Page 132 of Freed By Fire
His blood stains the floor beneath our feet, and a small part of me is filled with grim satisfaction.
I might be trying to save Oliver, but it doesn’t mean he emerges unscathed.
It’s a small price to pay for not coming to me first.
Do you see what you’ve done, little brother? You should never have trusted Mathew. You have no one to blame but yourself.
I tell myself that as I hand Mathew the knife.
He throws it to the floor with a clatter and rolls up his sleeves.
I repeat the reasons to myself as I stand in a corner and watch Mathew punch Oliver over and over, the sickening crunch of bone reverberating in the quiet room. It isn’t until Oliver’s head lolls forward that Mathew draws back and smiles. His gaze remains fixed on Oliver as he walks backward until he reaches me. Then, he takes out a napkin and wipes his knuckles.
“I’m doing my part to have him moved. What about yours?”
“There’s too much heat right now,” I reply calmly. “Oliver has left quite the mess for us to clean up. If we move him now, our enemies will take him.”
“He’s a rat. We should let them have him.” Mathew snarls. “We can have a little more fun and leave him to them. I bet they have plans for him, and when they’re done, they’ll take care of the problem for us.”
“We take care of our rats, remember?”
I look at my twin and wait for him to look at me. “Besides, I thought you wanted to be the one to take care of this.”
Mathew’s eyes light up, and it makes me sick. “You’re right.”
I offer him another grim smile.
There’s a knock on the basement door, and Mathew looks away first. He frowns and climbs the stairs,
“I’ll be back.”
A moment later the door shuts behind him. I wait a few more minutes before I remove Oliver’s gag and hold a bottle of water to his chapped lips.
Each ragged breath is a knife through my heart.
Oliver smacks his lips and draws back to look at me through his swollen eye. “Are you any closer to nailing his ass?”
“I’m getting there,” I whisper, pausing to fish a painkiller out of my pocket. Oliver dry swallows it while I clean his wound. “You know how careful he is. This has to stick, otherwise…”
“I know, I know. If we don’t take the bastard down, we’re all as good as dead.”
I ball up the antibiotic-soaked piece of cotton and stuff it into my pocket. “I don’t think he suspects anything, so at least there’s that.”
Oliver spits out a mouthful of blood. “You give quite a performance. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were enjoying some of it.”
“It’s all part of the act.”
I can’t meet Oliver’s gaze after I say this, because he’s right, at least partially.
Even though Oliver feels guilty enough to try and make amends, it doesn’t change the fact that with his help, our enemies are one step closer to destroying us.
Oliver gestures to the bottle, and I lift it to his mouth again.
He guzzles the rest. Then, he sits up straighter and looks at me. “So, what happens after you have everything you need? Are you going to confront him?”
I shake my head. “He’ll expect me to do that. The only way to make sure Mathew is no longer a threat is to play his game.”
Oliver furrows his brows. “What do you mean?”
