Page 42 of Graves & Griggs
I release Phillip’s face with a rough shake, then take a step back, turning to my goodie bag.
“That’s all I know, I swear,” Phillip says as I turn back around, this time with a meat cleaver in my hand.
“I know.” If his brother had been working for the Four Horsemen for this long, he wasn’t a snitch, meaning he wouldn’t have told his brother much to begin with. I’m honestly surprised he told him even that much.
“Please!” he begs as I take a step closer. “I’ve told you everything I know!”
“I’m sure you have. Thank you for that. Oh, and happy holidays,” I say before I pull my hand back and swing true.
The cleaver is surprisingly sharp and almost cuts through theneck with one swipe. It’s still kinda holding on by some muscle and skin, but a few more hacks and his head also hits the ground with a thud before rolling towards his brother’s.
“Aw, that’s kinda cute. Even in death, they’ve got each other’s back. You think that will be us, Dom?”
He scoffs, continuing to type on his phone. “You planning to get decapitated by a psycho with a cleaver while you’re bound to a chair by Christmas decorations?”
I shrug. “There are certainly less interesting ways to die.”
“Can we focus here?” Griggs asks with a huff. “We really don’t have anything new to go off. We have the first name of one of the accomplices. So what?”
“So nothing,” Dominic says.
Griggs frowns as Dominic pockets his phone. “What? We drove our asses out here to kill a man for nothing but secondary revenge?”
Dominic nods. “That and Zayden needed to have a little fun.”
I nod in agreement, smiling at Griggs as he looks at me like I’m deranged. Rude but fair.
“So what’s the plan now? Are we just sitting around with our thumbs in our asses or…?” Griggs snarks.
“Goddamn, Griggs. You need to lighten up, get in the spirit of things. I swear to God, you act like you don’t even enjoy the kill.”
“I don’t,” he says flatly. “It’s a job. A means to an end.”
I smirk at that, shaking my head as I tsk. “You can lie to a lot of people, but not to us. I see through your bullshit surly façade. You’re as warped as I am.”
“Well,” Dominic hedges.
I look over my shoulder at him. “Fair enough. Almost. You crave the kill whether you like to admit it or not. Once you take as many lives as we have, it changes a person. You couldn’t just wake up and not do it anymore, trust me—you’d earn yourself a one-way ticket to the looney bin. You need it just like I do.”
Griggs frowns at my words, like he doesn’t want to admit the truth in them. Why? I wonder. Does he think he can’t have a happy life and be a mercenary? I’m living proof that you can. I have a beautiful wife, the best brother anyone could ask for and two beautiful twins. My life is perfect. Maybe he just needs to stop fighting the darkness and succumb. I bet he’d smile a hell of a lot more.
Chapter Nineteen
Liam
“Tape,” I ask as I hold out my hand.
“Tape.” Seraphina smiles as she hands it to me.
I nod, taping the seam of the reindeer-print wrapping paper.
“Bow,” I ask.
Jackson hands me a bow, a wide smile on his face. “Bow.”
“Label,” I ask next, and Brooks looks to me, more to-and-from labels on his body than left on the sheet.
Seraphina rolls her eyes and peels one off his forehead before handing it to me. After a quick scribble of Skyla’s name, I hand the present to Ryder. Or Aries. Fuck, I can’t tell them apart honestly.
