29
"Are you really sure you need it?"
"That's none of your business is it, partner? We agreed on this long before I handed you your wife on a silver platter. You don't want to be the sort of man who goes back on his promises, do you?"
"What if I paid you more?"
"Well, for one thing, it'd help if you paid me the rest of what you owed me at all. And if you wanna give me a nice bonus for doing such a stellar job, I won't say no. But we agreed on that toe, and I'm taking that toe," Silas said, his eyes glinting with annoyance.
He did not like the way his client was looking from his shivering, gagged wife to Silas and back again. Gabriella had finally stopped screaming through the dirty rag that stuffed her throat; her eyes, wide and wild, were glued on Jeremy.
As well they should have been; in a twist of irony that anyone could admire, the man she feared most had suddenly become the only thing between her being the proud owner of ten toes and losing one of her little piggies. But, really, nothing Jeremy could do would save her or her toes; Silas needed one, and he always got what he needed, one way or another. He clicked the razor-sharp shears in his hand idly.
"C'mon, I don't know what weird fetish you have but … "
"And it's none of your business what weird fetish I have. I'm taking one of those toes, and you can't stop me," Silas said, growing weary of the conversation, which had already taken up too much of his time. He stepped forward to Gabriella, who let out another strangled shriek.
Jeremy stared at his wife as Silas grew closer to her; she was shaking her head wildly, her eyes pleading with him, begging him to help. Her swollen eyes, black and blue and steadily looking worse. He'd done that to her. He could remember doing it. He could remember what it felt like. It had felt so good. Now he felt … almost guilty.
All those other times, he'd been right to hit her. She'd deserved it. She'd deserved it this time, too. But maybe he'd gone a little bit overboard. It looked like her nose was broken, and two huge cuts on her face would need stitches. Not that she'd get them. Not professional stitches, anyway. He couldn't exactly take her to a hospital. But he wasn't altogether inept with a needle and thread, and he figured he could make do as well as any ER scrub.
The shears glinted in the sad, dusty light of the shack. Gabriella was kicking her bound feet uselessly, hopelessly. Her eyes never left Jeremy's. He closed his eyes, but he could still see them in his vision, calling to him, begging him to stand up and, for once in his life, take care of his woman. Because she was his woman. His. And no one else's.
And that meant that Jeremy could do whatever he wanted to her, but no other man should lay a hand on her. Not in friendship, not in love, and not in violence. It was wrong for him to let Silas do that to her. Determined, and putting on his best Colorado PD face, he stepped behind Silas and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder.
"You better listen to me now, buddy," Jeremy growled. This Silas dude seemed tough, but how tough could he actually be? And it wasn't like Jeremy needed him anymore; Silas had handed Gabriella back to her rightful owner, that was all. He'd get his money. Jeremy thought of it as a reward for finding an errant puppy. That was the extent of what Silas was owed, and Jeremy was going to enforce it. Just like he enforced law on the streets and obedience in his home.
Silas felt the cop's hand settle on his shoulder. Something in his chest bubbled up, grew twice its size, threatened to burst. He did not like being touched. Not from behind like that. And he did not like being called buddy, especially not in a tone of voice like that.
Silas made a snap decision. He rarely made such decisions, but when he did he trusted the instinct. Turning on his heel, he felt the satisfying crunch of metal on flesh, heard the sound of meat being ripped, saw Jeremy's eyes like two broken saucers before him. Silas forced the shears, lodged deep into the cop's abdomen, to open up, spreading the hole until it gaped like the mouth of hell.
Jeremy's lips opened in a soundless cry, his hands falling to his gut. Silas withdrew the shears, now bloodied and needing a cleaning. That was a shame. Hot, red blood began to spread across Jeremy's shirt, right in the center, his stomach ripped open, pain dancing through him like a fevered ballerina. He'd never known such pain.
