My stomach clenches at that. I’d hoped it wasn’t one of my men, but I can already tell that’s not true. “Who is it?”
Jacob lets out a sigh. “Charlie.”
Fuck.The deep stab of hurt that I feel at that revelation is instantly suffused with anger, and I push past Jacob, gritting my teeth as I stalk into the room behind him.
The scene in front of me is horrific. Quint has stripped down to a black tank, his arms and neck and face splattered with blood. His “toolbox” is open, scattered around the floor at his feet, and even I can’t look at the floor too long. I don’t want to think about what the bits of human detritus there are. I’ve never had much of a stomach for torture, and thanks to Quint and Jacob, I don’t need to.
Charlie is hanging manacled from the ceiling, stripped down to his boxer briefs, his toes barely brushing the bloodied, piss-drenched floor. His body is a ruin, and I know that how this will end is going to be a mercy for him.
Jacob comes to stand next to me. “It’s a bloody shame,” he grunts, and I wince.
“‘Bloody’ is an understatement. Did you find out everything you need to know?”
“Enough,” Quint says. “He was working with Finn O’Leary.”
I stare at Quint. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I recall the fire in the warehouse and how Finn was absent. I’d chalked it up to the poor health I’d heard he was experiencing, but now it’s clear there was a much more sinister reason for his absence.
Quint shakes his head. “Nope. I guess Charlie was feeling dissatisfied with how things were going around here. Not enough money, not moving fast enough for his liking.” He nudges one of Charlie’s bare, toenail-less feet with his steel-toed boot, and the bloodied man lets out a low moan of pain.
“Enough,” I tell Quint wearily. “If he’s given up everything there is to extract, there’s no need to torture him unnecessarily.”
Quint makes a sound of displeasure deep in his throat. “This fucker almost got us all roasted alive in that warehouse. If I had my way, I’d strip him raw and then light him on fire himself, see how he likes it.”
Charlie lets out another moan. “Please,” he mumbles through swollen lips and a mouth that’s clearly been divested of many of its teeth. “Please, no.”
“What was Finn’s angle?” I ask, frowning. “What reason did he have for trying to have us killed? Liam and I werebothin that warehouse.”
“He figured you’d bend and give in to Liam or come up with some scenario to run things jointly. He didn’t think you had the balls to go through with exiling your brother—his words, not mine,” Quint adds hastily. “I’m for an alliance, myself. Get those old fuckers out of power and install a new regime, I say. Anyway, he wanted to do away with you both and Graham, and start a new order of things with his own son at the head. A full takeover, all the old guard and the new turned into ashes.”
“Charlie was in the warehouse, too.” I frown. “Was there a plan for him to get out?”
“Finn told him something about sending someone to get him out as soon as the fire was set. But he didn’t, and Charlie couldn’t leave the group without drawing attention to himself.” Quint shrugs. “Guess ol’ Finn figured if Charlie was dead, he couldn’t tattle. Tying up loose ends and all that.”
“So he betrayed you. Just like you betrayed us.” I look at Charlie, stepping closer and grabbing a fistful of his blood-soaked hair to jerk his head upright. He groans, looking at me through one swollen, slitted eye, the other swelled shut. “You should have come to me after the fire,” I tell him bluntly. “There would have been punishment, but it would have been nothing compared to what’s happened to you now. You would have left with your life.”
Somehow, Charlie manages to spit on the floor, mostly blood. He looks at me, pain and hate in the glimpse of his eye that I can still see.
“Fuck you,” he moans. “I don’t take punishment from a fucking Irishman. I sure as hell wasn’t going to take your fucking orders.”
“But you took Finn O’Leary’s money.”
“I would’ve left. Gone back to London. Let you all burn like the shit you all are—”
I tighten my grip, jerking his head back until his neck strains. “I made you what you are, Charlie. I took you from nothing and made you one of our gang, got you money and connections, and made you into someone you could never have been on your own without caring about your name or background. I brought you here for even more opportunity, and this is how you repay me.”
I hold out my hand. “Someone give me a knife.”
Quint reaches down, rummaging, and hands me a heavy Bowie knife with a serrated edge. “Here ya go, boss.”
I reach up, pressing the point of the knife behind Charlie’s right earlobe, my gaze fixed on his. “Instead, you chose to be a traitor. Now you’ll die as nothing, and it’ll be the hand of an Irishman that kills you.”
His eyes go wide, his mouth opening on a spluttering plea, but it’s too late. I drag the knife from ear to ear, opening his throat in a bloody, gaping wound that spurts blood, giving him a few more gasping seconds of life before I dig deeper, severing his windpipe and leaving his head hanging half-detached backward.
I toss the knife to Quint. “Get that the rest of the way off,” I tell him. “What about the shooting? Was that Finn, too?”
Jacob nods. “Charlie’s a sharpshooter from his days in the Army. We all knew that. Finn gave him a second chance, set him up to plant a bomb on Saoirse’s car and snipe you. He figured if Saoirse died and not you, it would undermine you going forward—Graham would blame you for his daughter’s death and remove his support. There was a plan to frame you for it, if necessary, even. Then Finn would have had Liam killed and moved to take control of the table. If you died and not Saoirse, he would have married his son to her, forcibly if need be. The best-case scenario for him, you both died.”
I grit my teeth, a fresh rage washing over me at the knowledge that Saoirse had been such a vicious target of their violence, too.