Page 49 of I Was Born Ruined (Death by Daybreak MC 1)
Cat presses a handgun against my palm, and I feel the blood drain from my face.
Oh.
Oh.
No.
Fuck.
Sweat drips from my brow, stinging my lips with salt. I'm not just here to watch, am I?
And I thought things couldn't get any worse. Silly me. Idiot me. This is all my fault. If I hadn't snuck out, I might not be standing here.
Cat makes sure I've got a firm grip on the gun, and then lifts my hand so that the barrel is pressed up tight to the kid's forehead. Doesn't seem to scare him though. He's still glaring at me like I'm Satan. Well, Satan's daughter, but same thing, right?
“Put him down for me, baby girl,” Cat oozes, his voice dark and woven with threats. “Show me that you know how to follow orders.”
I look around to see a good dozen men staring at me. They're waiting, watching, a captive audience to my descent into hell. If I don't kill this boy now, something bad is going to happen to me. I'm not sure if Cat will kill me or torture me, if he'll let his men have their way with me, if …
“He killed your sisters,” Cat continues, “and it was his brother who raped Queenie, put that baby in her.”
My throat gets tight and dry, and the cabin begins to tilt and shift around me. I search the room for a friendly face or at least one with a few less shadows in it, and find Sin staring at me. He looks sorry for what I'm going through, but not enough to step up and say anything. Just like he didn't when Cat had a gun pressed to my forehead. He looks away first, and I turn my attention back to the boy. Rock and hard place. My bones are being crushed to dust between them as I stand there and frantically search for a way out.
There must be a way; there's always a way.
Slowly, I reach out and pull the tape from the boy's mouth.
“Grey,” he gasps, and I realize that he's giving me his name, looking right into my face and holding my gaze. “My name is Grey Wolfe. Stupid name, especially considering my father’s profession, but it is what it is.” He tilts his head to look at me, and that sandy hair of his falls across his sweaty forehead. “How about yours? It’s Gidget, right?”
Fucking hell. He's humanizing himself for me, making me face the reality of what Cat's just told me to do. I don't answer him. Cat wouldn't like it if I did.
“Did you kill my sisters?” I ask, but the boy is already shaking his head. He looks me right in the eye. Panic zings through me. If I shoot him, I will never forget that look. If I don’t … I may not have much time left to do the remembering.
“I didn't have anything to do with that,” Grey tells me, scowling. I imagine he's telling the truth though; he's my age, so he would've been fifteen or so at the time. It's unlikely he would've been involved. “And Kian,” he continues, triggering my memory. For the first time since Cat handed me the gun, my hand starts to shake. Kian, Kian, Kian.
“This is for Kian.”
That's what the asshole said just before he killed Queenie. But who is Kian?
“Kian,” the kid continues, and he looks sad as hell. He looks like I do when I brush my hair with Queenie's antique brush, or when I put on Poppy's favorite beach hat. “My brother, he didn't rape Queenie. He was in love with her.”
“Blow his head off,” Cat says, but he doesn't say it with any sort of heat. It's all ice and wicked cold wind in his words. They chill me to the bone.
“Kian loved Queenie,” Grey repeats, looking at me, pleading with me to accept the truth. His face says he understands he's going to die, but he's desperate for someone to know before he leaves this earth. “They had plane tickets, a house, cash in a briefcase. They were going to leave together; your club killed my brother before they got a chance to go.”
I look at Cat, but I don't have to ask. If he believed Queenie was raped, he would kill the man and attack the organization responsible. The thing is, I don't know if that's what he really believes. For all I know, Queenie was in love with this guy.
The silence stretches hot and sticky between us. I can feel the eyes of the men in that room like heavy weights around my shoulders; my knees may very well buckle. Bile rises in my throat, and I’m just suddenly filled with so much rage and frustration that my vision blurs. Grey must see it, that boy strapped to a chair with a voice made of charcoal and heat. I’d like him if he weren’t stuck in this cabin with the angel of death curling wicked fingers around his throat. I’d like him if he weren’t a part of the mafia that killed my sisters. I’d like him in a nice, normal world that I’ll never inhabit.
