Page 138 of Cinder
“I knew all roads would eventually lead to me. But when suspicion fell on him, I thought killing him would keep me in the clear.”
“You thought wrong.”
I think about the prospect lying dead in a pool of blood.
“Scotty is dead because of you.”
By the look on his face he didn’t know, and I see the genuine remorse move across his face.
“You’ve spilled Knights’ blood,” I say. “You know what comes next.”
When a Knight betrays the club, he becomes a Nameless Man. Stripped of his cut and banished. But when a member betrays the club and spills a Knight’s blood in the process, then he has to die.
Tears spill down his cheeks. “I know.”
Accepting his fate, he lowers his weapon.
My finger slides along the trigger. He is beyond becoming a Nameless Man. Instead, he will rot at the bottom of The Well in the clubhouse dungeon. Where those who have betrayed the club have rotted before him.
He closes his eyes. “Please just make it quick.”
I don’t want to shoot him.
But I am the enforcer.
It’s up to me to enforce the rules.
No matter how much the burden gnaws at me.
My finger rests on the trigger.
Damn you, Rogue. Why did you have to do it?
I force back the feelings of regret.
I’ll do what I have to do.
But before I can pull the trigger, the business end of a gun is pressed into my temple.
Fuck.
“Biker scum,” says a voice in a thick accent.
Viktor Olicheckoff.
“Drop it,” he orders.
I do as he says and my gun clangs as it hits the marble floor.
“I shall enjoy killing you,” he says. “For touching her. For filling her pretty cunt with your dirty biker cock.”
“Fuck you,” I growl.
He digs his gun deeper into my temple.
“You might have taken what was mine and stained her with your filth,” he says, every word burning with menace. “But I have her sister, and I will make her bleed for her sister’s betrayal with you. And then I will take Ella, and I will force her to her knees, and she will suck my cock every single night for the rest of her short, miserable life.” He comes closer to whisper in my ear. “I wanted you to know that before you die.”
Images of Ella flash before me. Her smile. Her dimples. The sound of her voice. The comforting scent of her hair. The heartbreaking thought of not seeing her again.
