He was still holding the knife, a knife wet with Levi’s blood. Taking his time, Cass closed in on his prey.
“She…” Levi swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “She said not to kill me. I heard her!”
Cass smiled at him. And he brought up the knife. He let the tip of the blade press into Levi’s right side. “Do you think…” The blade pressed hard, cutting past the fabric of Levi’s shirt, cutting past skin, and sinking into muscle. He sliced across with the blade. “Do you think I give a flying fuck what she said?” Jaw locked, rage fueling him, Cass yanked the blade down in another slice.
Levi began to whimper.
Agnes had scars on her stomach. Her abdomen. One is nearly in the exact same spot where I just slid this blade. Cass’s gaze darted over his prey. Blood poured from the wound he’d just given Levi.
“I’m sorry!” Levi cried out. “S-sorry! She wasn’t my target—I fucking swear!”
Cass pulled the blade out. He watched as the blood drip-drip-dripped onto the ground.
Agnes was stabbed. Seven times. Left for dead.
His head lifted. The better for him to stare his prey straight in the eyes. “Do you want to die?” Cass asked Levi softly.
“Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. No! Please, please, look, I just—it was the heat of the moment. I was…I wasn’t thinking straight! I just went in for the attack. You were fighting Hugo and Bear, and I just—” A heaving breath. “I will do anything you want! Don’t kill me! Don’t!”
“You were thinking straight.” He kept staring at Levi. Seeing the fear and desperation twist the other man’s face. “You thought you’d be leader. You thought you’d take away everything I had.”
“I’ll disappear!” Levi promised, frantic. “You won’t ever see me again!”
Cass shook his head. “That’s not how it works. You don’t just walk away from the MC.”
The others remained dead silent.
“I don’t see any reason to let you live,” Cass told Levi. “I only see about a million reasons to let you die.”
“No!” A high-pitched, whining cry. And then—then Levi surged forward, somehow breaking free of both men who had been securing him. He lunged, not at Cass, but around him, trying to just run the hell away.
As if that would happen.
But Levi was hauling ass toward the big field near the ranch house. A sprawling field that had a twisted patch of woods to the far right. The bastard thought he was getting to those woods. He was wrong. Cass tackled the jerk and took him to the ground. Cass flipped him over as Levi begged and pleaded, and Cass brought that knife up, even though holding it made his gut twist.
Someone drove a knife into Agnes seven times. And he was holding a blade. And he was a monster, too. And he shouldn’t ever touch her but all he wanted was her?—
“He’s not dead, man!” A rough whisper from Levi. “He told me to get in the gang, told me to get close to you, to watch you, but he’s not dead!”
The frantic words had Cass pausing. “Who the hell…” Dark. Hard. Grating. “Are you talking about?”
“He wanted me to take you out! It was all him!”
So now you’re saying you didn’t come at me in the freaking heat of the moment? You were following orders? There sure seemed to be a lot of people trying to kill him lately. “Give me a name.”
“Y-you know.”
Did he look like he freaking knew? If he knew, why in the hell would he be demanding a name?
“You didn’t kill him.” A low rasp. “Had to know…no body. No body… He’s been waiting. Getting stronger…he’s coming for you.”
Cass hauled Levi to his feet. Held the bastard in front of him. No body? Shit. “You’re damn well not talking about my uncle. Winston Striker is dead. I am not going to believe that bullshit?—”
Thunder. No, a gunshot blast. He heard it and felt it at the same instant because pain tore across the edge of his right shoulder. Even as his shoulder burned with pain, Cass automatically let go of Levi. The bastard staggered back even as Cass dove for cover.
Another gunshot blast.
A hit, right in Levi’s chest. Because he’d just been standing there, with a dumb smile on his face. But that smile vanished when the bullet hit him.
