“Fourth, you wasted time on small talk – now, don’t get me wrong, I love to have a natter with my marks before I end them. But I’m a pro. I don’t have to worry about the extra time I’m offering them to come up with a plan to fight me off, because I actually enjoy the killin’ all the more when they try and fight back. But you – you aren’t made of the same stuff, Connor. You need to go for a quick kill because if you give someone else the chance to get the upper hand then they most certainly will. You’re too dumb. Too easy to outsmart.”
“I’m going to bleed out while you keep talking,” he snarled, giving up on trying to remove my foot from his wrist for a moment and clutching at the gunshot wound on his leg once more.
“Suck it up, Betty, it’s a fuckin’ flesh wound,” I scoffed.
“You could have hit an artery,” he shrieked and yeah, I liked that look of fear in his eyes.
“You’re right,” I growled, leaning down to let him get a good look at the dark in me. “I coulda. So don’t you want to thank me for having such impeccable aim and for taking pity on you outa nothing but the pure, sweet love I have for my brother in my heart?”
We both knew I loved him less than a sun-baked turd on the street, and his hissed curses quickly turned into a yell for help.
That was a mistake.
I could already tell we had an audience anyway and I knew no member of our rotten family would step in to save him just as well as he did.
“Fifth,” I continued, wanting him to know his failure well because I was a good brother, and this was the kind of learning curve which could truly benefit him long term. “You need to wash more. Shower, bath, scrub your balls with a rag, I don’t really give a fuck how, just get that stench offa ya skin. And stop spritzing yourself with all of that damn aftershave to try and cover up your stink. Even if you’d been as silent as a gnat’s fart, I still woulda scented you coming like a warthog in a mud hole. It’s fucking unseemly.”
“I’m going to kill you!” Connor roared and I sighed as I lifted the foot that had been crushing his wrist before stamping it back down again so hard that I heard the bone snap like a crack of thunder. It truly was a beautiful sound.
His screaming was less euphoric unfortunately.
“And sixth,” I called, making sure he could hear me over his screams as I picked up the hunting knife he’d thought to threaten me with and twirled it in my fingers.
Connor seemed less than inclined to hear me out though and he rolled over, scrambling away from me in a kind of strange caterpillar wriggle thing which made his arse strain against the confines of his fancy slacks as he dirtied them all over the ground.
I stalked him calmly, spinning the blade in my hand and sighing at the pathetic display he was putting on. Where was the O’Brien fight? Where was the backup weapon? The venomous words? Something, anything.
But no. Turned out that when we got right down to it, Connor O’Brien was no fiercer or more fearless than any other fucker I’d come knocking for, and that really was disappointing.
I let him crawl all the way up to the base of the steps which led into the house then dropped down over him, fisting his freshly barbered hair in my tattooed hand and forcing his head back so that he was looking right up into the disgusted face of our pa.
“Please,” Connor sobbed, cradling his wrist and making some weak attempt to buck me off of him which did little more than make me tighten my grip as I moved his own blade to his throat.
I raised my eyes too, the thrill of the hunt on me and the bloodlust hot in my veins as I met our pa’s gaze and gave him a choice. I had no qualms over killing the rotten sack of shit beneath me. Only the thought of breaking our ma’s heart would have stayed my hand and she was long since dead and beyond the point of caring, so I had no need to worry on that point.
Connor sobbed again, no doubt begging our father with his eyes for mercy, and I watched the old man sneer as he looked down at his fourth son with disdain.
For a moment I thought he was going to give me the nod. For a brief little beat of time, my grip tensed and I prepared myself to do it.
But no. As always, the man who had sired this pit of vipers refused to let me cross that final line and he gave me a slight shake of his head.
It was a test of course. I hadn’t bothered to turn my attention to Ronan or Dougal at his back, but I could feel the aim of their guns on me. If I disobeyed here and now then I’d buy myself a bullet to the head for my insubordination. Liam O’Brien’s mercy was as much a test of his hold over me as it was an act of kindness to his other boy. Probably more so.
My muscles locked and I bared my teeth, knowing I must have seemed like little more than a rabid creature before them and not caring much either way. I fought back the need for death and carnage which warred so fiercely within me until I somehow managed to regain control of myself and pull back.
“And sixth,” I snarled again, determined to finish my point at the very least as I shifted the blade to the top of Connor’s scalp instead. “You were stupid enough to go up against an opponent you never had any chance of beating,” I finished. “So now I want to hear you say it, nice and loud for me, dear brother. Tell me you fear me, or I’ll work harder to make it so.”
Connor trembled beneath me, the blade cutting into his scalp at the edge of his hairline as I made my final threat to him clear. I might not have been gifted permission to kill him, but I hadn’t been told to stop with the torture and he knew it. So this was all down to him and me.
“Of course I fucking fear you,” he hissed. “You’re a mad man. A psychopath, a liability. We all fear you, and we all want you dead.”
I grinned widely, enjoying that admission to no end and deciding to go easy on him in payment for it.
I shifted my blade just a little before sawing through the dirty blond hair I still held in my fist and giving him a monk’s cut right down to the skin, showing my skill by not so much as giving him a scratch.
I shoved him away from me with a bark of laugher, dropping both the blade and the ruins of his hair onto the drive beside him and turning aside dismissively as I began to head up the steps to the house.
“Be thankful I didn’t go the whole hog and scalp you, dear brother,” I called back over my shoulder as I went. “Next time I won’t be so merciful.”
“Your brothers and I have a matter to finish up before we start with the real business of the day,” Liam said as I stalked towards him and I said nothing, the two of us knowing I had no interest in his so-called businesses whatsoever. I was a man made for bloody work, not money laundering and racketeering. “Kyan and some of his friends are staying in the house if you feel like amusing yourself with their company. I won’t be needing you until after lunch.”
I bit my tongue on the angry retort I wanted to give, pointing out the fact that he had insisted upon me being here this early and that I wouldn’t have shown up for hours if I hadn’t been required - which he damn well knew.
“I guess I’ll be seeing you at lunch then,” I said, stepping between my two other brothers as if they weren’t aiming their guns at me. “Oh, and Ronan? You left the safety on, so I’m about as terrified as a cat on a sun lounger right now.”
Ronan turned his gun to check my claim and I snatched Dougal’s revolver from his grip so fast that he didn’t even get a chance to try and fight it away from me. Before Ronan could aim at me again, I’d already hurled the revolver into his sneering face and he yelled in horror as the thing slit his forehead open and sent blood pissing down his nose, his own gun falling from his hand with a clatter.
“Amateurs,” I muttered, striding away into the house.
“That’s my boy,” Liam said proudly as I walked away from them, and the saddest part about that was the way my pathetic heart lifted at those words, like some sad, lonely little part of me still gave a fuck if his daddy was proud of him or not.
Jesus, I needed to get my head looked at.
I sighed, mentally chastising myself while replaying my brothers’ humiliation over and over in my head until my amusement banished a few of my demons.