The double act headed inside first, followed by Marco, but the other two stayed on the door, eyeing our club like they thought they’d stand a chance if shit got real.
“Grease, stay with the rest, so nothing gets edgy.”
Glory
Now that we werehere, I was shitting myself. It wasn’t just about seeing Sean, but that was enough in my book, I mean, wasn’t it enough? Still, this building, these people, they were all so terrifying! When I met Lenore, and she changed my life, I had no idea she was affiliated with people like this!
“There you are, Gloria.”
“Uh her name’s Glory apparently, Lenore, love.”
She looked from the man called Seb, who I actually thought was the sweet one out of the two, and grinned widely at me.
“That’s my girl.”
She stepped out of the way of what I’d been dreading seeing, and there he was. Sean. His blonde hair was sticking up in all directions, that pretty face of his was bruised, and there was blood that hadn’t been there when we saw him on her screen earlier. He was glaring furiously at me, muttering something beneath the duct tape wrapped viciously around his mouth and the back of his head several times.
“Oh… he fell out of his chair,” Lenore said with a tiny grin, and I was starting to realise she was very much like the men she called ‘boss’.
“That’s a shame. He always was terribly clumsy,” I said, getting in an intentional dig immediately, because that asshole blamed my ‘clumsiness’ for all those spills down the stairs and stuff. Monster.
Henley’s fingers slipped into mine again and he squeezed gently.
“Ready to say fuck you to this monster, so we can get out of here?” He looked more unnerved than me in this place, butmaybe it was just that we were facing the man who’d tried to destroy me. He’d failed. I knew that now. I’d still have my struggles, but he didn’t ruin me completely, and that meant I could still look forward to a future he’d never have. He wasn’t leaving this room alive, and nobody here was in any doubt about that fact.
With Henley and Lenore beside me, I stepped up as close to Sean as I could, because he was tethered to the chair so firmly that he couldn’t move. His glares would have terrified me before today, maybe even a few hours ago, but now I felt nothing. This was my revenge, my chance to be reborn outside of the hell of my marriage to him. My chance to live, while he wouldn’t.
“Can you remove the tape?”
Lenore sucked in a sharp breath. “Are you sure? He’s a bit of a twat.”
“Danno?”
I heard one of the bearded guys say that, but I paid no attention until a dashing man dressed all in black, with shoulder length grey-blonde hair, and a scar down his cheek, stepped around us and behind Sean. Sean clearly recognised him because his breathing became frantic and he tried to jerk away from him.
“Aw, it’s like you don’t love me anymore, Sean,” the guy said cheerily, waving a scary curved blade in front of my former husband’s face.
“Oh god,” I gasped, and Lenore laughed.
“He loves his knives. Don’t worry, he’s just here to make sure he behaves.”
The guy called Danno dipped his head at me, like a gentlemanly bow, and sliced through the tape, accidentally, or maybe not so accidentally, nicking Sean’s skin in the process, before he ripped it away from his face. Sean yelled out in pain, and then fell silent as that blade settled at the base of his throat.Danno, who looked a little like a sexy pirate, leaned close to his ear, whispering something I couldn’t hear, and Sean started shaking his head frantically.
“Good boy.” He patted his head, and lifted his eyes to me. “He’s all yours, love.”
I swallowed hard, tugging on Henley’s hand until he moved closer. I needed his closeness to get me through this right now.
“You’re going to make him suffer, right?”
I thought I’d speak to Sean, but instead I was asking those around him, and I received answers ranging from ‘fuck yeah’ to ‘only a lot’.
“Oi, where’s my pinking shears, bruv?”
“Gloria,” Sean gasped out, and the room fell quiet in a way that the silence felt like more knives aimed directly at him.
“My name is Glory,” I hissed at him, feeling my spine straighten a little as I glared back at him. If this was my last moment in his presence, I wanted him to see that he’d failed, that he hadn’t broken my spirit. That I’d survive beyond him. In spite of him.
“Be nice,” Danno hissed at him, moving the knife just enough to elicit a few drops of crimson blood on the blade. It was a jarring reminder of the reality of this entire situation. Death waited for him. And it was pretty impatient, if this room of scary people, shifting eagerly from one foot to the other, was anything to go by.
