"My life wouldn't be worth living if I did," Solomon said. He didn't even have the grace to be apologetic about it.
Asshole.
"Your quality of life isn't worth shit," Jules snarled. "You deserve to have your balls ripped off and shoved down your throat."
"Accurate," I said with a small incline of my head. This man violated and murdered my sister. He deserved to be sliced apart, piece by piece.
"Tell me something," I said slowly. "Will Hypnos and Zeus be disappointed if you kill me? Won't they want to take part?"
Cass' grip tightened on my wrist, but I gave him a quick look.
"They don't know who you are," Solomon said, looking smug. "Your father asked me to look out for you and I did. It took a while to realize what you were up to, but I knew someone was coming after us. It was Gina who first uncovered that you had an unusual source of meat. Then, when Granger died and we discovered you were in the company of one of the perpetrators, it all fell into place."
"Unusual source of meat?" Jules echoed. "Are you saying…" He sounded nauseated.
"That's exactly what I'm saying," Solomon said. "Harlow has some interesting tendencies."
"You were serving roast motherfucker?" Jules stared at me in disbelief.
"Of course not," I replied easily. "Not roast."
"That's…" He blinked a couple of times, trying to figure out what it was. "So we could actually feed this prick his balls?"
Apparently he didn't have as much problem with it as I would have expected. Good for him.
"We could," I agreed. We could overpower him, but not him and his thugs. Even if I had a weapon on me, they were too big for me to take on. Jules might stand a chance, but not the rest of us.
I couldn't stop the flame of despair that flickered to life inside my chest. It quickly threatened to burn me up from the inside.
"How are we going to do this?" I asked Solomon. "We're not going to stand here and let you slice our throats, one by one, like a row of pigs in the slaughterhouse."
Boner vigorously nodded his agreement.
Archer looked slightly less certain, and a lot less angry. Like always, he was calmly clinical. Had he given up already? I didn't want to think so.
"My friends will deal with you," Solomon said, referring to the thugs. "I'll take care of these two." He stepped around to the side of Archer, knife ready in his hand.
The thugs stepped closer to us, almost looking bored. As if we wouldn't be a match for them. They'd snap our necks in two seconds flat and head off a for a burger.
For a long time, I thought I might die a violent death, but I hadn't pictured this. I'd expected to go down with a knife inmy hand. Possibly taking a chunk out of my attacker before they took me down.
Or maybe I'd be tossed off a fire escape in the middle of an epic boss fight. Preferably a moment after I stabbed them through the throat. I'd be gone, but they'd be gone with me.
In the back of my mind, I'd hoped to die of old age, having handed my restaurant down to someone like Erin. I could have popped in now and again for a meal, and to make sure the place was running, but otherwise I'd spend my days wandering around the city, finding those places I didn't know existed. Meeting new people and hanging out with my guys.
I could have taken up painting or something relaxing. Honed my knife throwing skills, perhaps. They were lacking at the best of times. Killing from a distance wasn't really my jam.
All of that would have been perfect. This? This was anything but perfect.
In fact, this was really,reallydisappointing.
I hadn't thought I'd die being strangled by a pair of meaty hands and indifferent eyes. Nothing more than a paid job. Neither of them was going to put any passion into killing me. After everything I'd been through and done, it was, frankly, insulting. I'd bet anything Boner felt the same way.
The others, they'd be pissed off they were about to die.
Oh, I was pissed off about that too. I would have given my life to save all of them. Even Gina. Even these two thugs.
"You're loose ends too, you know," I pointed out.
