Chapter 15 #3
A protest quickly rose up amongst Fergal, Declan, and Tadhg, but Seamus quickly stood, the plastic crinkling under his feet as he did.
His right hand went for his left arm before he caught himself, likely realizing that touching the brand would only make it hurt worse.
Instead, he balled his fists at his side.
“I am not our father,” he told his brothers.
“From this moment forward, we will work together ta ensure that this fuckery never happens again. No offense,” he added to Steel.
“I demand yer loyalty too, and this is yer test. Take the brand so none of us forget and let this be done with. A clean slate, a purging to rid ourselves of our father.”
Steel’s eyebrows weren’t the only ones raised. Cage’s jaw was nearly on the floor. Poison looked a little too excited at being able to light the poker again.
As Seamus shifted to face his youngest brother, Steel caught sight of the red, ugly flesh of the man’s new brand.
Melanie Daphne Duncan
Steel’s guts twisted. The last time he’d seen her name like that, it had been on her tombstone.
“Do what you have to do,” Steel said, not really caring to whom. “Just get me a fucking name.”
Steel turned his back and left the room. He heard footsteps following him out the front door but didn’t stop to see who it was.
“You had Lucky build you a brand with Melanie’s name?”
Steel stared forward at the open lawn. It was well past sunset, and the rural area was pitch black. He couldn’t even see the trees that created an imperfect horseshoe around the property.
He didn’t look at Papaw as he answered, “I needed something of hers, and I already used the bullets on Shaw.”
The snort that came out of Papaw said that he didn’t believe that line of logic for a moment.
A masculine shout came from inside. What Steel had meant to be only a statement was turning into a branding party.
The Gavigan brothers were either going to love or hate their oldest brother after this.
So long as they kept up their end of the bargain and didn’t come after the VDMC or the NCMC for what was about to happen, Steel didn’t care what happened to the brothers.
“Have you given a thought to tomorrow?”
Steel’s cigar was down to a small stub, but the smell brought some semblance of calm to his current chaos. When Melanie was little, she used to crawl onto Steel’s lap and breathe in the smell of tobacco on his uniform. “You smell like the woods, Daddy!”
“None,” Steel confessed.
“Ollie got his cast off a few days ago.”
Steel nodded. Jenna had told him. They’d been sending each other voice messages through text rather than calling of late.
Lilly had also told Steel that texting was difficult for Jenna some days.
Voice to text or voice messages were the easiest form of communication outside of a phone call now.
Steel didn’t mind. In fact, he had discovered he loved the voice messages because he could listen to her voice over and over again without needing to bother her with a phone call.
Shit, he needed to get his phone back. He’d tossed it onto Kelly’s lap to make a point and then never collected it.
“You know what I think?” Papaw asked. Then he continued without pausing to see if Steel actually did want to know. “I think the idea of a clean slate is a good idea. I think that’s what you and Jenna need—”
Steel spun around and had Papaw pressed up against one of the Roman columns on the front porch before the man could finish his thought.
“Jenna and I do not need a reset. We might be apart right now, but that does not make her any less a part of me. I am hers and she is mine. There will be no ‘resetting’ that.”
The man was delusional if he thought Steel would ever let Jenna go. Not even death would keep them apart.
Papaw did not fight Steel’s hold on him.
“I’m not saying ‘reset’ as in ‘divorce’.
I’m saying, the two of you need something new, something beyond Mount Grove and the club.
Face it, Steel, Ghost can never be fully President so long as he is still in your shadow.
There are a lot of memories for you in Mount Grove.
Good memories, but there’s also a lot of bad.
I think you and Jenna need to think about being elsewhere, figuring out who the two of you are after suffering such a tragedy. ”
Steel stepped back, lowering his arm from Papaw’s chest. “You mean run away?”
“No, not run. Talk to her. Figure out what the two of you want to do.” He shrugged. “Or do nothing and ignore me. The choice is yours. All I’m saying is that a clean slate isn’t the worst suggestion in the world.”
The third and final masculine cry rang out behind them. Seamus hadn’t been kidding when he’d demanded his brothers also be branded.
Tomorrow was not Steel’s concern. Right now was.
The only thing that mattered was ending this.
He wanted Kelly and Eoin Gavigan to suffer, he wanted the shooter to learn the consequences of his actions, and if there was a driver, he wanted him to learn the error of not stopping his cohort from doing something so heinous.
