“You're not going to kill me,” he chuckles. “I’ve come up against plenty of jumped-up, little rich boys in the past. Ravenshaw men don’t have the balls to do their own deeds.” He laughs some more, and I ensure he doesn’t have the balls either when I take out my gun and fire a shot straight between his legs.
“Fuck!” He grabs his cock in both hands, hunching forward and hollering like a banshee.
“You’ve clearly only encountered a different class of Ravenshaw,” I tell him. Not just wanting to kill this fucker, but wanting him to suffer, too.
“Gracie told me what you did. You and my father are disgusting human beings.” I step closer and fire another shot into his foot, waiting for his screams to die down before I make my next move.
“You can’t kill me. That girl, she saw you; she knows who you are,” he cries out, through his agony
“Thatgirl didn’t even know her own name when she left here.” I glance down at the table, picking up the crack pipe and stabbing it in the cunt’s eye.
“Agggghhhh!” He takes one of his blood-soaked hands from his dick and grabs hold of the pipe, in an attempt to pull it out. While I watch the blood pour down his face and his thrash in agony. Steve will have taken care of the girl when she left. He knows the drill.
“You’ve got my wife really upset,” I tell him, watching him squirm and wishing she could be here to see it for herself.
“I’ve done plenty more to her than that.” Even knowing I’m going to end him, he has something clever to say, but I won’t let it bother me. How can it when I know that tonight, I’ll be holding my girl in my arms, feeling my baby wriggle inside her?
I drop the holdall on the coffee table and pull out the knife, stabbing him straight in the spleen, and hear the decibels of his cries get higher.
He slides off the sofa, trying to crawl across the floor, and I watch him struggle with a smile on my face.
“You're a sick fuck!” he screams at me, his wide, terrified eyes flitting from me to the door, like he thinks he stands a chance of getting out of here.
“And you’re going to hell.” I make a noose out of the rope in my bag and use it to drag him through the house and into the bathroom, then I test the bath rail to check it's going to hold.
“You're going to hang me?” He sounds fearful as I wrap the other end of the rope around the rail and crank him up off his feet. He’s a heavy man to lift, but I work out every day and, right now, I have the adrenaline of a hundred men feeding my determination.
He splutters and chokes, kicking his legs and panicking. One eye hangs from the socket; we must have lost the pipe on the way in here, and he struggles blindly to reach for the rope that’scutting into his neck. I wait for him to stop, for his body to give in and start accepting fate, then I release some tension on the rope, allowing his feet to touch the ground and a chance to get some breath back in his body. He looks up at me, relieved, thinking this is over, and I smile as I winch him up again. I watch him tire, as I keep him on the brink of life and death. Awarding him hope, then snatching it away again. I make sure I’m the last thing he sees before the life in his eyes drains out, and I finally let him pass from this world into whatever hell he’s meant for.
Dropping the rope, I let his body slump to the floor and stomp on the fucker’s face.
“I called the girl a cab and gave her a couple of hundred,” Steve informs me when I return to the car and shakes his head. “Digby’s already on his way to clean up, should be here in twenty.”
“Thanks, Steve.” I take off my gloves before tapping him on the shoulder, “You look like you enjoyed that.” He smiles as he rounds the bonnet to get back behind the wheel.
“Let’s get out of here. I have a pregnant wife to grovel to.”
Gracie ignores me when I step into her room. I kiss her on top of her head, regardless, then make myself comfortable on the bed beside her, waiting till she’s ready to speak to me.
“You’re wearing different clothes from what you left in,” she points out, staring straight ahead and refusing to look at me.
“I got changed for my meeting,” I explain, reaching for her hand, and being rejected when she quickly moves it away.
“You expect me to believe that? Why don’t we just go with the truth, Jack?” She turns her head, looking as furious as she is hurt. “You turned me into this weak little creature; you get offon me needing you, and then when I need you most, you bail on me.”
“I needed to talk to someone about getting Jonah put back in prison. I was doing what I thought was best for you.” I, at least, tell her half a truth.
I thought about how I was going to approach this the whole drive home. I can’t tell her that I killed him; as much as I want her to feel safe, I can’t risk her fearing me. She knows I’ve done wrong during my life, but she has no idea that I’m capable of murder.
“Gracie, I would never have left you here if I didn’t know with a hundred percent certainty that you were safe.”
“Well, I didn’t feel it, and I hate this constantly feeling vulnerable bullshit,” she confesses, looking angry at herself for admitting it.
“I won’t leave you again, I promise.” Wrapping my arm around her, I drag her closer, and this time she doesn't pull away.
“I’ve never felt this way before. I’ve always been so confident and sure I can take care of myself, but this baby is screwing with my brain.” She lets out an exhausted huff.
“You don’t need to take care of yourself, that's what I’m here for. I have people working on the Jonah thing. We have a reliable security team, and from now on, you have me right here, doing whatever it is you need me to do.”
