The men are fidgeting now, trying to escape again. They’ve likely noticed the wide array of weapons awaiting them.
Or toys, as the others prefer to call them.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” I tell them. There’s no inflection in my voice; I’m just giving them the facts.
The one with tiny eyes gulps. “Does that mean you’ll let us leave if we tell you what you want to know?”
“No. You’re going to die either way.” I step closer, letting my monster rise. “You broke into our property, our home. The place that protects our loved ones. Did you really think you could violate this space and we’d just let you walk away?”
Mousy-haired’s lips start to tremble. “Then why give us a choice?”
I smile mockingly. “If you tell us what we need to know, then I’ll kill you. If you don’t, that honor will be given to Samson.”
Samson chooses that moment to start sharpening a machete.
“Either way, you die.” I shrug.
Neo clings to my arm, swaying slightly. “God. You’re really going to kill them?”
I don’t take my eyes off the men on the tables. The men who we caught under Neo’s window. “Yes. We are. They can’t return.”
“Will you get caught?”
That’s what he’s worried about? “No, we won’t.”
His anxiety eases, replaced by his usual curiosity. “Where will you bury them?”
Cade is leaning against the wall, still smoking that infernal cigar.
Or maybe it’s a new one. No fucking clue.
“There’s a place in the woods,” Cade says when I don’t answer, and I turn my glower on him. He shrugs. “What? He should know.”
I’m not the only one glaring at him. For some reason, Neo is too. “No one should know this. I had no idea you buried people on your property. You should at least, like, throw them in the sea.”
“We’ve done that too,” Matthias says.
Samson laughs. “One time, Wylder went overboard. Got caught up in the rope. Had to fish him out like…well…a fish.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I was distracted.”
“He was drunk,” Dalton says.
“You? Drunk?” Neo lets out a loud laugh. “Fuck. I want to see that.”
“It’s pretty fun to watch,” Samson says, lifting the knife up to the light and examining it.
Neo lightly chuckles again and then gasps when Samson suddenly stabs one of the men in the neck. Blood splatters onto him, gushing from the man. His eyes are wide, his shoulders jerking as he attempts to stem the flow of blood, but he’s unable to, not with his hands tied.
Neo watches this all with a pale face and wide eyes.
I tug him back into my chest, feeling him tremble. “Samson, you could have warned him. Jesus.”
Samson shrugs a shoulder. “He wanted in here. He can watch like a big boy.”
Neo sways into me. “I don’t feel big or like a boy. I feel… I can’t feel my hands.”
“All right. Come on,” I say softly, and I lift him off the ground and take him into the other room, sitting him on a worn chair and putting his head between his legs. “You’ll be okay. Just breathe.”
