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“Oh, it looks like you were so bored waiting for us.” I chuckle as I roll the sleeves of my shirt up over my elbows. I can’t get too close to Dagger without the risk of looking like Tommy, but if he fucks me off, I won’t be able to help myself.
Dagger’s face is black and blue, and even without knowing what the guy looked like before Tommy got his hands on him, I know it was nothing like he looks right now. His arms are tied behind his back, a puddle of blood and probably piss underneath him. The scent of burning flesh originates from his thighs where what used to be his pants have been burned into his skin. Tommy works fast, I’ll give him that much.
“Dagger and I have been getting to know each other, haven’t we?” Tommy smacks his back and his prisoner hisses in pain.
“Fuck off. You should kill me now and save us all some time. I’m not going to tell you anything,” Dagger spits.
I chuckle. They all say that, but there’s something about slicing, breaking, and burning them that makes them squeal like the filthy pigs they are. “Well, here’s the thing. I have a beautiful woman waiting for me. The most stunning creature you’ve ever seen in your miserable fucking life. And she’s about to make a speech that she’ll be really fucking mad if I miss. Now, if anything, or anyone, makes my woman angry, or upset for that matter, I get angry, and believe me when I tell you, you don’t want to see me mad.”
Dagger laughs, actually fucking laughs. The motherfucker is strapped to a chair, bleeding from so many places, I’m starting to wonder if he’s going to pass out from blood loss any second now, and he’s fucking laughing at me. “You and I both know this crazy fuck is going to kill me regardless of whether I talk or not. So do us all a favor and kill me so you can go back to your whore.”
The moment the word leaves his blood-covered lips, red clouds my vision, but before I can charge forward, Storm grabs me around the shoulders, holding me firmly in place.
“Get off me,” I growl, bucking against him as I try to drag us both forward.
“How are you going to explain being covered in blood to Emerson?” Storm asks me quietly.
Tommy looks between the two of us before shaking his head and moving in front of Dagger. “While these two argue about whatever has their knickers in a twist, I’m going to run you through your options. The first option, also known as the easy option, is that you tell us everything you know about the missing shipment, and I’ll shoot you in the head. You won’t feel a thing. Like I said, that’s the easy option, and as much as I’d love to hear you sing like a fucking canary, I kind of hope you choose the other way, the hard way.” He grins wickedly. Fuck, he’s crazy, but we wouldn’t have him any other way. “The hard way involves a lot of blood, some burning flesh, maybe even some dismemberment, if we’re all really lucky. So Dagger, such a stupid fucking name by the way, in your next life I would recommend a better street name if you choose the life of crime again. What’s it going to be?”
Silence fills the space and Tommy’s lips quirk up. “I’ll take that as the hard way.”
Before any of us can blink, he’s pulled a knife from somewhere and slammed it into the burned flesh of Dagger’s thigh. The scream that follows is almost sickening… almost. If I were a man with a conscience, I would probably at least recoil at the sound, but I’m not.
I love the sound. Watching the life flicker out of someone’s eyes is like crack to me, and that’s what makes Tommy and I so similar. I may not enjoy the torture like he does, but we both enjoy the end result as much as the other.
This night has it all. My woman in a dress I picked. Claiming her in front of the world. And now, watching an enemy bleed out in front of me in the hope of holding onto his pride, and once we’re done here, I’ll go back to Emerson and claim her in every sense of the word.
I can’t fucking wait.
19
Emerson
Rayne’s been gone for a while and for some reason, it’s making me uneasy. I’m not an idiot. I know what he does for a living, and I know what likely needed his attention, and yet I’m still worried. I’m not sure if that means I care for him more than I’m letting myself admit, or if I’m just an idiot.
I’ve been mingling for the last hour, talking to the mayor about one of the kids at the Center who recently received a full-ride scholarship to Harvard.
“I’ve never seen someone look so nervous in my life. He looked so tired and the envelope was crinkled, so I knew he had been putting off opening it since the day before,” I explain.
The morning Adam arrived in my office long before even Dad could arrive, an unopened envelope in his hand and a mixture of excitement and terror etched into his features plays back as I tell the story.
Adam’s curly brown hair is a mess, dark smudges under his deep brown eyes. The moment I see him sitting in the chair opposite mine, I think something has happened at home. His home life is better than some of the other kids, but I wouldn’t exactly call it good. I’ve met his mom a few times, and she loves him and his sisters to death, but she’s on her own and works almost as much as I do to put food on the table and clothes on their backs, leaving Adam as the parent a lot of the time.
His sisters are only a few years younger than him, and probably more than capable of taking care of themselves, but he’s done it for almost their entire lives, it’s all he knows.
He hasn’t said as much, but I know he’s worried about leaving them next year. When he was doing applications, he only wanted to apply to Chicago colleges to begin with, but I convinced him to cast his net wider.
“You’re here early,” I comment as I take my seat and place my coffee down in front of me. “Is everything okay?”
Adam’s intense eyes meet mine. “I need you to open this for me.” He pushes the envelope toward me and the Harvard stamp in the corner catches my eye. “I got it last night and I couldn’t bring myself to open it. You’re the one that helped with my application, that encouraged me to apply for a school I only ever dreamed of, and that hounded people for references. I think you should open it.”
My heart clenches at the sentiment. He’s not the first kid I’ve helped with college applications, but he is the first to ask me to not only be a part of such a special moment, but to physically open the letter. It reminds me why I work so hard for these kids.
I reach across the desk and hold the envelope in both hands, but don’t make a move to open it right away. “What do you want this to say, Adam? I know you were concerned about moving away from your mom and sisters, but if you take all of that away, what do you want the outcome to be?”
He sits back in his seat, contemplating my question. He looks as torn as I did the day I received a letter that looked very much like the one I’m holding in my hands now. I wish I had had someone to ask me the same question, because as I opened my own letter, I hoped for it to say I didn’t get in. I hoped for it to take the decision out of my own hands. “I want to get in. It’s an incredible school and Cambridge isn’t that far away, really. I could always visit.”
I nod and use a pen to slowly slice the top of the envelope. When I unfold the paper, there’s only one word I see.
