run a hand up and down Mara’s back and smirk. “I halfway thought he’d bleed out on the trip back here.”
“Nah,” Jedidiah says as he brings out the rope. “Not unless you nicked an artery. He could live—well, he won’t, but any other man could—without a dick. Wouldn’t be much fun for him, but it’s possible.”
Mara holds me tighter, utterly fascinated as Jed fashions a noose. “You’re going to hang him?”
“To begin with,” I tell her, ignoring Blackwood’s whines. “Then we’re gonna use him for target practice.”
Jed swings the rope over a particularly thick branch and hoists himself off the ground, swinging back and forth to test its sturdiness.
“Hope you like dancing,” he tells our captive with a sharp grin, “because that’s the last bit of sport you’ll get to do.
But don’t worry, me and Warren’s gonna sing for you so you don’t feel like you’re performing alone.
Just keep the tempo steady for us, yeah? ”
Watching the son of a bitch dancing for death at the end of a rope while trying to dodge bullets is gonna be fun.
First from our revolvers, then the shotgun for last. He’s gotten away with this for far too long, and now it’s time to pay.
But first, I need to make doubly sure Mara understands what’s about to happen.
I rest my chin on her head and keep my voice low.
“This is gonna get ugly. Ugly enough to haunt a man’s dreams, let alone someone as sweet as you.
So it’s okay if you change your mind about wanting to stay.
Just say the word and I’ll bring you back to Pop and the children. ”
“No.” Anger flares so brightly in her beautiful blue eyes as she fists my shirt. “I want to watch him take his last breath. And then I want to go home and be with you. With my babies and Patches all safe around me.”
I ensnare her wrists and keep them pressed to my chest. “I want the same thing exactly, Mara. But what I don’t want is you getting bad dreams afterwards.
Once you witness someone’s life being taken like this, there’s no coming back from it.
You can’t unsee it. Can’t unhear or unsmell it.
A man going by way of hanging? It’s an ugly sight, the way the eyes and tongue bulge and the face turns an ungodly shade of purple and black. He’ll probably shit himself, too.”
All is silent but for Blackwood’s muffled screams behind his gag as I let Mara contemplate what I just told her. But by her dead-set jaw, I know her mind’s made up.
Hell, she knows it, too.
Voice resolute, she says, “If I don’t see him dead with my own eyes, I don’t know that I could ever completely believe I was free of him. And I need to know for myself that he won’t be chasing after me or our children just like you say Vengeance has been chasing after him.”
I settle my hands on her shoulders, shoulders that feel too slim to bear the burden of another man’s death.
But slight as she is, she has a spine of steel to rival any man’s.
And if she has nightmares after this, I’ll be there to hold her through them just like before.
“Okay,” I say simply. “If that’s what you want, that’s what it’ll be. ”
Her lips twist. “You may be right about one thing, though. I don’t know if I can stomach watching him hang.”
That’s what I thought. “Doesn’t have to be hanging. There’s guns, knives…hell, even a rock can bash a head in.”
She perks up at the gun. “Do you remember when you told me that you’d teach me how to shoot? We never got the chance, but I want to learn now.”
“I did say that, didn’t I?” I study her determined face, unable to hold back a smile at her sudden bloodthirstiness.
“I reckon you better show her how it’s done,” Jedidiah calls over, staring at Mara with brotherly pride. “Because if you don’t, I will.”