Page 44 of The Oath We Take

“Dad,” Ember says as she joins us, tugging a hoodie over her pajamas. Was hoping she’d put a few more clothes on. It does nothing to hide those deliciously long legs of hers that were wrapped around me not ten feet from where Butcher is standing. My cock twitches at the thought. “Why are you here so early?”

Butcher shrugs. “Shit to do. Wondered if you could come to the clubhouse and look over a couple of financial things for me.”

Ember glances my way. It’s so small a movement that Butcher clearly misses it. “Sure. Gimme five to get dressed?”

Butcher laughs. “Take half an hour. I’m gonna persuade Atom to make me breakfast.”

I shake my head. “I’m your enforcer, not your fucking chef. If you’ve got Ember, I’m gonna go see Sheriff Radcliffe.”

Butcher raises an eyebrow. “You think he’s gonna tell you shit?”

“More likely to tell me than anyone else.”

I pickmy moment and perfectly time it to when Radcliffe comes out of the station by himself to get into his vehicle.

“Radcliffe,” I say.

The pleasure I get from seeing the color drain from his face is impossible to describe. “There’s somewhere I need to be.” He only glances in my direction.

“I’m sure there is, but you’re not leaving this parking lot until you tell me what you’ve learned about the assault at Ember Deeks’s bar.”

He glances up at me. “What do you want to know?”

“All of it. Did you trace any licenses, find any suspects, properly report Ember’s gun missing so she doesn’t get into trouble if it’s used the way it isn’t supposed to be?”

Radcliffe huffs. “This is an ongoing investigation, I can’t just?—”

I reach out and put my hand around his throat.

His face immediately begins to go red. Some might say I’m reckless to assault a sheriff, but he’s crossed me three times in his life, and he’s lost each time.

My mom once said I have shoulders bigger than Atlas, the man who carried the heavens on his. I pull them back, using my size to full effect.

“Remember how this always ends, Radcliffe.”

He grabs at my wrist, grappling for the air I’m perfectly happy to deny him.

I’ll give the fucker some credit—he looks straight into my eyes the whole time. Even as his own eyes water.

When he tried to blame Wraith for the death of his wife and child, I snuck into his house, drugged him, lifted the floorboards, laid him beneath them, and nailed the floorboards back on top of him.

There was intense pleasure with every slam of the hammer.

It was a day before they noticed he was missing. Two, before someone from the sheriff’s office broke into his home and heard him banging on the floorboards.

“Stop,” he gasps finally. I didn’t realize I’d lifted him to his toes. “I’ll tell you.”

14

EMBER

“Jesus, Dad. You can’t be serious about this.”

I’m no certified accountant. Nor am I a lawyer. But I have never been able to convince Dad of that.

He assumes that my business degree prepared me for every single individual need his business has. I’ve tried telling him that while I run my own books on a monthly basis, I have a paid accountant who knows his way around tax laws. He tells me which buckets to put everything into, what tax efficient means there are of running my business and tells me how much I have to pay to whom and how.

Dad has no intention of doing anything aboveboard. But there are certain things, like contracts for building work, that he always wants my eyes on.

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