Page 47 of Fearless
We didn’t have to go far. A platform made out of repurposed wooden pallets had been set up in the court outside my house. Python hadn’t arrived yet, but a crowd of onlookers had already gathered. I made attendance for this execution mandatory. Every man, woman and child living in Sheol needed to witness the consequences of a betrayal.
Tessa sat on a retaining wall just off of my lawn with Noelle next to her. They each held the hand of Tess’s rambunctious boys that wanted to run around and play. Tess talked nervously to Noelle, her free hand rubbing nonstop over her belly. She’d be ready to pop soon, a new life to replace the one I was about to take.
On the other side of the platform, Heather was already crying and wailing dramatically, sometimes into Bones’s shoulder, other times to no one in particular. He rubbed her back, but otherwise looked like he had no desire to be there. Jandro and Gunner had been breathing down my neck about what we should do with them, and I honestly wasn’t sure. My explicit instructions were to not take their lives, so I ruled out their guilt based on that alone. But I couldn’t exactly tell anyone that.
After surveying my citizens coming out to bear witness, my gaze landed on Mari at my side. “Are you going to sit with Tessa?” I asked her.
“I will. But I’ll stay with you until you need to go up there.” She glanced up at me. “I should tell you something.”
“Might have to wait, sugar.” Down the street, Dallas and Big G escorted Python toward us, each of them holding one of his arms. “We’re about to get this show on the road.”
“It’s about Python.”
“What about him?”
“The last two times I checked his vitals, he tried to convince me to escape with him.”
“Really.” I couldn’t bring myself to be surprised. That slimy bastard.
“The last time, he grabbed my shoulders. Dallas got him off me and never took his eyes off of him after that.”
“Good to know.” I watched Dallas and Big G tie the traitor to the sawed-off telephone pole erected in the middle of the platform. “You can sit with Tessa now, Mari.”
She went without a word, leaving only me and Hades together. What she just told me ensured that this execution would drag on even longer than I originally thought. But she gave me a gift.
She took away the burden of my guilt.
When my men secured him and stepped off the platform, everyone went silent as Hades and I approached. Python stared at me as I took slow, measured steps toward him. His skin was slick with sweat. He strained against his bonds with heavy, ragged breaths, but he looked too stricken with fear to struggle for his life. Maybe touching my woman and trying to rope her into his scheming was his last resort. Too bad it would only prolong his suffering.
I turned to face everyone who gathered, Hades mirroring my movement.
“The Steel Demons do not take prisoners,” I began. “This man has already received more kindness than he deserves by being kept alive this long.”
“Reaper…” Python choked weakly from behind me.
I didn’t spare him a glance. By trying to beg now, he was only digging himself further into a hole of pain with no relief.
“This man was a brother of ours,” I continued, ignoring him. “Sworn to uphold the SDMC laws and to follow my leadership without question. Instead, he took it upon himself to conspire with an enemy who tried to have us killed.”
I paced across the platform, making sure to meet everyone’s eyes as I spoke. This speech was for every individual person, even Jandro, Shadow, and Gunner, who stood solemnly at attention with their arms crossed. Because everyone watching me, I trusted. And I would not make the mistake of trusting the wrong person again.
“Lying to me will not be tolerated.” I made sure to carry my voice to ensure it reached everyone. “Conspiring against the club will not be tolerated. Putting your hands onmywoman,” I turned to face the prisoner, his face white, “will absolutely not be tolerated.”
My hand lifted to my belt, where I grabbed the small pocketknife and switched it open.
“Reaper, please! I didn’t touch her like that! I didn’t mean, oh no—“
I ignored him as I grabbed the front of his shirt and sliced up the middle with my knife. With a clean rip, his shirt hung open in the front. