Bile rises in my throat, and I would kill to cover his vile face with it, but I nod. He gives me another squeeze and shoves me away from him. My head bounces off the wall of the boat, smacking into something sharp. My hand flies up to my head, covering the spot. As cold as it is, my hand is warm. I pull it away and it’s smeared with blood. If I didn’t have to puke already, I did now.
Samuel grabs me and pushes me in front of him. He leads me through some doors and down some stairs, and I’m sure the number of times I’ve hit something or bounced off the wall has to be a world record. A drunk person could walk straighter than he was leading me.
He opens a cabin door at the end of the hall he’s led me down, pushing me inside. I trip over my feet and fall face first onto the bed. As I raise myself up, my mouth falls open. A woman lies on the bed, naked. Her…bits and bobs are way too close to this gay man’s face.
“Hello,” she says.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
DRAVEN
I drag myself ashore,gasping for air against the cold. Agony and despair chills my body further, making it even more difficult to breathe. I collapse on the sand, trying to catch my breath. After several breaths, I stagger to my feet, turning to look out over the dark abyss that stretches before me. Emotion crashes into me like a tidal wave. Anger, fear, rage, regret, and guilt flood my system, overwhelming me.
All o’ it brings me to my knees, and the cold water o’ the ocean laps around my knees and lower legs where they’re buried in the wet sand. I dinnae ken what I’m going to do or how I will find him, but I promise myself and him, screaming into the night.
The sound o’ the waves soon overtakes the sound o’ the boat as my second chance at happiness disappears into the darkness. Sobs erupt from deep within me, my body jerking with their strength. I cannot imagine what my boy is going to go through. I know it. In my heart and in my mind, I know what can and probably will happen to him. They will abuse him, using him in the most nightmarish, depraved, destructive ways.
As I stare into the distance where Tavish was last seen, a hand briefly lands on my shoulder, jerking me back to the reality o’ the hell that I am in.
Looking over my shoulder, Mack is standing there, staring down at me. His hand rests on the blade that he always carries strapped to his waist, with my axes clasped in the other.
“What’s happened, my Laird?” he asks.
I open my mouth to tell him, and a fit o’ coughing and sputtering takes hold, and I’m powerless against it.
“Tavish. It is Tavish,” I say, gasping through the coughing and pain. “They took him.”
“Who took him?” Mack demands.
“Samuel. The Order o’ Death.”
“What’s this yer talking about? The Order o’ Death?” Mack asks.
“Och, aye. The Order o’ Death. His father was a member. That lavvy-heided bawbag carted his son off to America and handed him over like a lamb to the slaughter to the Order o’ Death.”
Mack stares at me. You can see the wheels spinning behind his eyes. Realization dawns and he says, “Owen Black.”
I nod. “Aye, Owen Black. He was the leader. Until Tavish teamed up with Owen’s stepdaughter, a little girl named Everly, and several members o’ the Order to take Owen and the Order down.”
“The lad was always smart.”
I chuckle mirthlessly, standing. Mack reaches down, picking up my axes. He uses one o’ them to gesture towards the house. But I dinnae move. I stay put, my eyes searching the horizon as grief washes over me.
Mack places a hand on my back, nudging me. That push seems to be what I need to get me moving again. Sitting hereon my ass willnae find my boy. He needs me to be his Dom, his daddy. I can lose my shit later.
Like I did with Simon.
Pushing that thought away, I turn toward the house, letting Mack guide me into the pool house for a change o’ clothes and then into the study. He drops the axes on Simon’s desk in the study I share with Tavish. The room is cold and dark. Even more so without my boy in it. Mack hastens to the fireplace and soon has a fire built to drive away the chill that’s settled in my bones.
When the chattering teeth and shivers have been chased away, I wander over to my desk, but I can’t bring myself to sit down. My eyes travel across the room, cataloging memories o’ the two men who are missing. My feet follow my gaze, and my hands drift over surfaces until I stop at Simon’s desk. A deep sigh lifts my chest and shoulders as I gaze at the picture that Tavish and the staff set there. There are so many o’ Simon, some on his own and some o ’the two o’ us. Now there are several o’ Tavish and even some o’ the two o’ us together.
“There should be pictures on this desk o’ the three o’ us.”
I dinnae realize I spoke out loud, until Mack says, “Aye, my lord. There should be. Yer Simon was taken from this world way too soon, and from what I hear, he was a damn fine man.”
My chin trembles with tears and emotion. I blame the overwhelming emotions I cannot seem to keep in check on the two men taken from me.
“He was the best o’ men,” I whisper for fear o’ setting loose the flood I’m barely holding back.
