A Groom’s Hell
An hour of travel.
So close to London.
The man who moved under the discreet name of Adam Wilky, Chatsworth Adoniram Wilkinson, had entered hell.
His carriage careened off the road after being chased by bandits. His driver ran off at the sound of flintlocks belching,boom,boom,boom.
The assassins dragged Adam from his carriage, separating him from his wife, his poor, hysterical Ruth.
The terror in her voice was so heavy, and awful, and gutting.
How could someone not help her?
How could they do this?
“Let us go!” He said the words even as they bound him with more ropes, even as Ruth sobbed and shrieked louder.
He needed to break free and hold her one last time, to lie to her sweetly that they would be freed, unharmed, anything to stop those tears.
But Adam knew he would die.
He just wanted Ruth to live. “Let her go. She’s nothing to this.”
His answer—a club cracked across his face.Wham.
Dizzy, falling to the ground, he saw four men, two fast ones and two lumbering, slow ones, strike him again and again.
The lumbering ones.
A sense of knowing them punched through him, but it was hard to tell with his eye swelling.
Fists and sticks continued pummeling his flesh. The scent of his sweat and blood stung his nostrils, but he stayed close to the lead man. He’d know the name of his killers. Then he’d pray for them to rot in hell.
Blam.A blow to his jaw.
The world grew black for a moment, then snapped back. Uncle’s ring. These were no bandits looking for gold.
Uncle Soulden.
A dying man should think of salvation, but all Adam could muster was the hope for vengeance, vengeance now, or in eternity, or both.
Holy righteous anger coursed through him.
The desire to be a flame to burn them up made him lunge at them. These evil men needed to be consumed with the hellfire flooding in his veins.
He punched back and dragged off the sack covering Uncle’s face. “Uncle, how dare you?”
A few henchmen stopped kicking Adam.
Maybe they could be swayed. “I’m the son of a peer. Let us go, and he’ll pay your ransom.”
“Adam, help!” Ruth screamed and kept crying out his name. “Don’t kill Adam. Stop beating him.”
He squinted and saw men holding her back. His Ruth!
“Let her go, then do your worst.”
