Ravaged by Them (Descent Into Darkness 2)

“Yeah, me too.” I nodded and sighed. “She’ll be out for a while.”

I followed Rourke to Adrian Prescott’s study—well, technically it wasn’t his anymore. Rourke poured two glasses of whiskey that was so good that it made the stuff I had been drinking since being released from prison taste like garbage. The asshole certainly knew how to live, it was just too bad he used all of that wealth to hurt others instead of doing good with it. I pulled a cigar out of his humidor and lit it up, taking a seat across from Rourke after he did the same.

“Decide to give up that health kick you tried to go on?” I chuckled under my breath.

“After today? Yeah, I’d say it’s on pause.” He shrugged and sipped his whiskey. “I’ll start back up tomorrow.”

“Where do we go from here?” I puffed the cigar and exhaled sharply. “This is going to be a huge fucking mess.”

“All we can do right now is be there for Anabelle. She’s going to need us. It won’t be easy for her to deal with everything that has happened.” Rourke shook his head back and forth.

“This fucking asshole.” I picked up a picture of the Prescott family and sighed. “Even in death, he finds a way to make someone miserable.”

“I think he loved her in his own way.” Rourke sipped his whiskey. “He truly did believe that family was supposed to come before everything else—even if it meant that it cost him his own life.”

“It was all about fucking control.” I lifted the cigar to my lips. “He wanted it on his terms and when he realized that he didn’t have his daughter in his grasp anymore, he was willing to do anything to change that. I don’t think that’s putting family first.”

“He should have realized what we realized—she doesn’t like being told what to do.” Rourke stood and walked over to the photos on the wall. “Look at this shit—he’s shaking hands with mayors, presidents—he had everything at his fingertips.”

“Yeah, but how many bodies did he have to bury in order to get it?” I shrugged. “Some things aren’t worth your soul.”

“And some things are.” Rourke turned back towards me. “Like you—and Weber. I guess your soul had a price.”

“My soul is fine, Rourke.” I shook my head back and forth. “Weber doesn’t rest on my conscious.”

One day before the escape

“Josef Weber, you son of a bitch.” I sat down across from the older man and glared at him.

“Brody.” A slight smile formed on the corner of his lips. “Where’s your buddy—he get out early?”

“He’s with our lawyer.” I tilted my head to the side. “There’s a price on your head—one million dollars. That’s a lot of money.”

“I figured there would be.” He exhaled sharply. “I pissed off a couple of very powerful men—all in the name of fucking love.”

“Love?” I blinked in surprise. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“The woman I asked you to find for me—Hannah Clark?” He shook his head back and forth. “Stupidest mistake of my fucking life.”

“I thought she wasn’t your girlfriend.” I couldn’t hide the amused expression on my face.

“She wasn’t when you found her, but that changed. Unfortunately, I was just caught up in a twisted game from the start. I needed her—for something else. Turns out she needed me too, but her plan was a lot more ruthless than the one I cooked up.” He shrugged. “Now it’s going to cost me my life. Why not? It’s already cost me my company—all of my fucking investors.”

“I guess we’re just in a hell of our design then.” I chuckled and nodded. “I didn’t love the woman who put me in this cage, but it still got me here.”

“I take it, by this conversation, that you intend to collect that bounty?” Weber leaned back. “It wouldn’t be hard—you could snap my neck as easily as I could snap my fingers. That’s why I wanted you working for me.”

“You have a funny way of courting people. Did you try to shank Hannah Clark too?” I folded my arms across my chest.

“No, but maybe I should have.” He shrugged. “So, what’s it going to be? Are you going to just kill me here in front of the guards or wait to take me out when I’m in the shower later?”

“Truthfully?” I raised an eyebrow. “I should kill you—return the fucking favor after you tried to have Reggie stick a knife in me. But I’m not going to do that.”

“Really?” Weber seemed perplexed. “I’m not sure I’d make the same choice.”

“Something is going down tomorrow.” I nodded and started to stand. “That’s when it’s supposed to happen. I don’t know if I’ll be the only person they expect to come for you, so you might want to take some precautions.”

“Why aren’t you going to do it? You don’t want the money?” He looked up at me. “I’m dead anyway if what you say is true.”