A chill washed over Steel. He wasn’t sure what he expected to feel when he finally came face to face with his daughter’s murderer, butnumbwas not it.
Standing, Steel looked to Poison and Kitty, who were leaning against the back wall like they were watching a concert of a popular band. Kitty even had his arms wrapped around Poison’s shoulders.
“Take him,” Steel ordered without pleasantries. The couple stepped forward. They didn’t bother to unbind the man, just took hold of the back of his chair in unison and started to drag him behind them. Steel didn’t bother with any further instructions; they knew where to take him.
Looking at the other five men, Steel cracked his neck. He was running on pure adrenaline. Had been for months, and now that the ending was finally in sight, he was starting to feel the effects when he needed his strength the most.
“Which one of you drove the cage?”
All five men, ranging from early twenties to late forties, stared at him with horror-filled eyes.
Running on fumes and out of patience, Steel stepped up to the first on the left. “Were you driving that night?” The man frantically shook his head. Steel reached into his pocket and pulled out the cigar cutter. Placing the man’s right pointer finger through the hole, Steel asked again. This time his voice was short and clipped. “Were you driving that night?”
Again, the man shook his head. Steel stared into his eyes, not seeing color but pure fear. Deciding the man was telling thetruth, Steel made quick work of removing the man’s finger. A muffled scream rose up as the man tried desperately to breathe through his nose.
Taking the finger stump, Steel removed the man’s ball gag long enough to force the digit into his mouth, and then redid the strap. It was his choice whether or not to swallow.
The next man in the half circle was already shaking his head by the time Steel approached him. He was nodding to his right with such force he nearly tipped over his chair.
Steel pointed. “He was the driver?”
The man nodded, his tear-filled eyes wide with a silent plea for mercy. He found none. Steel removed two of his fingers, just because his cowardice rubbed Steel the wrong way. Tossing the bloody digits at Papaw, he said shortly, “Take care of those for me.”
Then he approached the driver. “You drove that night? You were in the cage when Desmond shot Baldwinthroughmy daughter?”
The man was older than Desmond, maybe thirty. His eyes bounced everywhere like he was tracking a rubber ball. He jumped when Steel snapped his fingers in front of his face. Startled, the man started nodding before he seemed to realize what he was admitting to.
Poison came back into the room. “Him too?”
Steel nodded.
Solo, Poison dragged the driver out of the room too.
Turning on the two men who had all ten fingers and toes, Steel said over his shoulder at Seamus, “What do you want done with these four?”
“They’ve seen too much,” was Seamus’ answer. “I can’na trust their loyalty after this or to keep their mouths shut.”
Steel, though, walked away. “Then take out your own trash.” He headed over to Kelly. The robust man seemed to be doing hisbest to try to fade into the background, like if he stayed still and quiet enough, Steel would forget about him.
“Your son may have given the order, but it was at your insistence,” Steel told Kelly in lieu of an explanation for his pending death.
Stepping over Eoin’s downed form, Steel squatted behind the man. Ignoring the bile and shit surrounding the middle Gavigan son, Steel picked him up by the hair and forced him to face his father. “It’s the worst feeling in the world, watchingyour childbe lowered into the ground. Seeing her lying still and frozen in afucking coffinthat you had to pick out! Of walking away from her, knowing that she’s dead and yet you don’t want to leave her. I wasn’t there, Kelly. I didn’t hold her as she died, didn’t get to say goodbye. She died alone on the streets like an animal. I watched the video of her death over a hundred times. I know theexact expressionon my daughter’s face when she died.”
Holding up his hand, he waited until Starbucks placed his butterfly knife in Steel’s open palm. Gripping the handle, Steel flipped the knife around andjammedthe blade into the upper right quadrant of Eoin’s abdomen under his ribcage. He’d gone in so far that his fist started to sink into the cavity he was creating as he ran the blade across the man’s liver.
It would not kill him. Not right away, that is. But it would be a very slow, very painful demise.
Standing, Steel offered Starbucks back his bloody, soiled knife. He was grateful the man kept it so sharp. As he stepped over Eoin’s disemboweled, gasping body, he stared Kelly down. “Do you have anything to say to your dying son?”
One hand slick with blood, Steel removed Kelly’s ball gag.
“You fucking coward!” Kelly spat out the moment the gag was removed. Except he wasn’t talking to Steel or Eoin. He was talking to Seamus. “You don’t have what it takes to be the head of this family. You’re nothing more than a worthless waste of space.I should have killed you the moment you were born. I knew a weak, pathetic boy like you could never grow up to be a man.”
Steel glanced over his shoulder to see Seamus standing behind one of Eoin’s soldiers with a gun in his hand. He didn’t know whose weapon it was, but also noticed that several of theVia Daemoniaand theNon Crashad their guns out as well. It was a tentative truce at best.
Staring his father in the eye while his own brother lay dying in his own excrement, Seamus raised the gun to the back of the bound lackey’s head and fired. Down the line he went, until one, two, three, four were dead.
Handing the gun back to Ghost, he said in a dead voice, “I hope ye rot in Hell, ye miserable bastard.” Then he turned and walked out of the room. Gypsy, theNon Cras’ Secretary, followed him.
