“Wasn’t I?”
Ezra’s hand shot out, and he wrapped his bruised fingers around my wrist, squeezing. The intensity beneath his grip sent a jolt of pain straight down my arm, but I remained resolute, and I didn't fucking dare loosen my fingers and drop my gun.
“I did run out of time.” He glanced away, running his tongue along his teeth. His nostrils flared once, and he looked back at me. “But I had more than one plan, Elijah. I knew it was likely you’d find me before I could kill him, but I’m nothing if not my mother's son, and I’ve lured you here not just to confirm the truth, but to make you a proposition.”
My eyebrow lifted.
“You betrayed me, Elijah, and I’m inclined to forgive you for it.” He squeezed my wrist once more before dropping it, flicking his gaze across the reddened skin as though he was proud of the mark he left behind. “I’d like to believe you didn’t know who my father was when Ben put a bullet in him, and if you can confirm the truth to that statement, I’ll offer my forgiveness in exchange for a favor.”
The fucking nerve…
My nostrils flared, and I let out a rude noise before moving forward. With each step I took, he took two more just to get away from me. “I don’t fucking want your forgiveness, Ezra, and I sure as fuck don’t do favors for you. I do not fuckinglikeyou, and the only reason I allowed you breathe after what you did to do me was because your life meant more to our mother than your death did to me.” I pressed the barrel of my gun to his forehead. “I’m not so sure I give a shit what ma thinks anymore, and I think, by now, you’ve come to realize that luring me to your room was a very, very bad idea.”
“My proposition comes with an incentive. I have money, Elijah, and more so, I have a name.” Ezra spread his arms wide, his grin slipping up his cheeks in an ugly, maniacal way. “You were smart to hide him from me.”
“Hide wh—”Oh, fuck no.“Say his fucking name, Ezra, and I’ll pull this trigger before the last syllable even leaves your goddamn mouth. He is not a bargaining chip.”
Not my baby.
No way in hell.
“You think you just because you work for Benjamin Thomas that means your invincible, well guess fucking what, big brother, you’re not the only one with friends in high places. You keep underestimating me, despite the fact that I put a hit on your boss and a dent in your skull. Keep it up, Elijah, and the next target I set will have big brown eyes and—”
Nope.
Ice slipped through my veins, but the chill gave way almost as soon as it surfaced—no match for heat that blew through me. My heart quickened, and I let him take exactly one breath before I raised my hand and smashed the butt of my gun across his temple.
The telltalecrunchof bone snapping sent a warm, excited shiver down my spine. His blood was crimson as it saturated his eyebrows, gushing in thick, slow spurts down the side of his face.
The fighter in him roared to life, and he charged me with a wild shout. Fueled by rage and misplaced betrayal, Ezra rammed his shoulder into the space just below my ribcage. The blow was weaker than I expected, sending me backward only a pace or two before I lurched forward again, wrapping my hand around the base of his neck.
“You son of bitch.” A grunt punched out of him when I slammed him against the nearest wall. Blood from his head wound slipped between my fingers and trailed down my wrist. The weight of his head grew heavy beneath my grip, and I watched his eyes glaze over as he struggled to stay alert. “You want to talk about broken skulls, Ezra? Let’s start with yours, yeah?”
He spat in my face, laughing even as blood pooled in the base of his bottom lip. “I fight for a living, dumbass. You think one knock to the head is going to put me out?”
“No, but one bullet to the head sure will, you delusional fuck.” Hand still around his throat, I yanked him off the wall only to ram him straight back into it. A frame crashed to the floor with the intensity of the hit, and his eyes closed before springing open again. “What did you really think was going to happen here, Ezra? Your forgiveness means less to me than shit on the bottom of my shoe.”
“Kill him.” Ezra whispered, blood leaving his mouth with the pop of his lips, spraying my cheeks and the bridge of my nose. “Kill Benjamin Thomas, and I’ll make you the richest man in Seattle.Kill him, and you won’t have to worry about the state of your boy’s brain when it’s splattered across the pavement.”
I sputtered.
“Are you… are you fucking kidding me right now?” For fuck’s sake. “Thatwas your secondary plan? You were going to threaten my boy and bribe me into murdering my boss?”
“I’m your brother!” He screamed. “I am your fucking brother, Elijah! Your loyalty should’ve been with me. It wasalwayswith me!”
“I didn’t know who your father was when he died, Ezra, but that wouldn’t have changed the fucking outcome of his life. Have you ever, for one goddamn second, stopped to ask yourselfwhyhe was killed? Have you even fucking considered it?” I lowered my face to his, our noses nearly touching. “We aren’t vigilantes, Ezra. We’re mobsters. The men we kill are scum. They are bottom of the barrel, shit for waste humans, and the only goddamn time Ben gets involved with killing a man who didn’t come for him directly is when that man is so fucking heinous, his death is an act of mercy.”
He made a feral sound, and I had exactly one second to react when he wrapped his fingers around the nape of my neck and rammed his knee straight into my stomach. Pain lanced through me, and I stumbled a little. My grip loosened but before he could escape my hold, I tossed him to the ground, and threw myself on top of him, my knees on his shoulders.
“How dare you!” His face was painted in blood now, and I couldn’t tell if the flush of red I saw was in addition to that or if it was just rage, festering beneath the surface of his skin. “How dare youpass judgment on my father, you hypocritical piece of shit!”
“Do notcompare me to that man.” I loomed over him, staring into his cold eyes with frigid ones of my own. His cheeks swelled with each breath he struggled to take, and I kept my voice even as I spoke, words violent and clear as they escaped between my clenched teeth. “Your father was a trafficker, Ezra. He facilitated the kidnapping of women and children, and then he fucking sold them to the highest bidder. I may be a killer, but I don’t kill innocents, and I sure as fuck do not kill kids.”
He blinked, and the words he spoke next struck me harder than any crowbar ever could. “I know.”
“Ex… Excuse me?”
“I know, you pompous shit! I know exactly what he did, and how much goddamn money he made doing it.I know,Elijah, because I did it too.”