Page 52 of King of Cruelty

“You’re the one who’s fucking adopted!” I tugged Bee free of her load and dragged her behind the busted, shot-up car. She tossed me a wink and a grin when I tossed her my gun. Nothing was taking her down.

“Daddy Sin can’t have kids,” I called. “Sterile since birth— Oh, whoops! Mom made me promise not to tell you.”

“That’s not fucking true! You’re lying. Liam, is she lying?”

“Will you both get a fucking hold of yourselves?” our big brother shouted at us. “This is not the time!”

“Notice he didn’t say no,” I taunted as I took off across the lawn. I had to get to that bomb, but there was always time to fuck with Sunny.

I had my priorities in order.

Skirting around the house, I busted in through the back door. As suspected, all the brothers were outside facing certain death. No one stayed behind to hang around in the kitchen.

I hurried across the linoleum, turning my nose up at the mountain of dirty dishes, empty takeout containers, and the ant trail happily taking advantage of it all. It’s clear this cabin used to be a nice, swanky place with a bamboo island, quartz countertops, and stainless steel everything.

Unfortunately, it fell into the hands of human waste, and that human waste loaned it out to the scum of the earth.

I skidded to a stop in front of the oven. Slowly, carefully, I opened the oven a fraction, peering inside.

I breathed a sigh of relief seeing the bomb exactly where Edwin said it would be, then I breathed another sigh to see there were no surprises or tripwires—which was another reason why these Brotherhood clowns were so hard to take seriously. If it was me setting the bombs, I wouldn’t miss.

Ever.

I dropped the oven door down all the way, took a proper look, and cursed. “Of course the little shit forgot to mention he put it on a timer.”

It wasn’t urgent. The timer was still counting down from twenty-eight minutes and forty seconds. That gave the brotherhood plenty of time to clear out, but it wouldn’t have given me and my bros enough time to unchain all the hostages, clear them out, and then search the place for information. Or even worse, if we had held back and waited for the bomb squad to drive miles out of the city, the whole building would’ve gone up with my Cardinals and the hostages inside.

“You thought you were being smart, Eddy.” I carefully lifted out the bomb. “But you’re dead and dumb.” Placing it on the counter, I thanked all the deities above that my mother fell in love with a knife-throwing carnie, a neck-snapping boxer, a duplicitous conman, and a bombmaker. “It’s like you wanted to make sure your daughters grew up with all the necessary skills.”

Standing back, I studied the device.

I half expected something crude and homemade to match the halfwit energy infesting the place, but I wasn’t surprised that the bomb was the opposite. We’d long ago figured out that the Brotherhood was well-funded. They had enough money to buy the good stuff.

But too bad for them, so did my dad.

“All right.” I clicked my tongue, poking around the kitchen for something sharp. “A remote activator with a secondary initiator. You’ll try to distract with all the useless show wires sticking out of the top when the wire I really need”—I plucked a knife out of the drawer by the sink—“is on the bottom.”

Knowing this didn’t make my job any easier. Unless I wanted my face blown off, I couldn’t just flip the thing on its head. A fact that the bombmaker knew—hence their decision to put all the wires that needed snipping in a place I couldn’t snip.

“Too bad you were wrong.”

I slid one corner off the edge of the counter and carefully removed the screw with the tip of my knife. After that one was out, the other three soon followed. I lifted the device off the bottom plate, and rested it half on the corner with the other half balanced on my fingertips.

Crouching down, I looked inside the guts of the thing, meeting with half a dozen wires—all white.

It wasn’t like the movies where psychopaths did their victims a favor and color-coded thecut me, cut mewire, and that was the first thing my father, Killian, taught me.

This wasn’t a game, or a movie, or a joke. There was no room for guessing. I needed to know what every part, component, and wire did, or I needed to get the hell out of the way and let someone who did take over.

“Don’t worry, Daddy, I was only pretending not to listen to your lessons, because you’re super funny when you’re mad. I remain your best student”—I picked out a tied bundle of three wires and sliced through the one in the middle—“and your favorite kid.”

Sliding the bomb back, I stood up, smiled at the blank display no longer counting down, and dusted off my hands. “That’s how it’s done.”

I didn’t waste any more time. I took off upstairs with Malcom’s key in my pocket and freed everyone.

“It’s time. We’re getting out of here,” I called over my shoulder, leading the stampede down the stairs. “Just hang back a minute. Got to make sure the cleanup is done.”

“Thank you, thank you.” The silent, crying woman broke from the pack and hugged me, squeezing me to pop out all my jelly. “Thank you so much. I don’t know what I would’ve done— One more day and I swear, I would’ve— I would’ve—” She burst into tears.

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