Page 12 of Borden 3

Her retort was cold. “Are you truly giving me a choice?” When Borden didn’t respond, she let out a dramatic sigh. “I’ll give you time to bury your secrets, but they never stay secrets for long, Borden. You just wait.”

“Good to know.” Borden hung up and threw the phone down on the leather seat beside him. Darlene never usually got under his skin, but her words bothered him. He wasn’t trying to keep secrets from Emma, but at the same time, he didn’t want to drag her into this city’s underbelly. She needed to be a mother. She needed normalcy. She was occupied in the bookkeeping and the fucking charities for those poor kids in New Raven. Borden wanted her distracted, even if it meant she believed that those kids had a chance at a better life.

Borden wanted to believe it, too.

But it didn’t come easy, and he couldn’t.

Kids were moulded by their environments. Even he, the impoverished New Raven rat, was still up to no good. He had come so close to a clean name. To running an empire that was legitimate. But then Terry Mulligan came around, and then the bikers wanted an exchange for Emma’s safety, and now here he was, putting out more fires because the bikers’ presence had caused a huge upheaval on Borden’s streets.

Borden had appeared weak.

Borden had needed help.

Borden had no longer appeared omni-fucking-potent.

As such, Borden was putting to ground thug after fucking thug. The streets flowed with blood, mostly from the skulls of those that dared try to challenge him, but sometimes his own men suffered the consequences, too, and it just wouldn’t end.

What used to be a shooting a couple times a year was now a shooting every few fucking days. It was madness. Utter chaos that was slowly burning hotter. It was about to blow, and Borden was quickly making plans, finding hiding spots for Emma and Link should the threat ever get too close.

He was certain it wouldn’t.

He was personally handling the killings. Making sure no one got out unscathed. Trying his damned hardest to remind these fuckers that he was still in charge, and how fucking cheeky were they to try to step on his toes.

Borden was losing a part of himself in the process. It felt like back then again. When Kate was freshly gone, and Borden’s revenge came in the form of torching bodies and watching their ashes kiss the sky and wanting to do it over and over again until he was satiated.

He’d never felt satiated, though.

He’d only felt more hollow.

And every time he challenged himself to stop, to hold back on his terror and ease it, he was reminded of that fucking photo of Emma in the ground.

And hell…

These men would beg for the mercy of hell because Borden offered none.

???

The screams had become background noise to Borden every time he’d entered the “slaughterhouse.” He didn’t coin the term. Hector had. That fucker had a sick sense of humour, though lately it’d felt muted.

The slaughterhouse was underground. It was a single room with a single lightbulb where their vermin sat on a single chair. It was a little too cliche, even for Borden. There was even a steel table full of pointy instruments. It was designed to fuck with the head of the person they were breaking.

His men had already given him the rundown of the latest shit sitting in that chair. They were usually drugged out fiends, sent on some obscure mission to fuck with Borden in some manner or another. Last month, one of the servers that worked in his restaurant had been sexually assaulted. She’d somehow fled midway through the attack. She didn’t run to the police.

She ran straight to Borden.

They’d found the cunts quickly. One snitch led to another. Borden buried them so thoroughly, their remains were literally scattered in the wind.

Not even Emma bat an eye when she heard about it through the grapevine, but she’d given Borden a lingering look. It was one of those stares Borden didn’t like to think about. It used to be shock. Then defeat. Now it was…

Nothing.

That was the look Emma gave him. A look of nothing.

He didn’t know why he was thinking about that now. Maybe it was because he was going to do it all over again. That this shit sitting in the chair below his feet was a predatory thug, except—

“He’s not like the others,” Hector said to him as they stood in the middle of the woods. The hidden hatch leading to the room was literally beneath their feet.

“Explain,” Borden returned.

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