Page 190 of His Pretty Little Duet

"We will be there. I will keep her safe. You have my word, brother."

She's out in this heat, too.

Without me.

But "a leader is always alone",and I have never felt lonelier in my own presence than I do in her absence…Christ.I'll die before I let anyone take her from me. I'll crumble the world around her body.

The corridor of charred trees is narrower now, black limbs reaching over the track, the higher ones disappearing into the smoky air.

Passing through a scorched gate, I enter the campground. My fist tightens on the wheel as the glow of lights drill through the grey abyss. Ominous dots. One beside the other. The row of bright headlights alerts me to the barricade of bikes ahead. The dense fog hazes my vision of much more.

Flanking them will be Bronson, Carter, and three soldiers, on foot, navigating their way through this terrain.

Dammit.

They won't be able to see a fucking thing. Won't see my signal. And I can't get an aim on anyone. My heart thrashes hard under this premise. I won't lose them. I can't.

Unable to measure the distance between my car and the awaiting lights, I pull over. Fisting the wheel on a final thought of her, of the sweetness she gave me, the hints of what life and love could be, I inhale hard and exit the vehicle, feigning a smooth unaffected manner.

Still suffering it all.

All the way in my veins.

Rounding the bonnet, I open my arms wide, welcoming, calling out, "Now you have me. Let's talk about why we are really here." Honing my ears, I try to decipher movement, chatter, orders, anything, but the silence hangs with the thick smoke around me. Their engines are killed.

Interesting…

They are not in any hurry to get away. Not wary.

"Are you tired of hearing the name Butcher?" I go on. "Tired of seeing the name Butcher all over the news. Tired of having men refuse your business because of us. Of hiding from your own city."

"Where is my daughter?" I jolt to the north as his voice punches through the smoke from my left-hand side. The dark silhouette of a man appears through the smoulder, followed by the hazy outline of several in his shadow.

Dustin.

And I know this is an execution.

The tightness of my bulletproof vest below my suit reminds me they'll need to aim true. I press my hand to my collarbone. Hold the scar that mars it and recall what he had me do when I was eighteen. What I did for him. For Jimmy. "You don't want your daughter. You want me."

He scoffs. "I have promised her to one of these men behind me, you see, and he'll be rather unimpressed if she's not here."

"Don't lie." I face them straight on. "You don't want your daughter. You want me. You can have me. Let my brother go. I'm bored of this. Of the theatrics. I'm the one you want.

"My dad fucked your wife, and she grew his heir in her stomach. You raised the boy as your own…" I say, stepping to the side, trying to see through the smoke. I try to force an emotive response from him. A passionate man is a vulnerable man; Iknow this most of all today as it’s boiling inside me. "Did it hurt when you found out he wasn't yours?" I continue. "Then I fucked your daughter. Butchers are infesting your life, your city, right? I'm the head of this Family. It's me you want. Why aren't you just shooting me? I'm the one you need to make this all stop."

I know the answer, of course; he wants us all. All of Luca's sons dead. Our bodies forever ash in the national park.

"Clay Butcher, the Don of the District," he mocks, and the sound burns fierce hatred through my Butcher head. I realise he's the impartial man. I'm the one on the cusp of volatility today. "Still a self-centred son of a bastard. You give yourself too much credit again. You canfuckmy daughter as much as you want, Clay. Please, she's on the house."

I hiss through my teeth.

"You see," he says, "there was a time when I would have handed you the cigar afterwards. We almost had an understanding between our families. I knew that I needed to marry my girls off to one of your brothers, or my part in this empire would be overthrown as soon as you took over.

"You married Jimmy's daughter. And well, your brother, Bronson, is damn out of his mind. It had to be Max. But then the Slater girl got involved. And she got in the way of that. And she brought the Slater boy into the light to remind me of what your father did. To show him off. And now?—"

He walks towards me until I can see the shadowed edges of his face, the sharp lines cutting across his cheeks and jaw. I haven't seen this face in years. I once said that Fawn bared no resemblance to him, but— I lock my jaw. Now all I see is that his eyes mirror the same shape as Fawn's… I want to remove them. He doesn't deserve her likeness.

"I'm no fool," he says, his tone circled in hatred. "It doesn't matter that my daughter takes your cock each night. You won't be making me a boss under your leadership."

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