TWELVE
Thorn
The boathouse is a shack cut into the jagged cliffs along the northern coastline of the Pacific, near a national recreation area that I have fully surveyed. My cameras are everywhere, but they can’t be seen. Accessing the boathouse isn’t easy. Even though we’ve cut in a decent trail, more than one of my men have fallen off the trail and into the abyss. I can hear the Pacific far below as I stride down the curved rock; it’s dark tonight, and I know how jagged those rocks are below.
My balls are still on fire, and that has my chest heating. I’d forgotten the feeling.
My hands are steady but my gut aches like usual. It fleetingly occurs to me that I might have to let Alana go soon—before my body gives up the fight with this illness. Or curse. Or whatever the fuck it is.
If I can’t protect her, I’ll make sure she’s around somebody who can.
I glance out at the vast dark sea. People looking from the ocean as they travel by in their luxury yachts only see a raw and weathered cliffside, because that’s what I want them to see. Camouflaging the trail was a simple task. There’s no way to get close to the land in this area because of the horrific rocks jutting out all over the coastline. There already were some when I purchased the land and built my home several miles down the coastline, but I have discreetly added more through the years.
The wind whips against me, and I take it, unwilling to show any weakness to the men behind me. Most don’t know I’m succumbing to the freezing pain. And that’s what it is. I’m freezing from the inside out as the ancient garnet that powers Malice Media does the same.
It’s infuriating, and I reach deep into my anger to keep myself warm.
I finally arrive at the cavern I had carved into the cliff. It is but a wide room, surrounded on all sides with natural rock that is chilling in its hardness. There aren’t any garnets that occur naturally in this rock, but I placed many in the floor, ceiling, and even the four walls.
Even though we’re inside, I can hear the ocean thundering in a frenzy outside. The two men Justice secured are sitting on metal chairs, arms bound behind their backs. I tug a burning mint, my own concoction, from my pocket, unwrap and shove it into my mouth.
Bags cover my captives’ heads, which hang down. Their shirts have been sliced open, and blood already flows from cuts in their torsos.
Justice takes point at the doorway, as usual. Two of my men flank us, both with bloodied knuckles. I hadn’t ordered them not to play.
I rip the hood off the first guy, who looks to be in his late twenties, and jerk his head back at the same time. He sniffs bloody snot up his nose and glares at me for a second before really looking at me. Whatever he sees has his eyes widening and his bronze face paling. He gulps and fights his restraints, his body square and muscled on the metal chair bolted into the rock. His lip is split, and his brown eyes look blurry, as if he’s sustained a brain concussion.
At least one.
He stares at me.
“Do you know who I am?” I ask softly.
He swallows and looks wildly around, his gaze landing on Justice and then returning to me. “I think I heard one of your people call you by name. Are you Thorn Beathach?” There’s a hint of hope in his voice as if he could be wrong.
“Right.”
His shoulders slump and his chin lowers. “What do you want?”
“Shut the fuck up,” his buddy hisses from next to him, his voice muffled by the hood.
I punch him square in the face and his head jerks back, not once but twice, and he flops forward as much as the ties allow. Out cold.
The guy in front of me sucks in a breath and tries to lean back.
“There’s nowhere to go,” I say congenially. Coldness ran through me before this illness and now, even my blood cells feel like ice. Except when Alana is near with her greenish-brown eyes and untamable hair. At the thought of her, I taste honey through the mint. “Who hired you to shoot anywhere near Alana Beaumont?”
His brows draw down quickly before he smooths them out. “Why would you want to know that?”
I fluidly draw my knife from the sheath at my calf, my reflexes faster than he’s ever seen, and plunge the blade into the center of his thigh.
He screeches and then catches himself, sucking air rapidly into his lungs. Blood pours around the shiny metal, matching the garnet in the hilt.
None of my men move, and if I know Justice, he looks like he is about to take a nap.
Then I wait.
The guy sniffs again.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Renaldo,” he rushes to say.
It’s a nice name. Much better than Thorn. “Who’s the lead in this little campaign?”
He looks to the side. “Um, not me. Ratchet is higher ranked than me.”
Great. I’ve knocked out the wrong asshole. “I suppose you’re probably the lead now,” I say.
He blinks several times as he catches my meaning. “Oh.”
I’m thinking he’s not the mastermind behind anything. “Alana Beaumont,” I say, making sure the mint is properly burning my taste buds. No way do I want to taste this guy’s words.
He squints as if desperately trying to remember. “We weren’t supposed to kill her. Just scare everyone and kidnap her.”
Irritation claws through me. “Then your people shouldn’t have fired at her.” Although, to be fair, nobody had hit her.
“Sorry. Really.” Renaldo sags, lines of pain cutting into the sides of his mouth.
