His jaw ticked and he stared at our pale hands overlapping. “They were my brothers. But that doesn’t count for shit now.” He pulled his hand away and flexed the fingers, staring hard at them for reasons that were lost to me. “I need them off my trail until I can finish what I started.”
More cryptic bullshit. It seriously never ends.
“I obviously don’t have a brilliant plan at the moment but how can I help?”
Rebel’s eyes narrowed on me but then they blanked, turning so empty that my body automatically took a step back. “I already have a plan,” he told me, voice solemn. “I always do.”
He snapped his fingers and the men still chattering and drinking around the jukebox shuffled over to us, their faces full of the same dread I was suddenly feeling. There were about a dozen of them, and they huddled around the small bar quickly enough, boxing me in. I looked from face to face but no one but my brother seemed to be able to meet my eyes.
“What’s going on?” I asked, hating the way my voice trembled.
The music I hadn’t even been paying attention to cut off and it was silent as the grave without it. I scanned the assembled, familiar faces again, trying to get a hint of what the fuck was happening. I saw most of these men at least five days a week. Sat down with all of them a time or two to shoot the shit about how their wives were doing or what kind of record their favorite team was pulling in this season. The thought that they would ever hurt me had never crossed my mind. Even now, I still refused the idea that it was even a possibility.
Rebel slowly stood from his barstool, chair scraping discordantly against the floor. “You’re going to offer yourself to Creed in exchange for my debt.”
“No, I’m not.” I searched for my Samuel in his eyes. Searched harder than I can remember trying in the last several years. This was ridiculous. He wouldn’t do this to me. Except even as I thought it, I took another step back, angling towards the door leading to the kitchen, hoping Bubba had taken out his headphones long enough to realize what was going on. “Creed is a monster. You can’t be serious.”
“You’ll be the perfect distraction,” my brother continued as if I hadn’t spoken and I could barely hear him over the pounding of my heart in my chest, the rushing blood in my ears. “All the hate he can’t take out on me will go to you, and by the time he’s done playing with his new toy, I would have had enough time to do what I need to do and disappear.”
“You’re crazy,” I told him, voice thick with the tears closing my throat and brimming in my eyes. I should’ve seen it. I should’ve known that he wasn’t just broken and waiting to be patched up. He was ruined. My brother was gone. “Listen to me, you bastard. I am not doing this.” The kitchen door was almost at my back and with them all still on the other side of the bar, I had a chance. If I could get to the woods behind the bar, I could probably lose them and-
The door leading to the kitchen squeaked and I silently thanked the Lord that Bubba was coming to my rescue as I felt him come up behind me. A former linebacker with a craving for potato wedges, he was big enough to be intimidating but soft enough that we became fast friends when I took over. I dashed my arm across my eyes, shooting Rebel a triumphant smile as I got ready to make my escape. Except he didn’t look the least bit bothered by this turn of events, and my heart sank as the tears came freely.
“No,” I whispered, a second before two huge arms banded across my chest and lifted me off the floor, marching back towards the bar. “NO!”
I screamed at the top of my lungs.
I thrashed, kicking at everything within reach because everyone around me was an enemy. A traitor. A lie of comfort I had been force fed into believing.
And when they pinned me to the bar top, strong grips bruising where they held me down, I pleaded.
I begged.
I sobbed like a lost child, meeting every eye I could and silently begging them not to let this happen. Several of them turned away. Others closed their eyes. Bubba mouthed words I couldn’t see through my tears. But in the end, they all held on as Rebel produced a needle from somewhere and lowered it towards me.
“I’ll n- never, forgive, you,” I managed, shaking with so much sorrow and grief that it threatened to consume me.
Before it could, I felt a pinch on my neck and in what felt like seconds, lead settled into my limbs, making them too heavy to move. My eyelids fluttered as I struggled to stay conscious, but it was a losing battle. Rebel swam in and out of my vision from where he hovered over me and then I lost the fight, darkness dragging me down into oblivion.
As I lost my feeble hold on reality, I thought I heard someone whisper, “I know.” But then I was gone, devoured by nothingness.
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Seven Sinners Book 2
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