Page 119 of Wild Bliss

Wyatt pushed at the men holding him, his face red. But heseemed to be holding on. There wasn’t any glassiness to his eyes. Just normalrage at men harming someone he loved.

Time. He needed time. “Hey, Wayne, your guys are taking toolong back there. How do I know they’re not stealing my shit?”

Wayne looked over, his eyes widening as though he’dforgotten Sawyer was there for a moment. He glanced back down the hallway.“Hey, anyone here? Come out right now.”

Sawyer watched as Lark made her way around the bar, leaningso no one could see what she was doing.

Only a couple of minutes and he would have the chaos heneeded. “They better not be fucking with my stuff, Wayne. I’m not joking. Idon’t care what you do with those two, but you mess with my bar and we’ll havetrouble.”

Wayne was about to understand he would burn the whole placedown for them, for his family. But for now, his former occupation of completemisanthrope came in handy.

“How you like hearing that, Wyatt?” Wayne asked, gettinginto his brother’s space. “Your best friend doesn’t care about you. Did youthink anyone would?”

Wyatt turned his way, a bit of desperation on his face. “Isuppose I should have expected it from you. All you care about is money andpower.”

Okay, they were going to have to work on his dialogueskills. Wyatt was obviously a reader and not a writer, though he had caught onquickly. They were going to have to act a little. Play out a drama to give Larktime. Wyatt wouldn’t know what he was buying time for, but he’d caught the lineSawyer had thrown out. “What did you think I would do, Wyatt? Burn down the barfor you?”

Wyatt’s eyes widened as though to say,you sure that’sthe way we’re going? But he turned and looked his brother directly in theeyes even as he spoke to Sawyer. “No. You would think I would have learned thelesson a long time ago. Brotherhood means nothing.”

“Brotherhood is everything,” Wayne insisted. “You are theone who broke the bonds. And now you’ll be the one to pay the price.”

Wayne drew back his fist.

“Still no idea where your men got to?” Sawyer tossed thequestion out before Wayne could hit Wyatt. “There’s no good help these days.How many have you lost so far? Is it four or five? How dumb are your men thatthey can’t find their way around a small building?”

Wayne stopped, his expression changing to something inbetween rage and trepidation.

He was starting to understand things weren’t going to go asplanned.

Wayne turned to Sawyer. “Who’s back there?”

Sawyer shrugged. “They’re your men. I don’t know theirnames. I would probably call them something offensive like Bloated Asshole andDude with No Hair.”

It’s what he did call them in his head.

Wayne’s eyes narrowed. “I mean who is back there and whatare they doing to my men?” He looked over at the pool table bikers. “Tiny andEd, go and make sure the jammer’s still working.” He snarled when theyhesitated. “And kill anyone you find.”

Sawyer felt comfortable neither Tiny nor Ed would be able tofind Henry and Elisa if they didn’t want to be found. But they would have beenwatching and listening.

The men strode to the back.

Two more down. The odds were getting better all the time.

“I don’t know what you think you’re going to find, but Ihope it’s not your men wrecking my stuff,” Sawyer insisted.

“My men are well trained, Sawyer. You should know since youused to be one,” Wayne reminded him.

“I was there for one reason and one reason only.” Sawyerkept his hands down. The zip ties were holding on by a thread thanks toSabrina’s help. If there weren’t so many guns involved, he would wrap his handsaround Wayne’s throat and squeeze until the man turned blue.

“Yeah, you were there for a brother who no longer gives ashit about you,” Wayne pointed out. “So you thought you could take mine. Here’sthe truth, Sawyer. You shouldn’t care about your shit because you’re not goingto be alive to enjoy it. I was never going to let any of you live. I’m going totorture the two of you until Wyatt can’t take it no more and gives me what Iwant. Then I’ll put him out of his miserable existence, and I won’t think abouthim ever again. I thought I would start with the teacher, but you’ve pissed meoff enough. I think we’ll begin with you.”

Sawyer was perfectly content even though he knew the nextfew minutes were going to hurt like a motherfucker. The pain would be his andnot Sabrina’s. He could handle anything as long as she was safe.

He felt movement behind him and got ready to take whateverthey threw his way.

And then something was being thrown, though it wasn’t apunch. It was a bottle of… Was that the good vodka? Damn it. Lark could havethrown the cheap stuff, but no, she had to pick the French vodka Taggart’s wifeliked.

It hit the back wall and sort of exploded, the drapes goingup as quickly as he’d expected.

---