“Keep driving,” I ordered from the back of his car.
“How much further ya want me to go?” he asked. His irritation couldn’t mask the stench of fear he was beginning to emit.
“Until we tell you to stop,” Gavin answered authoritatively. He was sitting passenger side, his gun low and trained on our temporary friend in case he tried to pull something. “Where’s what we asked you for?”
“Under your seat.”
I slid over and reached down, keeping my head up while I felt for what I was looking for. It took a matter of seconds to locate the manila envelope. I lifted it and flipped the front flap to take a look at the contents.
Four five by seven black and white photographs sat before me. The resemblance between the girl in the photo and Rhiannon was striking. I had to remind myself that she was in my kitchen cutting up fruit before I left the house.
This girl had been drugged, beaten into submission, and raped. The blonde tied to a bedpost in the second photo had undergone the same treatment. I studied each picture carefully. These were vital pieces of information. No mistakes could be made.
“What do you think?” I flipped the folder closed and passed it off to Gavin. “Park near that tree over there,” I directed Thomas.
Gavin whistled low, approving of what he saw. “Damn. This is almost disturbing to see.”
I reached into my waistband and removed my gun, flicking off the safety just as Thomas put his car in park. His beady blue eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, so wide I could see every inch of white within them. He knew what was coming but wasn’t ready to accept it.
His blatant show of fear disgusted me. The man wasn’t made for this line of work. Most of those associated with the Clermont’s weren’t. They were sheep trying to run amongst hungry wolves.
“Please, I have a family.”
“Everyone has a fucking family.”
I raised my gun and pulled the trigger. The silencer reduced the noise and erased any recoil as a bullet tore through his headrest and shredded bone to get to his brain. Blood shot out of the hole, spraying the window and windshield with artistic lines of crimson.
It’d been way too long since my last hit. I shot him again just for the fuck of it, grinning as his body slumped forward and his head bounced off the steering wheel. Few handguns worked as well as my Beretta even with its suppressor.
“Having fun?” Gavin asked, amused by my overkill.
“Not hardly. This isn’t even scratching my itch. We need to get the fuck home.”
“With this,” he held up the file folder. “We can do that, right?”
“Yeah.” I returned my gun to its resting place on my person and reached for the door. “Let’s go. Place the folder on his lap best you can.”
He did as I instructed and met me at the back of the BMW. “You think Marcus will buy it?”
“We’ll know soon enough. There isn’t any reason he should. Are you ready for what’s next?”
“I’ve been ready all summer.”
Leaving Thomas behind, we made our way through the reserve cutting across railroad tracks to reach where we’d stashed the van. I could’ve handled this alone, but it was nice having someone with me, Gavin specifically.
He was a brother by love and devotion in place of blood.
Owen and Bri were superb at what we had to do too, and I valued them each in their own ways, but they both still had too much heart sometimes and it was that slight bit of compassion we couldn’t afford to have. Gavin was most like me. He never faltered or had a thought of remorse before or after we handled business.
Returning to the van, I got into the passenger seat and ran down a mental checklist of what needed to be done after I confirmed this hit with my padre.
My thoughts flickered to Rhiannon they typically tended to do. She’d said she hated me while my come dripped from between her legs and the look in her pretty brown eyes said otherwise.
I’m sure she wanted to hate me. Maybe even a part of her did. It didn’t change anything.
I got the clear to take her away from and that’s exactly what I was going to do. There weren’t any other options. Too many people had come to know she was alive and the majority either wanted her dead or captured.
If she stayed here, she was bound to suffer the worse fate. Someone would snatch her up and use her as leverage over the family that wanted their hidden heir back. It was my famiglia’s negotiations with them that had helped get us to this point. My claim on Rhia had stopped them from doing something rash.
It had never been my intention to love this peculiar girl in any shape or form, but she’d gotten to me the moment she came wandering into the woods and helped me bury a man I’d been keeping an eye on after he raised too many suspicions. Letting me fuck her afterward sealed her fate. No one plagued by normalcy did things like that.