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“That’s great,” he growls. “Never doubted you would. Now get the fuck out of there.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, that’s the plan. I’m on my way as soon as we ha—”
I shut my mouth with a snap when I hear a door open behind me.
I whirl around, dropping my phone to reach for the gun I keep in the back of my waistband.
There’s a motherfuckingdoor, cut into the wall right next to the statue at the back of the alcove, in such a way that it was totally fucking disguised. I had no clue it was there and sure as shit don’t know where it leads, but I do know I’m completely fucked, because Austin motherfucking McKenna steps out of it before I can get my weapon out, a gun already in his hand, pointed right at my head.
“Not smart,” he says, a savage glint in his eyes that tells me I should have been a bit more suspicious about how fucking easy it was to move “undetected” through his house. “Were you just about to pull a weapon on me, after pledging your allegiance?”
The sadistic bastard is fucking grinning, practically salivating over the hole he thinks I’ve dug for myself here and the psychological warfare he thinks he’s about to wage. He’s too fucking easy to read. He wants me to claim I was all turned around, lost and confused, that going for my weapon was pure instinct. He wants that shit just for the rush of watching me realize he’s onto me, the sick fuck.
Fuck that.
I make a break for it, shoving that ugly-ass statue into him as I turn to sprint down the hallway. The string of curses he lets rip as he trips over the broken pieces are music to my fucking ears, but I’m already reaching for my weapon again as I run, because I know that shit won’t delay him for long.
I don’t get far before I’m jumped by a whole contingent of these fucking weasels, including Duke and Tre. McKenna probably made them leave that Benny dude to bleed out for real, and I feel zero remorse about that as I take first Tre out, then some bearded asshole who goes for a chokehold before someone knocks the gun out of my hand.
“Take him the fuck down!” McKenna screams from behind me as I break someone’s knee cap with a satisfying crunch when he makes the mistake of trying to sweep my leg.
I get in one more good hit, my vision obscured by blood although with all the adrenaline in my system, I’ve got no fucking clue if it’s mine or not, but there are too fucking many of them. They overpower me by sheer numbers, doing what their boss man said and taking me down fast.
I fight hard and I fight dirty, right up until they get me fully restrained, but the minute it’s clear that I’m well and truly caught, I quit resisting. If I can keep breathing long enough to find a way to get out of here and rejoin Maddoc and the others, I need to take it—no matter what it costs me.
“Get him up.” McKenna’s voice throbs with rage as he prowls closer, but the way he keeps his distance while his men do it tells me what a fucking pussy he actually is.
“Scared I’ll bite?” I ask, spitting out the blood in my mouth near his feet.
McKenna’s face mottles with rage, and Duke gets in a vicious little kidney jab when he twists my arms up behind my back. “Show some fucking respect,” he hisses in my ear.
I laugh, because there’snothinghere I respect… and I can’t help but keep grinning when I notice the big-ass bruise already forming on McKenna’s forehead and the scuff marks on his knees.
It’s not much. Nothing like what I’m sure he’s about to do to me. But he tripped hard over that statue and no doubt looked like a flailing fool in front of his men when he got himself back up, and I’ll take it.
My grin seems to flip a switch in McKenna. He replaces all his rage with a slow, sick smile that tells me I actually have something to worry about here.
“That’s right,Reaper,” McKenna says as my grin falls away, pulling a knife. “You’ve got nothing to smile about. But if you’d like me to give you something…”
He steps closer and digs the tip into my skin, right at the base of my throat. The sting is sudden and severe, and warm blood trickles down my chest as he slowly twists it, watching for my reaction like a hungry shark.
I let the breath out of my nose in a slow, deliberate release, slowing down my nervous system and reaching for that place in my head my father trained me to go early, the one that lets me stay focused and alert when I need to, no matter what’s happening around—or to—me.
McKenna’s eyes flash with a bit of that rage when I don’t flinch or start begging him for my life or whatever reaction it is the sick bastard is looking for, and he drags the knife from my throat, down my chest, to my bicep, leaving a trail of blood and stopping when he finally gets to exposed skin.
“I like art too,” he says, using the tip of his knife to trace a few of my tattoos. When he gets to a gorgeous tribal design I had done a few years ago, he digs the blade in, carving the lines deep. “How about we recreate every one of these tattoos in blood?”
“It’s my favorite color,” I murmur, letting my mind drift a little further inside itself, going back to the night I spent with Riley, telling her the story of my art.
I smile at the memory, and McKenna snaps, raging again. “I never should have trusted you!” Then he laughs, a little manic-sounding. “Oh wait, I didn’t. Butyouthought I did. You came intomyterritory, intomyhouse, thinking you could fool me? For that, you’re gonna pay.”
His eyes go hard again, and he jabs the tip of his knife into the left eye of the colorful Calavera skull inked in the center of my forearm, hard enough to make me grunt when I feel the tip hit bone.
“Oh, that’s just the start,” McKenna gloats. “I’m going to make you hurt.”
I don’t respond. He’s not lying, but I won’t give him the satisfaction he wants any sooner than I have to. Training or not, I’ve seen too much death, too much torture, to doubt that he’ll be able to get more of a reaction out of me eventually. Hell, he can probably make me scream myself hoarse if he goes at it long enough.
But he’ll never make me beg.
