“She recognized that the note I received from my beloved wife was not in her own hand,” Alex stated, glowering at his uncle. Imagining all the devilish things he would like to do to him for putting a blade against the throat of the woman he loved. “And clearly your men at the docks did not clean things up nearly neatly enough. My spies are everywhere. Did you really think I wouldn't find out?”
“Beloved? You love this, this simple girl!” Frederick laughed and Alex struggled to hold still as the blade came dangerously close to her throat again. “You fool. How can you love when you know it shall never be returned? How could she ever love you?”
Alex was no longer listening to his uncle. He had heard quite enough. Instead, he looked Emmaline in the eye, willing her to trust him, willing her to see that no matter what happened he would get her out of this safely.
“How did you even get in here?” Frederick demanded, clearly beginning to panic. A trapped rat was one willing to bite off its own tail to be free. Alex knew he must handle this carefully. He could not afford to mess this up.
For years he had been on the sidelines, the silent watcher who never lifted a finger save to inflict fear with words and let his uncle's men do the dirty work. He had been their puppet, but his words had always been the poison that dripped fear into men's ears just as it had been the nectar that drew them into drink in the first place, encouraging their spending, allowing their debts to pile up, letting his uncle reap the rewards.
Now was the time to use that voice for good.
“Did you really think that you were the only one who could buy people?” Alex asked. “Loyalty is earned, uncle, and you have earned none from those you stomped under your boot.”
“I… I don't… I don't understand.”
Alex rolled his eyes.
“I paid off the guards at the door and the pretty little maid you keep around to torment and pleasure yourself,” Alex snarled taking a step forward.
His uncle gave a sudden and swift nod of his head, but Alex was prepared once more. He had already seen the movement out of the corner of his eye. Swift as a striking predator, he spun and grabbed his uncle’s final man by the throat. He, unlike Tiny, was almost exactly Alex's height and build but he was entirely unprepared for Alex's swiftness.
“Uncle, did you really think that after all these years I didn't know all of your tricks? You may have blindsided me with this double crossing, but I have seen you in action one too many times,” Alex said, never taking his eyes off the man whom he was choking. “Your name is Hobbs, isn't it?”
The man barely managed to nod.
“Do you have a family, Hobbs?”
Again, he nodded.
“A wife? Children?”
He nodded a third time, beginning to gargle.
Alex shoved him back so hard it was likely to bruise his windpipe. “I suggest you go back to them then and beg the lord for mercy for all you have done under this man's rule.”
Alex threw an accusing finger at his uncle before grabbing his coin purse from his pocket. Dashing two silver coins at the man's feet, he snarled, “Go before I change my mind.”
The way the man stared at him told him all he needed to know. He was just as scared of the devil without his mask, as anyone had been with it.
“Don't you dare!” Frederick snarled when Hobbs looked at the coins consideringly.
“Last chance or you shall join my uncle wherever he may end up. A jail or a grave, the Thames, perhaps. It matters not to me.”
Like a frightened bird, the man swooped, grabbed the coins and barged his way right past Sebastian. Another loud twanging sound as he went suggested Victor had struck Tiny again.
“Looks like you are the last man standing, Uncle,” Alex said, turning on him once more. Now he was seething, made worse by the reminder that his uncle still had a blade to Emmaline's throat. “Take your hands off her and I may show you a little mercy too.”
“You wouldn't hurt your own flesh and blood!” Frederick spat. “You don't have it in you.”
Alex leveled his gaze with his uncle.
Hell, Emmaline, please connect with me as we always have,Alex prayed. He knew that in a matter of seconds, this could go one of two ways. Holding his breath, he gave a barely perceptible flicker of his gaze, a momentary gesture to his wife.
As luck would have it, he knew her and he knew their relationship, even better than he had hoped.
Almost as swiftly as he had gripped Hobbs, Emmaline grabbed the wrist of Frederick's hand holding the blade and braced it away from her throat even as she slammed her heeled shoe right into the top of his foot.
Alex was on top of them immediately, taking hold of his uncle's hand and yanking her free of his other arm.
