Page 15 of Capitol Matters

Grimm clapped a hand on his back. “Quite theopposite, my boy.” He smiled. “Your brother has been given an important task with which he will need your assistance.”

I stepped back, caught in a shockwave. My cheeks burned anew as anger surged from my gut.

“What the fuck?” I shouted at Grimm.

Protecting my brother looked a lot like corrupting him—roping Donovan into mass-scale murder as my unwitting sidekick. I wouldn’t allow it. The guilt would bury me alive.

Grimm’s expression went flat, almost weary. “Fitch,” he said my name on a sigh, “if you’ll hear me out—”

“Hell, no.” I shook my head. “I don’t need help with a goddamned thing.”

Over the older man’s shoulder, one of the polished brass wheels on the wall stuttered mid-revolution. The shelf it ferried tipped, letting glass bottles slide off to shatter on the floor.

Grimm glanced at it, then heaved another breath. “Fitch, you’re causing a scene.”

“Is this because I don’t have a plan yet?” I asked, pressing toward him. “It’s only been a few hours, for fuck’s sake!”

Donovan’s wide eyes met mine. “What are you guys talking about?”

I flapped a hand at him. “Stay out of this, Donnie.”

Another wall-mounted cog ground to a halt, dumping more bottles. They crashed into the growing puddle on the floor and raised a low cloud of smoke.

“What’s there to plan, anyway?” I asked Grimm. “I’ll kill them. That’s the plan.”

“Kill who?” Donovan asked.

I scowled. “You didn’t hear that.”

“You aren’t killing anyone!” Grimm’s voice crescendoed over mine.

The bar fell quiet. Hex members scattered about the space stopped in place and stared.

Muttering another curse, I turned my back to block their view.

Directly across from me, Grimm tapped his foot. Even his biker boots had been replaced by square-toed loafers. I barely recognized him these days.

“As I was saying,” Grimm turned his gaze to Donovan, “Fitch has been asked to remove a small number of people from the public eye. I’ve made arrangements with a local storage facility, where those people may be keptalive—” he fixed me with a pointed glare— “until they are no longer a threat.”

Donovan’s sharp nose wrinkled. “What does that have to do with me?”

Grimm faced him with a practiced, pleasant look. “They will need tending, of course. You will be responsible for ensuring they have food, water, and that their waste buckets are emptied daily.”

Waste buckets?I shuddered.

Even the isolation cells in Thorngate had toilets. One I’d briefly considered drowning myself in when my nightmares bled into waking terror too many days in a row.

“We’re talking about people, right?” I asked. “Not like, a bunch of hamsters?”

Grimm’s expression soured. “I would say a fewweeks of discomfort is preferable to the alternative. Judging by your temper fit, you agree.” He waved, unnecessarily, to the puddle of acid eating a hole in the hardwoods.

“I have questions.” Donovan raised his hand.

“So kidnapping, then?” I cut in. That was not a skill currently on my resume. “I nab the people and haul them off to cold storage where Donnie…tendsto them until the vote. Then what?”

Grimm smiled like a teacher pleased his flunky student understood the lesson. “Then the job is done,” he said.

“Why, though?” I asked.

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