“That’s because the guy youdoknow is dead, and Xavier Bowen—his boss—was watchin’ his emails.” A pure sense of glee fills my chest as I watch the terror take over his eyes at the sight of me. His gaze jumps from my face to the glass walls of the cell, and amusement fills Hayden’s bond.
Ah. He’s looking at the pictures my men drew of me.
Not that I can blame him, they are pretty magnificent.
“The Senator is dead?” He looks up in horror, and then, as if realizing he just admitted his own guilt, flinches back a split second too late. Declan’s boot meets the bastard’s face this time, and blood pours out of his nose as he cries out in pain.
Then, Dec crouches down low next to him, his fist yanking his head up by his hair. “Now, now, now,” he tsks, tilting his head. “How would you know who we were talking about if it wasn’t you, Vic?”
“I’m sorry,” he sobs, his face a bloody mess. “I’m sorry, I had no choice!”
“Bull. Shit,” my brother snarls, getting in Victor’s face. “Because after you sent that message to Richard Pierce, telling him where you thought he could find and kill mybaby sister, we looked into the email address the message came from.”
Victor sniffs, his eyes watering. “It’s not—”
“If you try to fucking tell me that it was not your email address that we found registered to a whole mass of websites that should be fucking destroyed, posting bullshit on the dark web about omegas and sellingvideos you madeback when Cian first dipped his toes into the skin trade—I will put a bullet between your eyes right here and now.” Declan’s face is red with rage as he gets in the bastard’s personal space.
My stomach churns with revulsion. I don’t need to see the videos first-hand to put two and two together.
Declan continues, getting so close he’s spitting in the guy’s face. “That same email has also senthundredsof emails with seemingly random addresses to someone working for the Vasiliev family over the last four years, and guess who they belonged to? Half the omegas that have gone missing since the emails started. A little dig into your financials shows you were being paid one thousand dollars for every omega you sold out.”
“Do we really need the information he has, Dec?” My voice is stone cold, a stark contrast to my lightheartedness only moments ago. “We should just kill him now, make the world a little bit of a better place.”
I know that the speakers that project the noise in here out into the hallway are working, since nothing but disgust and anger radiates from Hayden’s side of the bond.
When I chance a glance outside the cell, I see every man who had been in the hallway when I came downstairs standing less than six inches away from the glass, dark expressions on their faces.
“Maybe.” Declan looms down thoughtfully. “But there is something I haven’t quite put together yet. Where did you get the addresses, Victor?”
The beta’s eyes widen and his mouth gapes, but he doesn’t answer.
My brother grabs the man by the collar, lifting him slightly. “Where. Did you get. The addresses?”
Victor’s blood, snot, and tear-soaked face looks between Declan and me. “I…hung out outside heat clinics and followed the ones home who didn’t have anyone to pick them up! But I can explain! I can explain everything, just—”
“Have you ever heard the sayin’ that actions speak louder than words?” I sneer, crossing my arms. “I’d say that sellin’ out people for your own profit, sellin’ exploitative videos, and giving an enemy information that was designed to lead to the death of your boss’s sister are actions so loud, I wouldn’t be able to hear any bullshit explanation you’d try to give, even if I wanted to.”
Declan releases the weasel with a hard shove, standing before he reaches into the back of his pants and pulls out his revolver.
The one used for executions.
The barrel presses into the side of Victor’s skull as Dec looks down at him with pure hatred.
“I kept you on after I killed my father because you swore your loyalty to me. You swore you were against what he had done, but that your duty to him left you no choice. I now see that I was lied to.”
Declan’s thumb pulls back the hammer of the gun, and I wrinkle my nose as a wet spot fills the front of Victor’s trousers, his whining and crying never stopping.
My brother proceeds as if he doesn’t notice.
“Victor Byrne, you have been accused of, and are now charged with selling privileged information to outsiders, stalking omegas, assisting in the trade of omegas, distributing video footage of omegas being actively abused—”
Rory’s voice cuts in over the intercom, “And for being an overall piece of shit human.”
Declan continues as ifhe’sthe one who said that last sentence. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
“You don’t understand!” he sobs pitifully.
“And I never will,” Declan spits. “Victor Byrne, by the witnesses of your crimes, and by the leaders of the family you have betrayed, I hereby sentence you to immediate death.”
