Page 34 of Gilded Lies

“No, we kill them and burn them when they commit a steep enough crime.”

I hold his gaze, unwavering as I answer. If he’s waiting for me to break, he will need to get a chair.

He realizes I’m not backing down from my position and finally looks at my cousin. “Shut up, boy, or they mean to kill you.”

“Look at me you piece of shit.” Oliver clutches Aaron’s swinging chin and forces him to put eyeballs on the blood covering Oliver’s hands, neck, and shirt. I take another drink and hook my ankle over the other. I will not step in and stop this. My motto is you pay for your crimes on this plane and my cousin will pay for his tonight.

“Look at your wife’s blood on my skin. Her blood on my shirt. These bits and pieces are your wife’s brain. Rune should have shot you in the dick.”

Oliver rears back. This time I don’t see him holding back. My cousin will meet his maker, be it the devil or God.

“Enough!” My father roars, earning him the full force of Oliver’s deathly glare.

My blood brother is heaving with anger when he pivots and heads toward the Sinn elder.

“Enough? Enough? You didn’t see the girl’s mother lose her brain, old man. You don’t get to step in now. You had your chance. You are the real reason we have a fucking enemy out of the Hightowers to begin with. Shut the fuck up and find a corner to die in, old man.”

A silver cane comes up and strikes Oliver in the chest. “Boy, you are nothing in this family. He gave you a reason to live. He gave you my crown. You didn’t earn it.”

Hemeaning me.

Oliver grabs the cane and tosses it across the room with a heavy thud. “Didn’t earn it? What would you call me killing three Hightower men tonight? Men who were three weeks ago dropping their kids off at college, not planning war against us? What do you call picking a crying toddler off a rat-infested floor who begs for her mommy? I see you, old man. I know your sins. Don’t put them at my feet when I am doing nothing but cleaning up your mess. This family would be gone and buried under several more empires if it were not for Rune, me, and your son. Your legacy lives on because we stepped in and cleaned out the sewer.”

“Oliver.” I step in when it looks like he’s going to give my father the beating Aaron deserves. “You said your piece. Let the old man hold on to his lies.”

“Someone has to make him face the truth.” Oliver steps over Aaron and heads to the bar. He grabs the glass I left and downs it after refilling Rune’s.

“My wife is dead?”

I grab my cousin by the collar and toss him out of my office. “If he wants to leave, let him,” I tell an enforcer before closing the doors, shutting him and everyone else out. I don’t care what happens to the weasel. Let the Hightowers off him the second he steps off Sinn property. The world would be a better place without him.

My father finds his chair by the fireplace, his gaze already lost in the flames. “What happened?” he asks after a long moment of sitting in silence.

“Did you miss what I said five minutes ago?”

I pull off my T-shirt and toss it onto the sofa opposite my father’s chair. Between us is a long table used for holding bottles of million-dollar bourbon or signing contracts. Tonight it has bandages, material for stitches, and disinfectant.

I signal to Rune, and he helps me drag the sofa closer. He sits beside me, and I help peel his shirt off to see the damage he took to his right side.

“Son of a bitch. Magnolia is going to be pissed that the rattlesnake and flowers are sliced in two.” She loved tracing the scales and kissing the flowers.

“I’ll make it up to her,” Rune grunts. “If she is still talking to us after this.”

I set to stitching up an eight-inch knife wound. Oliver hands me everything I need, never speaking.

My father’s eyes never leave me as I work. Gears are turning in that head of his. He’s afraid the Sinn empire is falling into the hands of the enemy. I can see it written all over his frail face.

“What happened tonight? And I don’t mean with Aaron. I mean with the Hightower elder,” he patiently corrects himself like his age has finally caught up with him. No, not his age. The man doesn’t believe he’s a day over fifty despite the truth. All the evil he did to get the power and wealth he amassed is what gives him drooping shoulders and robs him of his energy.

“Hightower is out for blood and frankly I don’t blame him. Aaron took his daughter and stole her virginity in the back of a van.”

I finish Rune’s stitches and Oliver disinfects the utensils before Rune returns the favor and checks the entry point of a slug in my shoulder.

“It’s clean,” he informs me before the needle touches skin. I’ve had so many stitches now I’m dead to the prick of pain.

“It took forever for them to lower their guard. All it took was for them to do it once and we took advantage of the moment. It’s the only way we got the girl back.” Shooting our way inside the Hightower compound could have ended with my niece’s death so we waited for an opening. It took four fucking weeks of waiting. One guard fell asleep. Rune slit his throat and then we were in. No bullets. Not until we were on our way out. A few of the Hightower fuckers have good aim. Or did. They aren’t alive to shoot at us again.

“We took down half of the man’s army, but it won’t take him long to find new recruits willing to pick up guns if the pay is right.”

---