Page 27 of Siccitas

“Sorry, I was waiting for someone.”

“Come with me.” He leads me to a room to the right of the living room and turns to face me. “Where is Skylar, Levon?”

“Jocelyn has her. I assume she’ll bring her home once they’re done with their little escapade. She’s really harmless, Uncle.”

Luke nods, staring for a while, sizing me up. I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

“I need your help with a little project.”

I nod. “Sure. What can I do?”

“Hold this board up against the wall,” Luke says. “I want to hammer it in.”

I nod, licking my lips. “Of course, Uncle Luke.”

I bend down and pick up the board. I hold it against the wall. Luke picks up one of the biggest looking nails and grabs my hand. Using his one hand to hold the nail against my hand, and keep my hand in place, he uses his other hand to swing a hammer and drive the nail through my flesh and into the wall.

I shriek, trying to pull away, but he hammers the nail in solid, and I can’t move my hand. He grabs my other hand. I try to pull away, but he punches me, disorienting me so I can’t fight back. He puts my other hand against the wall and drives a nail through that hand, with my back against the wall.

Like Jesus Christ.

He’s sacrificing me.

“Uncle Luke, please.” I sob. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”

“I don’t know what you think you were playing with when you were approaching Jocelyn, but under my roof there is only one man who can handle running the Greene family. You’re not it, Levon.”

I can’t stop the tears flowing down my face, although I am momentarily distracted by the sound of something thumping on the floorboards.

Is that a cane?

Jocelyn.

Luke stands back and admires how he’s hammered me to the wall, just as Jocelyn walks in from the next room. She looks at me with wide eyes.

“Levon, what are—?”

“Your cousin, it seems, doesn’t know his place.”

Jocelyn turns to glare at me. “You knew who I was. This was a setup.”

I bite my lip to keep myself from crying out; even though the snot was running out of my nose and down my face, along with my tears.

She turns to Luke. “It was you at Dalton’s house.”

Luke smiles broadly.

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