“You want the little freak,” Graham said. “Have him. Good riddance.”
“I can’t believe I was ever afraid of you,” Ezra said slowly and Adam backed off another step from Graham. The blood spattering his shirt had darkened gray-black shirt to something closer to midnight. “You terrified me. With your threats and your blows… all the times you whipped me. You weren’t doing that to make me a man.”
“Stop whining at me,” Wallace said, spit flying from his lips. “You were weak as a boy and your mother coddled you. I tried to fix that and you would rather bend over and serve others. Running around after a child, pining for another man…”
“So the fuck what?” Ezra demanded. “I did every nasty job you ever asked of me. I got dirt on people. I went to work for your brother, a man you didn’t even acknowledge and you have to know what he asked of me.”
That was when Graham started laughing. It was a sick, wet sound with a bit of a wheeze on the end. “You really don’t get it, if you were a real man, you would have dealt with Julius before he became an issue. As it was, you couldn’t even figure out who he was until he revealed himself. Nothing you did moved you up, but you backed every play Reed made. His climb wasn’t yours and then that mutt O’Connell over there came along and he climbed right alongside them. Stupid… weak… useless…”
Ezra shook his head. “That’s all it is to you… a power play.”
“That’s life.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s not life. That’s cruelty. You didn’t deserve Ezra and we don’t need you anymore, Mr. Graham. But there is something you should know…”
“What’s that?” He sneered at me and I smiled.
“Ezra doesn’t want your company or your legacy. So I’m going to take it apart, piece by piece, deconstructing everything you ever did and destroying down to the last nut, bolt, and screw. Then we’ll keep the pieces we want and sell off the rest.”
“You wouldn’t dare…”
“Of course, I would. There isn’t anything I won’t do for Ezra. Because he deserves so much more than the yoke of your so-called miserable legacy. You’re going to be in the dirt while we celebrate life.”
I really wanted him to try to strike me. Honestly, I would have settled for him to spit. But at this point, I was just done.
“Is there anything else you need from him, Ezra?”
“No,” he answered without hesitation. “I haven’t needed anything from him ever. I just didn’t know it until now…”
I flicked my wrist and slid the hidden knife into my hand. Graham opened his mouth to spew more hate and I slit his throat. I stepped to the side so the severing of the carotid and jugular didn’t spray me with blood.
It would make a mess though. The rug was definitely ruined.
Frankly, the place needed to be redecorated as it was.
“Holy shit,” Liam said into the silence and I glanced over my shoulder to find all of them watching me with a bit of shock, though Bodhi wore the proudest smile.
Ignoring the rest for a moment, I waited for Ezra to look at me. “We meant it when we said no one is allowed to hurt you anymore.”
“I didn’t think you’d be the one who…” Ezra blinked slowly, then shook his head. “Kotyonok…”
“I know, but Adam got to beat him up. I just got to shut his hateful mouth forever.” I rather liked that.
“That was pretty hot, Mayhem.” Pretty Boy’s compliment made me glow.
“It was impressive, too. You managed to avoid most of the blood.” Adam grinned.
“That just leaves us deciding what we want to do with the rest of this place,” Bodhi said. “That and body disposal…”
“Did you mean it,” Ezra asked, still focusing on me. “You’ll destroy it all?”
“Everything,” I promised him. “But only if that’s what you want. We can claim it and clean it up and make it yours. He’ll never know.”
I wanted him to die thinking it was all going to be gone.
Forever.
Ezra scrubbed a hand over his face as he looked from me to Adam and then back. Finally, he pivoted to Bodhi. “Do you know how to burn this place to the ground?”
Chapter
Ten
MILO
Arson took a while to make sure it didn’t look like arson. I knew enough about setting fires to know I didn’t know enough about making this work. Fortunately, Bodhi—a man of many talents—was not so similarly limited in scope.
“We don’t have to make it look like it wasn’t arson,” he said. “In fact, we should make it look like someone set it deliberately.”
“To distract,” Mayhem said after a moment. “Focus everyone’s attention on Wallace’s enemies.”
“Well they won’t be lacking in that department,” Adam said, raking a hand through his hair. His fists were bruised. They weren’t broken open and bloody, but we’d need to make sure nothing of Wallace was left to match damage to his hands. “We need to be careful of one thing, however…”
“The coincidence of Harper dying in a plane crash and Dad dying in a blaze of glory at home?” Ezra’s tone held the bitterest edge. Then who could blame him? While he may not have cornered the market on terrible fathers, he’d definitely suffered thanks to his.
For all that King had attempted to destroy me, I’d at least been spared his company most of the time. The fact that I’d had to endure seeing him day in and day out recently only reinforced my opinion that I didn’t need or want Julius King or Jeff Hardigan or whatever he wanted to call himself in my life.