Tomorrow? He’d figure that out later.
Returning into the house, Steel headed for the room where only eight captives remained bound. The two oldest and two youngest Gavigan brothers were now standing off to the side. Wendigo, Ranger, and Phoenix were hovering close, but not right on top of them.
Seeing Steel reenter the room, Seamus stepped away from his brothers and headed for Ghost and Steel in the center of the circle again. “Which one of you is in charge?”
Fuck, maybe Papaw had a point.
“I am,” Ghost answered as Steel said, “He is.”
Seamus turned his attention fully on Ghost. “I will fulfill the remainder of my bargain. I ask that me brothers be allowed to leave, now.”
“You understand that once you give us the name of the shooter, your father and brother will be tortured to death?” Ghost inquired. “You’ll be staying to witness that.”
Seamus nodded once, and then winced as though the action had jostled his wounded arm. “I would have insisted on stayin’ to watch regardless, hear. I want there ta be no question that either could come back ta try ta dethrone me.”
Steel thought the man thought highly of his small syndicate if he referred to his father’s position as worthy of a throne. Ghost must have too, because his eyebrows shifted up slightly, but otherwise he did not bring attention to the wording.
“Their breaths are numbered,” Ghost assured him. “Your brothers may go, but three of mine will stay with them until we’re assured the remainder of the bargain has been kept.”
“We already branded ourselves, but if it makes ya happy, yer people may follow them home,” Seamus said like he was containing an eyeroll.
At Ghost’s nod, Ranger, Wendigo, and Phoenix followed the three Gavigan brothers out.
Seamus waited until they were gone to say, “Eoin isn’t as smart as he thinks he is, now.
I didna know of the theft or the hits until afterward.
However, I ken me brother. If he needed somethin’ done fast, he would have sent Desmond. ”
Seamus pointed to the man in the middle left of the six bound soldiers.
The man instantly started to shake his head and shout muffled denials through his ball gag.
Eoin, who did not look good, moaned around his.
His eyes were glassy, his face both flushed and pale, and his chin, neck, and the front of his shirt were saturated with saliva and loose bile.
“You just had to shove a fucking cigar down his throat,” Ghost grumbled as he approached the doomed man. As soon as he removed the ball gag, Eoin turned and spewed a ridiculous amount of vomit onto the tarped floor. Sickly sweetness rose in the air as the man gagged on regurgitated puke.
Everyone in the splash zone took hasty steps back. Eoin’s entire body heaved with such force that he fell into the pile of sick, even as more continued to exit his mouth.
As foul as Steel found both the sight and the smell, he couldn’t help the twisted satisfaction at the man’s suffering. His Oscuro Maduro had not been sacrificed in vain.
The perimeter around Eoin widened when a moist, gassy raspberry was heard, like that of a dying balloon, followed immediately by Eoin’s pitiful groan as a bumpy bulge grew on the back of his pants. A dark stain then appeared, and an even ranker smell filled the room.
Most covered their noses, some gagged, and some had to leave.
Steel stormed over the soiled tarp to the man whose careless order had led to Melanie’s murder. He kicked Eoin in the gut, hard. Which induced another chain reaction out of both ends of him. “Is he right? Did you send Desmond to kill Baldwin?”
Eoin moaned. He tried to curl in on himself, but rope binding him to the chair wouldn’t let him.
“I ken me brother,” Seamus repeated. “Desmond’s his little bitch. Wouldn’t be surprised if he was fuckin’ him too, the little—”
“Finish that sentence, and I will cut that brand off your arm and make you eat it,” Steel snapped, pointing a finger at Seamus.
Cage crossed his arms over his chest. “And I’ll hold you down while he does it,” the normally carefree man added with a disgusted sneer.
Seamus ignored the threat. “Me point is, Desmond’s yer man. I’m sure of it.”
Steel left Eoin to his misery and walked over to the man Seamus had pointed out as Desmond. Pulling an unlit cigar from the inside of his coat, Steel held it up in front of the man’s gagged face. “Did you shoot my daughter?”
Desmond was young, maybe early twenties. His wide, panicked eyes landed on Eoin on the floor and then back to Steel. He didn’t seem to know what to say or do. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
A stain started growing on the crotch of his pants as yet another pungent odor filled the room.