Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
“Hmpgf!”
I dropped my gun running inside.
Everything my brothers told me about that horrible place where they found Kenzie, and the sight was still worse than I imagined.
All that made a bedroom a sanctuary had been ripped out, and the only things left in its place were dirty, stain-covered mattresses, metal bars secured to the walls, a bucket in the corner emanating an eye-watering smell, and three young, gagged women chained to opposite walls.
Boo, Lils, and Nella still had on the clothes they were taken in, and that was the only part of them clearly recognizable. All three of them were beat to shit, with swollen black eyes, welts and bruises up and down their arms and legs, and split lips separated by blood-stained gags.
Rage I’d never known before filled me to bursting. Everything in me screamed to hunt down those scurrying morons outside and put a bullet in each of their skulls.
I dropped beside Boo and pulled the gag out of her mouth.
In spite of everything, she granted me a wobbly grin. “It’s real great to... see you, FGH.”
“Sorry I didn’t get here sooner.” I freed them all from their gags, but the chains were another matter. One look told me I wasn’t shooting or breaking those shackles. “Who has the key?”
“A fuck-ugly, weedy little... bitch,” Nella rasped. “Face riddled with... acne and his smirk dripping with incel.”
Lils nodded—barely. Her head strained to carry out the command and lolled instead. “Abraham... ordered them not to rape or grope us, so instead—instead—”
“Instead he beat us.” The words scraped from Boo’s parched throat. “He beat us and said if we begged for his cock... he’d stop.”
I was wrong. This feeling— This hatred right now... is the most rage I’d ever felt.
“He dies first,” I hissed. “Well, seventh, but I’ll make it slow.” I glanced back. “I’ve got to check and make sure the others are all here. If anyone but me walks past that door, shout.”
I squeezed Lils’s hand as she tried another nod. “I’m getting you out of here, Lils. Today.”
“Never doubted... you, boss.” Her swinging head dropped on my shoulder. “Never.”
I didn’t mess around with emotions like guilt. I do what I do and I say what I say. When I’m wrong, I accept responsibility for it and own the consequences of my actions. Wasting time moping and crying got in the way of making it right.
But in that moment, guilt and shame ate me out like the rotted shit-heel carcass I was. These women trusted me. They gave their lives to follow me because they believed in the Merchant name and the protection I promised them.
And I failed.
I didn’t listen to Sunny the first, second, and fifth time he warned me we had an unseen enemy hunting us. I thought my little bro was just making excuses for why his business was going wrong—blaming a phantom boogeyman instead of admitting he was too young to run a borough, and too proud to admit his fuckups.
I let my own hang-ups on Sunny’s maturity cloud my judgement, and then my Cardinals ended up in Satan’s whorehouse being tortured and starved.
This was on me. All of this was my fucking fault.
I backed out of the room before my girls saw me do something really fucking embarrassing—cry.
I went room to room, listening for a warning shout as I ungagged my Cardinals and checked them over. They were all in a terrible state—just as bad as the beaten Boo, Lils, and Nella.
They also weren’t alone.
All of my Cardinals were accounted for, but there were also five other women and one man among the chained and beaten. They were all older—late thirties and possibly early forties. I got their story after ungagging them.
“My name is Wilson,” the dark-haired and broken-nose man croaked. “I was hiking. Just hiking with my girlfriend when I rolled my ankle. We came to this house asking for help and... and...” Sobs crumpled his face. “Where’s Jillian?” he cried. “Where is she? What... what did they do to her?”
“I’ll find her,” was all I could get out before taking off to open another door and find another heartbreaking scene on the other side.
I found Jillian behind that door, and when she broke down in sobs too as she told me what that monster did to her when she finally begged for the beatings to stop, my tough, diamond shell shattered, and I didn’t bother to hide my bright eyes.
Three of the women confirmed they were here before the Brotherhood moved in—thanks to that evil, disgusting corpse Luca. He just left them there after giving the place to the Brotherhood, claiming they weren’t “big earners” and weren’t worth the trouble or cost to bring them on his big move overseas.
If only I’d been there when Sunny stabbed Luca and left him to bleed out. I’d have liked to poke more holes in that worthless sack, starting with the eyes and crotch and then stabbing my way to the middle.