Good Gone Bad (The Fallen Men 3)

Other than that, I had no idea who this person was.

“What do you want?” I asked quietly, proud that my voice didn’t shake even though my hands did.

My purse was just inches away. If he didn’t have his knife to my throat, I could make a grab for it, but his position behind me would make it nearly impossible to shoot blindly on target.

“Drive, princess,” he growled. “Make any wrong turns, or indicate in any way that you’re distressed, I’ll slice open your throat, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

“Get on the Sea to Sky, I’ll tell ya when to turn off.”

Even though I was careful to keep still as I navigated the traffic, the blade cut through me like butter, just shallow nicks but the neck bleeds profusely and by the time I took the exit he indicated into Entrance, the entire top of my blue Hephaestus Auto tee was covered in blood.

I knew after only a few turns where he was taking me.

My dad’s house.

It was a Friday. Everyone was at the house by the look of the cars parked outside, by the movement of bodies in the golden-lit rooms. Loulou liked to have everyone over as much as she could, especially after getting pregnant. She called it nesting, Dad called it irritatin’, but everyone knew he loved his brothers, his family, and he loved, even more, having them in his house.

“You see ’em?” the masked villain asked almost conversationally.

“Yeah,” I breathed, fear like a living thing crawling with eight legs up my neck over my face, digging fangs under my skin to poison my bloodstream.

“You wanna keep ’em alive,” he noted.

I didn’t answer, it was obvious he knew my family was my weak spot.

The door to the house opened as if I’d willed it with my mind and my dad stepped out. With his huge body backlit, he looked big as the Hulk, as capable of defeating villains as any superhero. A whimper slid up my throat and I almost impaled myself on the blade in an effort to swallow it.

I could tell he was smoking. He was trying to quit before the babies came, but it was a hard habit to give up and Lou wasn’t a nag, so he was doing it slowly. I wasn’t surprised when a minute later, my brother’s equally tall form appeared, lankier but growing thick with muscle from spending so much time with the brothers at their gym on the compound.

Dad tossed an arm around him and tugged him close, casually, affectionately in that way he did that made you feel warm to the very bones.

“I’ll kill them. Every single one’a them, slow and painfully ’cause, princess, I get off on that shit. I’ll start with Louise Garro, pin her down and fuck her then gut her so she loses those devil spawn and knows it before she loses herself too.”

“God, stop,” I croaked, my eyes burning, so dry, but I couldn’t blink, I had to watch my dad with my brother, had to remind myself every second that they were alive and standing there.

“Don’t care if it takes me ten years, you fuck with Berserkers MC, I’ll kill every last one’a them and save you for last, you get what I’m sayin’?” he asked, wiggling the blade against my throat when I didn’t immediately nod my head. “Thought you were smart enough to get me. Gotta say, it would be a shame really if you stick true, that Garro bitch is worth fuckin’ even fat like she is.”

Fury exploded within my body. I imagined turning on the sick fuck behind me, twisting that knife out of his hand and showing him how I could use it by stabbing him right through his fucking eyes. He didn’t deserve to look at my beautiful family. He didn’t deserve to occupy the same fucking world as them.

“I’ll kill you,” I told him, maybe unwisely.

But I was a wild thing, cornered and desperate. You back an animal into a small space, it’s only in their nature to fight back, however fruitlessly.

The man laughed and even though it was deeply muffled, I almost recognized the sound. “No, princess, you won’t. You don’t get this ’cause you can’t see the whole picture, but this is a game I’ll win.”

I gritted my teeth and refrained, barely, from blindly turning and launching myself at him with just my nails to use like claws.

“I’ll get out here,” he said, again conversational, the fucking psychopath. “But you remember this, remember that I like to sit here at night and watch your daddy and his pretty wife, go over to your brother’s place and watch him fuck his woman on their deck. You remember what I’ll do to them if you fuck with the MC. And know this, I watch them and someone else, always, is watchin’ you.”