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I glance down at myself, then look up with a smirk. “Your boys roughed me up pretty good, but not all this blood is mine, McKenna.”
His glances at the strip club bouncers who brought me here, still hovering by the door. “They look fine,” he says dismissively.
“’Course they are. I didn’t fight back. I asked to come see you.”
His eyes narrow again. “So whose blood is it?”
I do grin this time, selling myself as the man I created on the drive over. “I already told you.”
McKenna stares at me long and hard, then turns to bark at the bouncers. “Get the fuck out.”
The expressions they quickly mask as they jump to follow his orders tell me everything I need to know about how he runs his organization… and what’s gonna bring it down.
Not that it comes as a surprise.
There’s no fucking loyalty here. It’s why I already know he’ll fall for the story that I don’t have any, either.
“Explain,” he snaps once they’re gone.
“I’ve been thinking about it ever since I realized you got all that bitch’s money from her. You sent her back to us fucking penniless.”
McKenna smirks, and I don’t want to carve the expression off his face and see what color his blood will turn the teal of his shirt once it soaks into the silk. I can’t. Those kinds of feelings will give me the fuck away.
Instead, I shake off the last of the real me, the part that’s still imagining how fucking good he’d look with a bullet hole between his eyes, and step fully into the roll I created on the drive over. I’m a self-serving shithead who only cares about being on the winning team, quick to switch allegiances if that’s what it takes to make that happen, and I grin, cocky enough to gloat a little, as I tell him how it went down.
“It took some work for me and Logan, Madd’s other second, to take down that shitty-ass excuse for an assassin you sent over to the house, I’ll give you that. But I ain’t fucking stupid. I can see the writing on the wall. As soon as we offed your man, I went ahead and did what he came to do. A little present, from me to you.”
“Youkilled Maddoc Gray?” he asks, his voice dripping with disbelief. “Bullshit.”
“I brought proof, if you want to cut me loose.” He makes no move to do it, and I laugh. “Your people are fucking incompetent, McKenna. None of them even frisked me. You don’t want to cut my hands free? I can tell you where to find it instead, including all the weapons they left on me. But fair warning before you go shoving your hand down my pants. You’re not my fucking type.”
His face mottles with rage for a second, and I’m fully prepared to take a few more hits for daring to insult his ego, especially in front of his seconds. But for once, the bastard surprises me.
“Brett,” McKenna snaps, waving one of his people forward. “Give me a knife.”
The guy lumbers over and hands him one as McKenna looks me over, a calculating look replacing the rage… or, more likely, just painting over it for now, while he weighs his options to see what’s going to best serve his self-interest.
“Turn around,” McKenna orders, slicing through the zip ties once I do it. He grabs my shoulder and roughly spins me back to face him, holding the knife to my throat. “Now show me.”
I reach in my pocket and pull out Maddoc’s finger, handing it over.
“Take it, Brett,” McKenna says, pressing the knife against my Adam’s apple as a sadistic light flares to life behind his eyes. The steel bites into me, stinging enough that the warm trickle of blood I feel flowing down my neck doesn’t surprise me. “Tell me what the Reaper brought,” McKenna says to his man without breaking eye contact with me.
He wants to see fear, but he’s shit out of luck. I’m damn good at role play when I need to be, but I can’t fake that bullshit no matter how deeply I’ve buried my true feelings.
“Shit,” I hear his second say with a low whistle. “He’s not lying, boss. He killed Maddoc Gray.”
I smirk. “Is this the part where I say you’re welcome?”
McKenna’s eyes narrow, then he abruptly lowers the knife, turning to snatch the finger from his second. He turns it over, frowning down at it while he examines it from every angle. Finally, he traces the stylized numbers inked onto the skin with his nail, then looks up at me.
“This is Maddoc’s.”
“I took it on my way out. I would’ve brought you his head, but I kind of had to make a quick getaway.”
“Did you kill Logan Adair? The girl? Mywifey?”
“No.” I don’t let myself react. I’m not that person right now. “I saw an opportunity and I took it, then I got the fuck out.”
