Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
MERCER
I woke to the cold tongue of a puppy lapping at my face. I kept my eyes closed and let her lavish me with attention for a minute, then I wrapped my arm around the fur ball and rolled, play wrestling with her. I always wanted a dog. The time and place never seemed to align, but if not now, when? When would I allow myself to have just a single joy in this life if I didn’t finally give in?
My mother would have loved her, I think. She always was an animal person.
I rolled onto my back when my alarm started blaring. Another fucking day and… fuck. I didn’t want to face it. Thoughts of Bellamy kept me up last night, even long after I did a run to the store to grab a few things, hoping that would solve the tug on my conscience.
It’s funny how we all live with so many secrets in this house. It’s a constant game of tiptoe. But Bellamy? Her secret, the one she tried so fucking hard to hold close, was the easiest to read. All it took was observations. I would not tell, though I should. But it wasn’t my place. The only place I had in this house that involved her was protection, and that shouldn’t involve the feelings it provoked.
I showered, trying to ignore the sound of Bellamy on the other side of the wall. Then, I took Lady out for a bathroom break. It was Ace’s turn to cook, which worked out in my favor because by the time I finished with Lady’s outing and sat down at the table, Adam strolled in. He looked at the three of us, each already sitting down, and paused.
Had he forgotten he demanded she join?
A few blinks, then he spoke. “There is a dog in my dining room.” We were all silent. I was sort of hoping if I said nothing, the problem would go away. But then Lady barked, greeting him and expecting a pet, and well, he blew that hope to smithereens. His eyes fell to me, clearly knowing who owned it. How? I wasn’t sure. “You will keep your mutt away from the table.”
“Lady,” Bellamy whispered.
His head turned toward her. “Pardon?”
“Her name.” She toyed with her lip, looking afraid to speak. I wasn’t sure why; he would never hurt her. “It’s Lady.”
“Well, I see you and the dog are intimately acquainted. You should have no problem helping him keep Lady away from the table.”
“Yes, sir.” Her eyes looked up from the table before correcting, “Adam.”
“Good.” He pulled out a chair, and when she looked away, for the briefest of seconds, I swear I saw his eyes soften. Then the moment was gone and the hard wall was back in place. I was on to him. The only reason he wasn’t throwing a fit was because he knew the girl liked the puppy. He was just pretending to not care.
Forty minutes later, and everyone at the table had dispersed, including Lady, who followed Bellamy around like she worshipped her. It was my turn to do dishes, but Adam cleared the table. He had just put a pile of dishes next to me when I said, “Softy.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’re a fucking softy. If it was just me, you’d have that dog gone the second it stepped foot in this house. But she likes her, so you’re allowing it.”
He leaned a hip against the counter. “Would you rather I have you get rid of it? Because that could be arranged. I’m indifferent to the situation.”
“Too late. Your wife is in love, and you know how you get about females and their happiness.”
That might have been the wrong thing to taunt him about because a thousand emotions filtered over his face, before his brows pinched and his emotions turned hard. “Keep the dog in line, or I’ll take her to the pound myself.”
Had he forgotten how soft his wife had made him once? How he’d do anything for her happiness, even if it cost him his own? Bellamy may not have been Elizabeth, and she never would be. But fuck if she wasn’t a part of him now, filling the same role. Whether he intended to or not, I’d seen the momentary seconds of softness toward her.
“I’ll keep her out of the way.” I promised.
“And for fuck's sake, train her,” he growled before straightening his suit jacket and walking away.
Though he couldn’t see me, I shouted in his direction, “I planned on it!”
And I did. I already had her enrolled in training classes that started in a few weeks, and her round of shots would start in two days. It was the soonest the vet could get her in, and I didn’t see a reason to rush it if she was acting healthy. But now that I thought further into it, I wondered if she should be around Bellamy without her shots.
I pulled up my phone, doing a quick Google search, which eased my comfort a little. Then I went to my room and grabbed the stuff Bellamy would need for the day in order to care for the dog. It would be good for her. At least I hoped. At nearly a week here, all she did was lock herself away in that room. It was a shame, since the grounds had so much to offer here, and so many crevices to explore.
With an arm full of stuff, I knocked, then waited for her to answer. A minute later, she pulled open the door. The pup was right on her heels as she licked and smelled everything. I held up the armful of puppy care products, “I brought doggy daycare supplies.”
Her teeth tugged at her lip, and damn if it wasn’t tempting to reach up and save it. Her bad habit was becoming my obsession, and I knew how bad that was. That couldn’t let me fall victim to the lust it caused. But I felt like an unknowing fly stuck in a spider's web. The more I told myself to get thoughts of her out of my head, the more I was stuck in one spot.
Her hand swept toward the bed. “Go ahead and put it there. Do you want it back? Or is this mine to keep for the duration of my dog sitting duties?”
She was buzzing with excitement, even if she tried to play it off like this was a chore. I passed her on my way to drop off the stuff. “You can keep it. I’ve got enough shit for this little lady. She probably won’t use half of it.”
I flopped the stuff down, seeing her eyes go wide at the jar of vitamins I threw down with it. Yeah, little girl. I knew. And now she knew I knew. After she practically confirmed it last night, I couldn’t sleep. I ran to the store, picked up the vitamins because there was no way we weren’t taking care of our own in this house. She couldn’t hold her secret forever, and I wouldn’t either. But at least until then, she was taken care of.
“I—“
“Listen,” I cut her off. “It’s none of my business. But what is my business, are my best friends and their interests. Keep that in mind. I should be back early afternoon to pick up my little Lady. She can run this afternoon’s errands with me.”
Errands was such a loose word. But it was all part of the job I have and the life I keep.
“I’m going to tell him,” she sputtered.
