“Do you always have to be the voice of fucking reason?” He laughed, and I just walked up and down the line of men, waiting to see which one was going to break first. One of them was bound to be weak enough to beg for his life. None of them was smart enough to realize that even if they were spared now, they wouldn’t be later on. Tristan might want one of them alive for questioning, but he wouldn’t want to keep them alive.
“Please!” one of the men in the middle wailed. “I’ll tell you whatever you want, just please, please don’t kill me.” The rest of the men broke down, yelling the same thing. I laughed and grabbed the one that had broken first, shoving him in the direction of Tristan. He wanted the bastard, he could babysit him.
“Calm the fuck down!” Elliot yelled to the rest of them who had started to realize their fate. They were all over the place, getting out of line and yelling at us to choose them instead.
“Too late,” I said to all of them before making my way down the line and slicing the throat of each man. The further down the line I got, the less they fought me, which was kind of a disappointment. I liked it better when they fought.
“You are not getting in our clean-ass Rover dripping in blood,” Tristan said as I finished the last man off, his blood soaking my already sodden shirt.
“I’ll take one of the guys’ motorcycles,” I said as I wiped my knife on the only clean spot on my jeans.
“Alright, let’s get this asshole tied up and in the boot. Then we need to go to the Westbrook house. Going back to the manor right now isn’t safe. Elliot,” Tristan said while pulling the guy towards the car. “Please go make sure all of the men that Seb has just butchered are actually dead. Seb,” he continued as he pulled some zip ties out of the car. “Make sure the guys inside know that they need to completely destroy this place. I don’t want a single fucking brick standing by the time they’re done with it.”
I gave a mock salute and jogged inside as I heard Elliot’s gun going off in methodical shots. He would shoot all of them twice in the head, making sure they were really gone. Not that he needed to. I didn’t make mistakes when it came to killing. I was a monster in men’s clothing, cold and calculated. And all of those men had laid their eyes and their hands on my woman. They didn’t deserve to live after that. They had paid their penance with their lives.
“Hey!” I called over to our guys, who were busy throwing petrol over the bodies and walls. “I need to take someone’s bike home.” I gestured to my clothes, and one of the guys, Niko, gave me a dark laugh before throwing me his keys.
“T and Elliot better give me a ride home though,” he said. “I’m not riding bitch with any of these assholes.”
“No worries, man,” I said, catching the keys midair. “I’ll let them know. We kept one of the guys alive for questioning. We’re going back to the Westbrook house and will be staying there for the time being. If you guys hear anything, let us know immediately. You know the drill. And we want this entire place torched this time, nothing left standing.”
“You got it, boss,” Niko answered before going back to splashing petrol along the walls. I jogged back out of the warehouse and over to the car.
“You guys need to give Niko a ride home. They’ll all be out in a minute. I’ll meet you at Westbrook.” I looked to the boot of the Rover and felt the black wave of anger overtake me again. I didn’t know what we were going to do, but we had to get her back. God knows what they were doing to her or where they had her.
“We’ll get her back, Seb,” Tristan assured.
“Yeah, if she wants to be found,” Elliot murmured darkly.
“Excuse me?” I asked, turning my dark gaze on his.
“Elliot,” Tristan warned. “Now is not the time.”
“The time for what?” I shouted.
“You don’t think it’s weird that they found the manor? That they were able to so easily overtake everyone in that house? That they tell us a meeting place and then she isn’t here?” Elliot finished, and Tristan gave a heavy sigh. I took a deep breath, trying to calm the sheer rage washing through me like a tsunami.
“What exactly are you trying to say, Elliot?”
“What if she was a plant?”
And that was the last thing Elliot said before I punched him so hard he fell to the ground, completely blacking out.