Page 56 of Brutal Bond

“All of you.” I shake my head. “You’re all the depraved pieces of shit I’ve been ranting about. Everything. You’re all guilty as fucking sin.”

“You aren’t exactly innocent.” Grant tosses a folder on the desk before me, photos spilling from it when it hits Michales’ chest.

I lift the the small stack and rifle through it before exclaiming, “I don’t know any of these women. Except?—”

“You should,” Grant interrupts. “You’ve been so entangled in our lives that I was quite disappointed to learn how many of our indiscretions you had missed when I came by earlier today. Shoddy fucking police work, if you want my opinion.”

Dropping the photos onto the desk, I attempt to stand, pausing when William presses the gun to the back of my neck and shoves me back into my seat.

“But now,” Samuel removes his photo from the wall and replaces it with two of the women from the desk, “they’re your indiscretions.”

“It will never stick!” I exclaim as he removes each of the men’s photos from my wall. Taking his time, he slowly papers the wall with photos of gorgeous coeds.

“This town has been watching you spiral,” Grant taunts me. “Losing your wife. Your kids. Even your job. All while trying to convince everyone that the rich, upstanding men of this town were responsible for the crimes you were committing.”

“No one will ever fucking believe that!” I shake my head

“Who’s going to tell them otherwise?” Edmund questions as Samuel presses a pin through a final photograph.

Harper.

“This wall is riddled with your fingerprints.” Samuel shoves the pictures of each of them into his pocket. “And you mailed your confession to the Adelaide Cove PD earlier today. They’ll probably receive it by lunch tomorrow.”

My eyes dart around the room, bouncing between each of the men looming over me and the dozens of women pinned to the wall.

They’re going to fucking get away with everything…

William fists the back of my shirt and lifts me from the chair forcibly. With the muzzle of the gun firmly pressed into my back, he shoves me through the house and out the front door.

“Move.” William painfully jabs the barrel into me when I stutter as the gravel driveway digs into the soles of my bare feet.

“No one will ever believe I killed myself when I have muzzle bruises all over my back,” I sneer. My vision quickly blackens at the edges when the butt of the gun cracks against my skull.

“No one is ever going to find your body,” Edmund threatens as the four of them lead me to the trees lining my property.

“What is it that you said,” Edmund steps before me when we reach them, “to Harper as I listened to you beat her within an inch of her life?”

He drops a duffel bag at his feet and unzips it before bending down and rifling through it. He pulls out two bundles of rope and hands them to Grant as he continues to dig in the bag.

“Oh, yes,” he sighs as he slides a whip from it. “I thought you liked it rough.”

CHAPTER

FORTY-THREE

EDMUND

Samuel holds Michales in a painfully tight grip as Grant skillfully ties knots around each of his wrists. Grabbing the slack hanging from his left hand, Grant secures the rope around a thick branch of one of the trees. With the other, he repeats the process, leaving Michaels strung between two trees with his arms in a deep V above his head.

Once Michales is held in place by Grant’s meticulous knots, Samuel releases him. He struggles for a moment before releasing that it’s futile.

Walking before him, whip in hand, I lean close before menacingly whispering, “You should know, I fucking love to make it hurt.”

I stalk behind him and crack the whip to get a feel for it in my hand. It’s been a while. By the time I turn around, Will and Samuel have spread a large tarp beneath his feet.

No evidence we were ever here.

“I enjoy inflicting in pain. Wicked, brutal pain, delivered in ways that I’d never expose Harper to.” I crack the bullwhip, allowing just the tip to nip at his skin. Blood prickles through his white undershirt from the little bite popping open his flesh, and he cries out in pain. “But you…I’m more than fucking willing to show.”

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