Page 23 of Ruthless Reign

I didn’t respond.

“Come.” He kept his arm around me as he led me back to the living room, to the middle of the floor, where he waited for me to kneel. Waited for me to unbutton and remove my shirt, discarding it on the floor.

I heard the whisper of leather cord uncoiling from the back of his belt beneath his jacket and closed my eyes.

“When I am finished, you will organize a return for the Kents’ take, but you will not be seen or heard. I need your cover intact for our next move. I’ll not return here for the same reason and you should not allow any of my men to meet with you here, either.”

“Our next move?”

“You will know when I need you to know.”

If Séamas O’Sullivan had an idea, he wouldn’t wait long before acting on it. Which meant I had a finite amount of time to warn her. Rebecca needed to get as far away from Santa Clarita as possible. I could buy her some time, but not much. I prayed it would be enough.

I pressed Ma’s four leaf clover charm between my thumb and index finger as the first lash fell, slicing across ancient scars and fresh wounds, making new strokes in the macabre canvas of Da’s living work of art.

“Again.”

Dean tipped the Son back, replacing the soaked cloth over his face as Mikey slowly poured a three gallon jug of water over him. We listened to him gurgle and splutter and cough and choke.

“Enough,” Dad said from behind me and Dean fumbled the chair, dropping it and the man tied to it onto its back before picking it back up.

“Watch the fuckin’ chair, man,” Dad chastised. “Sloane’ll have my damned head.”

And she would. Ma already wasn’t fucking happy we brought the Son back to their place to interrogate, but options were limited. We still had no idea what the driver of that black SUV saw. It could be minutes or hours before the Sons made a move to retaliate.

We already evacuated all the wives and children. All except for Becca and Ma, who waited upstairs with Kaleb, Pope, and Zade, with a further six Saints manning the perimeter and the rest scattered throughout the city, watching, and waiting.

They got the bastard back upright and removed the cloth. Saliva-streaked water poured from his blue tinted lips as he hacked it all up and struggled to get air into his lungs. I didn’t miss how the whites of his eyes were turning yellow. The color seeping into his skin as well.

He didn’t have long. The trauma from getting hit by the car and the trauma we inflicted on him here over the last few hours were going to see him dead by dawn.

“Where is he hiding?” Dad asked for the eighth time. “Tell us and we’ll kill you quickly.”

A sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh left the Son’s lips and when he raised his head I saw amusement in his bulging red-veined eyes. “You think he tells us?”

He laughed once before the laughter turned into another coughing fit. “He doesn’t even tell his own flesh and blood where he hangs his hat.”

So Séamas O’Sullivan has blood here…

I filed that information away for potential future use as I lifted a hammer from the table by the door and strode over.

“Wait,” the Son choked out, but I’d already swung, and his knee shattered. His screams echoed in the room, ringing in my ears. I slapped a hand over his mouth, grabbing the weasel by his greasy fucking face to shut him up.

My girl was sleeping upstairs. Couldn’t have this fucker’s screaming waking her up.

“Shut. Up.”

I let go when his screams turned to broken, hysteric half sobs, half angry laughter.

Fuck. They were all completely insane.

“You don’t get it, do you?” the Son spat between bouts of laughter forced between clenched teeth. “There isn’t anything you can do. If Séamas wants it, he’ll have it.”

As we pulled this bastard apart, his accent only seemed to get stronger, to the point where I barely understood the fucker anymore.

“And he wants this place. He wants you on your fuckin’ knees!”

I backhanded him and his head snapped to the right. He spat blood onto the cement floor of Dad’s whiskey cellar.

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