Page 98 of Reluctant Heir

William’s meaty fist connects with the side of my head, wrenching it to the left. It feels like a hammer drilling into my skull. He laughs, and I spit out blood.

The single light dangling above me is a tired cliché, same for the room they’re keeping me in. Hell, I have a room of my own. It makes their shadows long and large on the walls, illuminating the monsters and evil things coming for me.

I blink my eyes open. Another fist batters me.

“Thought you could outsmart us, huh?” a voice asks. Maybe William.

I don’t say anything.

“What was your plan, boy?” Antonio’s question.

“Who else is involved?” Paul asks.

I don’t answer any of them. My hand is lying flat on the table beside me. I don’t look. Something sharp pierces the top, pushing bone and sinew around until it creates a pathway. Slowly. So. Fucking. Slowly. I can feel the underside of my palm slick with blood. Searing pain lances from my hand, up my arm, and to my shoulder, making me twitch and jerk.

“Who else is involved?” Paul asks again.

I glance over to see his hand wrapped around an ice pick that is now fully through my hand. It’s fitting really since that’s what I used to threaten Wryn with. I can’t move it. I don’t want to move it. The thought of bones rubbing against the metal makes me want to puke.

I won’t puke in front of them.

“Just me,” I finally manage to get out, so maybe they will back off.

I try to disappear back into my mind, retreat into my thoughts, but they are hurling more questions my way. Lucas still stands by the door. I’m not sure what time it is or even what day.

The night they brought me in, I was electrocuted with a Taser three separate times, and my clothes now smell of piss. They chained me to a wall. I think I preferred that than sitting up in this chair. At least then, I could lie down.

My whole body aches from punches and kicks thrown. I don’t blame them. I would’ve done the same thing. I blame myself. I was brash, stupid. I jumped to conclusions. Geo and I might have been right, considering Lucas is still in this very room, watching what is happening, but I should have planned behind the scenes, not gone in, guns blazing.

Maybe in some weird way, I wanted an out. I wanted to be done with this shitshow. But that was then, and now, I think of Lilliana, of Wryn, of Geo. Fernando. Brigette. Those who work for me, live in my house. They need me. Antonio no doubt has men hunting for Geo at this very moment, wanting to subject him to the same fate. Blood means nothing under the name of traitor. Geo will wind up dead beside me.

I hope he runs and takes Wryn with him. I know he won’t though. He’s too loyal.

It’s funny what loyalty does to a person. It turns them into fools. He would rather risk his life to save me instead of living his own. I know this because I would do the same for him.

I would do it for my sister. I would do it for my wife.

My wife.

My head jerks to the side as William’s hand greets my other ear. The motion pulls my arm, still connected to the pick in Paul’s hand, and I cry out in pain. I can feel it rip. I don’t know that it will ever work again. I can’t look at it and see the damage. But I guess it doesn’t really matter. I’ll be six feet under soon. I won’t need my hand.

Cold metal touches my face, and I cringe. My puffy, swollen eyes fight to look. A knife rests against my upper cheek. Antonio pushes the tip in, enough that it punctures the skin right below my left temple. Warm blood trickles down, tickling my neck with its slow progression.

“Where is Geo?”

So, they haven’t found him yet. Good.

He presses the knife in further. I don’t move. I can’t show weakness. They will feed on it like the sharks they are. The blade slices my skin as he pulls it to my jawline. It will be a nasty scar—if I live to see it healed. They are flaying my body open, a little at a time.

Parts of me have gone numb, and parts are screaming in agony. A single tear leaks out of the corner of my eye, and I blink quickly, but he sees it. He scoops it up on the bloody end of the knife and holds it in front of me, a sinister grin on his face.

“Does it hurt, Connor? That’s what betrayal feels like. Your father—God rest his soul—would be so ashamed.”

I don’t care what my father would think of me. But I don’t say it.

“What about that little wife of yours? Does she look as pretty on the inside as she does on the outside?” Antonio asks, and I fight for breath through the pain and clenching of my chest. “I guess we will find out when we take her, use her, and then carve her pretty skin to see.”

Scare tactics. That’s all this is. It’s pretty fucking effective.

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