Page 45 of Obey

“Your turf,” Knives repeats, shaking his head. He notices the chain too, though, and he grimaces.

He should’ve thought about the fucking consequences before signaling for me to stand down. I’d hoped he had a plan, but obviously, that had been wishful thinking.

Why had I just fallen into line? He’s just a bodyguard in New Bristol. I’m the one who should’ve taken the lead.

But no.

“Your turf is one piddly little street in NewVa. If you were in charge anywhere, you wouldn’t resort to picking fights with people ten states away,” Knives continues.

“Shut up,” I hiss at him. “Look, Cresci would be willing to overlook this if we were returned unharmed.” He might overlook them, not our failure, but that’s a problem for a different day. “But he has allies here. You’re going to have the Corroux Family breathing down your neck. Just let us go, and we’ll get out of NewVa without bothering you again.”

Since Knives didn’t want a fight, we just won’t fucking fight.

“Or we send him your maggot infested, decomposing bodies,” Boar counters with another laugh.

“That’s not in anyone’s best interest,” I reply quickly. “That’ll just lead to war, and the Courroux?—”

“Fuck the Corroux,” one of the other men interrupts. “They’re just some pansies who don’t even get their hands dirty.”

That’s not what I’ve heard of them, but it doesn’t feel intelligent to push.

Then again, I’m not planning on just being led to my death without fighting back, either.

The guy who’d been with Pyre approaches us, and I wince when I see the cuffs he’s carrying. There’s a chain between the two manacles. Combined with the chain, I’m feeling even less optimistic about how things are going.

Knives isn’t doing anything, so it’s up to me. I survey the guys, and I notice Pyre shifting uncomfortably.

Nevaeh thought highly of him—but she also called him an idiot.

“Pyre,” I say, and Pyre visibly startles. “Think about what you’re doing. Are you going to tell your girl you helped murder somebody?”

“What? How’d you know my name?” Pyre asks.

Boar smacks him over the head. “Don’t fucking engage with him. Slim, cuff ‘em so we can get this over with.”

“You want to marry her,” Knives says, following my lead. “You think she’d take you if she knew what you were doing here?”

“How—” Pyre starts.

“Pyre!” the other man—Slim, I guess—says as he roughly grabs one of my wrists. “Your woman won’t know shit unless you tell her. And you’re not gonna tell her, are you?”

“She’ll know,” I say. “She’s smart. She’ll know something’s up.”

I try to shake Slim off, but his grip is surprisingly tight.

Knives struggles too, but Boar wraps his arm around Knives’s throat. Knives’s face goes red, and I snap, “Stop it!”

Not that they’re going to listen to me.

Slim slaps one manacle on one of my hands, then turns to look at Boar. “We only got one set of manacles. You wanna do ‘em one at a time?”

Jesus Christ.

Boar shakes his head. “Nah, it’ll take too long. We’ll string ‘em up at the same time.” He grabs Knives’s wrist and holds it out to Slim, who fastens the other manacle to it.

Knives and I are chained to each other now.

Boar lets go of Knives, and Knives starts coughing and wheezing.

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