Page 156 of Making Choices

The pride in his voice stirs my rage. I take hold of his jaw and push his head back. Right over his carotid, I make a series of shallow slashes. Once I’m satisfied with the clover shape, I add the stem, then I let go of his face.

Now he can die with the mark of the other family he betrayed on him forevermore.

“Your family, you said.” My anger is spiking fast as I grab a handful of iodised salt from the bag on the bench. Bear’s gaze is unsteady as he battles blood loss, but when he sees what I’ve got cupped in my hand, his feet scramble uselessly for purchase on the floor. I get up in his face as I say, “Tell me about them.”

“Fuck… you.”

The shamrock I’ve sliced into his neck oozes blood as I coat it with sodium chloride. Handful after handful, I cover every one of his wounds in the tortuous substance. I grin wide while he screams through the sting of the salt in his wounds.

Bear’s shrieks would wake the dead… if they cared enough to come to his assistance.

“The Maddisons… the Maddisons. My cousins.”

Stepping away from him, I wait for him to catch his breath. “What about the Maddisons?”

“My cousins,” he repeats. Chest heaving, he leans to the side and vomits. As usual my weak gut starts to churn at the sight and I’m on the cusp of going out in sympathy when he starts babbling sentence fragments, “You killed my little sister and her kid… Seamus said I could have your head… if I—if I pretended to be one of you… had to—had to… separate… Venom and Cherub… kill Cherub in front of you… obsessed... Alex fucked it… had to—had to work on Brutus from the inside to get an alliance. He’s got… dementia… Du Bois Medical has a drug that’ll buy him time… it was, it was—”

This time when he throws up, it’s pure blood.

Whatever Venom did to Bear before me and Toker arrived is about to catch up with him.

I barely register that fact because my brain is whirling with his stilted confession.

On wobbly legs, I climb up the ladder.

“You done already?” Venom asks.

“Get Toker down there.” Mouth watering uncontrollably, I gag as I jerk my thumb toward the bunker entrance. “That motherfucker’s not long for this world.”

Without waiting for a reply, I sprint outside to the rose bushes Cherub’s mother once tended for Hades. They’re half-dead now, the garden beds are filled with weeds and brown leaves. I barely notice the thorns pricking me as my roiling gut wins, and I spew all over the wilted bushes.

Again and again, I purge the contents of my stomach.

If only I could expel my thoughts so easily.

The world spins as I come to terms with the fact that a second person connected with the Maddison clan has accused me of murdering Jenna and our son. I dry retch as I realise how close Cherub came to dying for my secrets. Fucking Alex and his obsession saved her. My pulse pounds in my ears, deafening me. Shuddering takes over my body and I start to worry that I’m about to pass out.

As the earth tilts and the rumbling of an earthquake drowns the thoughts in my head, I pitch to the left. Staggering on my feet, I try to right myself. The bitter taste of my past colliding with the safety of my future chokes me.

“Fuckin’ hell, Slash.” Brutus’ twin, Cassius, curses as he hurries to get off his Harley and races over to me. The older man hooks an arm around my waist and drags me back in the barn. “What’s gotten into you? Came here to cut a deal with your faction, can’t risk that if you’re already fallin’ apart.”

His succinct description of my current clusterfuck makes my skin crawl.

When I shove at him, he lets me go.

I drop to my knees.

The impact with the concrete floor sends agony up my spine.

I hardly register it.

As Venom heaves Toker out of the bunker, I blink fast to clear my tunnelling vision.

It doesn’t work.

All I can see is my son’s grey face as he lays dead in his car seat.

“What’d he tell you?” Venom yells at me after he deposits Toker on his upturned bucket again. “He died with Lily’s name on his lips.” After stomping over to me, my best friend seizes hold of my shirt and shakes me. “For fuck’s sake, pull your shit together, Slash. I need answers.”

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