I laughed. “Again, little girl, it’s none of my business. But my opinion? Y’all aren’t telling each other shit since you’re making no move to communicate with each other. It’s like walking on broken glass when you two are in a room together. Painful and sharp.”
“I can’t be kicked out yet.” I saw tears forming, and that was my cue to leave.
“Baby girl, you’re not going anywhere.”
I left it there, with the knowledge that I knew the secrets she kept, and went into work. The lies she told were a different project for a different day.
Three hours later, blood oozed through my fingers, and my cock was rock hard. It pulsed in sync with the fucker’s veins as his life flowed onto the cement floor. He was found along the gate late last night, snooping around, looking for an entrance point. That was reason enough to see him dead.
But the second, the one that made the death I vowed to issue more painful, was that he worked for Bellamy’s father. A low-level dealer looking to rise in the ranks. “You thought you could fucking touch her?”
“No,” he gasped, as I twisted the blade that protruded from his thigh. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“No?” I laughed, taking a droplet full of acid, and slowly dropping it into a wound. “That tattoo on your chest tells me differently.”
He screamed, cursed, and gagged from the pain, and it only caused me more enjoyment. Our men would never cave to such torture, but this guy sounded like a little girl, all sniffles and whines, tears and sobs. It was an embarrassment for me to witness, and for him to display.
“Shit. Shut the fuck up already. It was just a little drop. You’re not going to die.” Yet. But voicing that last word would only make the pansy cry harder.
I put down the acid and grabbed the back of a wooden chair. I turned it as I dragged it toward the guy. Stopping in front of him, I sat on the chair backwards, staring into his bloodied face, contacting the one eye that wasn’t fully swollen shut. I tilted my head as he leaned as far back as he could, desperate to get away from me.
“Hey, so do you happen to know what he has planned?” I perched my chin on my fist that was resting on the back of the chair. “I’m really interested.”
His head shook as he struggled against his binds. Red tinged drool rolled down his chin. Reaching forward, I took some of his shirt and wiped his chin. “Let me get that for you.”
He whimpered, and I fought not to burst into laughter because I was having too much fun. Making grown ass men cry was the main reason I was in this business. The other? The feel of blood dripping between my fingers made my cock hard to a degree no woman had.
I let time hold in suspense as I looked over my tray of tools, trying to decide which was the best option. How much pain could someone take before they died? I liked to push boundaries. There were no mercy kills. I would draw it out to the very last seconds until their heart gave out with their eyes locked on me. Some might call me ruthless, but the beast inside me strives with each drop of blood spilled.
I picked up my favorite tool and grinned. “Do you know what these are?” He wouldn’t. He clearly wasn’t skilled in the art of death like I was. “I call her Lizzy. She’s a Liston bone cutter and her work, fucking impeccable. Want to see?”
“I don’t have anything to tell you, man.” His chest heaved; his fear was so thick I could taste it.
I leaned over the chair, grabbed his hand that was tied to his chair arm rest. He tried to pull away, but the rope had no give. “Please, don’t. No, no, no.”
The scream filled the room as the tip of his finger rolled by my feet. I kicked it, disgusted it almost touched me. Fuck, if Lady was here right now, she’d be chowing down on a finger. I was thankful she stayed with Bellamy. “What about now?”
“Shit.” He sobbed, his head lolling to the side as he tried to look away. “He just wanted to know if there was a way in. How many guards you have. Your schedule.”
“And how much did you report back?” I snapped the bone forceps a few times, taunting him.
“Nothing.”
I reached over, moving up past the knuckle of the same finger, and snipped again. Ignoring the pants and howls of pain, I grabbed his thumb, crunching the bone until the finger gave under the pressure and its bloody pulp dropped to the ground. I reached for the third finger and he stopped me.
“Please. I called.”
“You think I fucking didn’t know that? I have your fucking phone and all the call logs. What I want to know is what you fucking said.” I shouted into his face, watching him flinch. I went for the third finger again, showing him I was fucking done playing.
“I told him everything I saw.” He sniffed. “Please.”
“What was everything?” I leaned back.
“The guards I counted. That you all leave her alone each day. That I hadn’t seen signs of her.”
It appears those were things we’d be changing. I couldn’t let them know how many men protected Bellamy, and I’d not let her be alone again. Out of sheer annoyance, I reached over the chair and snipped off his middle finger before he could even think about struggling.
“That’s all I said. I swear.” He gagged. Probably from the pain.
“If you barf on me, I swear to god the dick is next.” He turned his head as he tried to gather his composure. When he seemed to have himself collected, I continued, “I promise you, our girl is perfectly fine.”
“Our girl,” Adam’s voice broke in, and I turned, not even realizing he was standing there.
He walked toward us, a brow drawn up as he watched me, his fingers working on the sleeve of his shirt, rolling it to his elbow. I ignored his observation of my word slip. “We need to increase our guards, stagger rotations. She’s not to be left there alone.”
“She’s not alone. She has Max and Drew,” he pointed out.
“And her father knows she doesn’t have us on site.”
“Hm.” He pursed his lips as he watched the bloody man tied to the chair. “We’ll change that. May I?”
Adam’s chin jutted toward the man as he asked permission to touch. “What’s mine is yours.”
He nodded, his brows pulled for a moment, before he moved closer. I stood, taking my chair away to give him room. He didn’t spare me a glance as he stepped up, his back to me as he talked. “You get all you need?”
“Not much, but I don’t think he has anything else.” I grabbed a rag, wiping some of the blood off my hands. “He was a spy, but he never got inside the gate.”
“Perfect,” Adam growled, seconds before he unleashed his anger, pounding into the flesh of the battered man until his organs finally gave out and his heart surrendered. The man slumped dead. His face was unrecognizable in the chair he was still tied to. Adam pulled back. “You risked the safety of my wife. You deserved to die.”