Blackness flooded his eyes, and his head spun, began to detach from his shoulders. It was as though he could look down and see himself, his hands desperately but uselessly clutching his open flesh as if he could hold the wound closed even as his blood poured from him, dripping onto the ground. He saw Gabriella, her eyes closed, tears streaking clear paths across her bloodied face as she fell to the side and heaved with sobs. Silas before him, looking idly down at the shears, then back up at Jeremy expectantly. Waiting for him to fall down, pass out, and die.
Jeremy didn't want to give him the pleasure, but he had no choice. First, he crumpled to his knees, now staring up at the devil who'd did this to him, hating the feeling of kneeling before Silas almost as much as he hated the feeling of his life leaving his body. He didn't want to die like this, in this submissive pose, like he was about to lick his boots.
Perhaps this is what you deserve though, Jeremy's mind flickered, the thought completely blindsiding him. He crumpled next onto his hands, then onto the floor, where his blood pooled around him, filling the room with the smell of metal. He didn't have many thoughts after that. The room spun, then disappeared, and then everything disappeared, even his thoughts. Life pulsed through him once, twice, three times … and then stopped. As suddenly as his life had begun, it was over.
Silas shook his head, looking around for a rag to wipe his shears on. The body count was rising. He hated cleaning up after killings. He briefly considered getting rid of the chick now, before she could cause any trouble. Mostly just because it's easier to dispose of two bodies at once than one body twice.
But he figured it would be more helpful to have her alive in case of emergency. If none of his other little gifts to Reign would compel him to come save his damsel, her voice just might. He didn't worry about the other half of the money Jeremy owed him. He'd search the wallet, take what he found. He'd make out like a bandit regardless. This was better, anyhow. He never fully trusted the cop to keep his trap shut to his buddies on the force.
Gabriella stared at her husband's lifeless body, unable to breathe or swallow or do anything. He had been her last hope. Now she was locked up with this maniac who wanted to cut off her toes. And kill me, too, she thought, her mind growing hazy the more she looked at Jeremy, his hands, once so full of violent energy, now limp and shapeless, blood pooling around and between his fingers.
My husband is dead, she thought from somewhere far off. I'm finally safe.
Silas didn't see it, but as Gabriella fell away into her own mind, passing from consciousness to unconsciousness like a ghost passing through a wall, she was laughing.
30
Reign saw a dark shape emerging before him on the highway. It looked like a car, parked sideways across the road. As he got closer, he saw that that's just what it was. And as he got closer, his heart began to speed up even as his bike slowed down. It was a red car. A convertible. Tires shredded. Marks on the pavement, illuminated as his headlights got in range. He knew that car.
His hands trembled as the bike rolled to a stop and he placed his feet on the ground, reaching up to remove his helmet. What happened, he wondered, mind racing with awful possibilities. Whatever this was, it wasn't a natural hazard of the road. Those tires were more than popped; they were destroyed. All of them. And who would leave the car right in the road?
Someone who didn't have time to call a tow truck.
Or didn't care.
It was Gabriella's car. And she wasn't in it.
They were shitty tires, her phone didn't have service, she walked to get help …
But why wouldn't she walk back to town, in that case? There wasn't another place for miles, and he hadn't passed her on the fifteen miles between town and here. Reign pulled out his own phone, the same carrier and style that he'd given Gabriella. He had plenty of bars.
This was bad. This was very bad. Reign trembled, and thought, surprisingly, of his sister.
Not another, he thought, the idea bringing a kink into his jaw as he grit his teeth. I won't lose another woman I love.
He didn't protect his sister.
He wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.
Something awful had happened to Gabriella, and he wasn't just going to leave her to her shithead ex-husband's devices. Not like Miranda.
Kicking his bike back to life, Reign hooked around and sped back down the road; if ever there was a time he needed his club's help, it was now. He'd have every man scouring the town and everything in a hundred-mile radius, and by sunrise she'd be safe. It had to be so. He couldn't imagine the alternative … it wouldn't be right. He wasn't a good man, but he couldn't be so bad as to deserve this again.