Page 60 of Innocence
“What the fuck?”
“What?” I sighed and rolled my glare to my brother. “I had to get him to talk.”
My brother scrubbed a hand down his face and walked over to us. “And did he?”
“Yes.”
“What does he know?”
We both looked at Joe, tied to the chair, with a line of drool running down his face. His gasps were getting shorter. Not much longer now.
“Nothing.” My knife tinged off the cement floor as I dropped it and sauntered across the room to get a rag.
Jackson huffed and crossed his arms. “So, you tortured an innocent man?”
“Are we keeping tabs on innocent deaths now?” I cocked a brow at him, “Because I think you’re reigning in that department.”
Being the eldest, Jackson was in charge. The head of the proverbial snake, so to say. While we all voted on most things, Jackson had final say. He was the one people called, and the first they shot at.
Unless, of course, our enemies were too afraid to take that shot. There was a reason we were considered ruthless. We had to be.
Blood and tears were just a part of life. And Jackson had more on his hands than any of us. I once saw him slit a woman’s throat because shemighthave overheard something he said. He was the last person that should be lecturing me about this shit.
I bet he was over there right now, watching the light fade out of Joe’s eyes. He got off on that shit.
“Have you seen Ciara?” Jackson asked, while not so subtly adjusting himself.
I wiped the last of the blood off my hands then tossed the rag. “I think Sophie’s in the bathhouse.”
He walked away, but paused at the door to look at Joe, lifeless and slumped over.
“Have Jerome clean that up.” He turned and walked up the stairs. “We keep the wine down here.”
I snorted and shook my head. Leave it up to Jackson to be concerned about the wine. Sometimes I thought the shelves of glass bottles were the only thing he cared about.
He had them all organized by vineyard, name, and brand. When Bias and I wanted to fuck with him, we rearrange them, or hid his favorite bottles.
I looked at the stairs and grabbed my cock. I’d been hard since I landed my first punch. Kya should be in the room by now, and I needed to change my clothes. Why not kill two birds with one stone?
“Shouldn’t have taken that left turn,” I said, looking down one hallway, and then the other.
I officially knew what it was like to get lost in a maze. Kind of ironic, considering there was a literal maze behind this place. At least, I thought it was behind. It was kind of hard to tell from looking out the window.
Who needed a place this big anyway? And where were the other buildings? There was a whole island out there, and not once had I seen signs of a town, or other inhabitants. Which was a bit of a necessity when someone was trying to escape. Though I suppose it didn’t matter, because I couldn’t leave the top floor.
I tried. Got three steps down before the collar shocked me back.
“Nice birthday gift,” I muttered, and turned down some random hallway.
Just more of the same crap. Wooden walls, marble floor with red and gold rug, and stone bust of some old fart. But I did kind of recognize that painting. A woman in a field with two little boys. It had the same yellow flowers as the one by the courtyard. Or maybe they were red.
“God damnit.”
This was how I was going to die. Lost in a mansion, trying to find my way back to the man who abducted me before I took a wrong turn and got shocked to death.
The last three hallways I turned down all had stairs, and yes, they shocked the shit out of me too. Even the one that only had three steps. Then again, it was entirely possible that two of them were the exact same hallway, and I’d just circled back around.
God I hated this. I’d kill for a bathroom right now. A sink, or bucket in a shadowed corner would work too. I rounded another corner and breathed out a sigh of relief. Two doors down, I saw the most blessed sight I’d seen all day. A bathroom.
