Page 141 of Devilish Ink

“I don’t mean any of those.”

“Liam,” Rian said slowly, “you can still come back from this. You haven’t done anything…finalyet. You can go straight back to Ry.”

I shook my head. “You know that’s not true.”

The parlour was silent. Even the neon in the sign that cast my shadow long across the tattered rugs seemed to cease its popping, its steady humming.

“The law was created to keep us safe. But the law can’t hold powerful wealthy men like Balor to justice. Sometimes the law isn’t enough. So…we must makeour own.”

Rian nodded, acceptance softening his features.

“Sit first,” he said. “I’ve got some unfinished business of my own.”

The sudden buzz of the tattoo gun was loud in the studio.

“I don’t have time for this.”

“Sit,” he said in a tone that brokered no arguments. “This won’t take long. Then I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

The only person I knew more stubborn than Ryleigh was my brother. I decided doing what he asked of me was faster than arguing.

I sat.

“Roll up your sleeve.”

I curled up the hem covering the unfinished snake.

This time I didn’t hiss as the needle punctured the sensitive skin of my inner wrist. I was sure I couldn’t have felt a knife twisting in my chest at that point.

After the pain of seeing Ryleigh like that, knowing that someone had hurt Ry… I was numb. Ice cold. And yet ready to burn. To fucking take the world down with me.

“I’ll give you what you want,” Rian said, when he’d finished, switching off his gun. “On one condition…”

The fresh tattoo on my inner wrist was a snake, with its mouth open to consume itself, held in the talons of a hawk.

A new family crest.

“…I want in.”

The dark warehouse stank of iron as I stepped inside.

For a second I saw Ryleigh lying on the blood-soaked bed, strung up to the posts.

I blinked.

And Balor appeared instead.

It seemed Rian had seen fit to chain him down, ropes were not enough to restrain this vile creature.

“You’ve signed her death warrant,” Balor said as we approached. “With you two in prison, who will be there to protect the whore? Who will be there to stop me when I carve that bastard child from her stomach?”

I stared down at Balor as I snatched the knife he’d used to cut her from the side of the bed.

“No,” I said, “you have signed your own.”

I had forced myself to sit there in the hospital room as Ryleigh confessed everything he’d done to her, forced myself to be a silent witness to her pain.

Now I got to be her avenging angel.

---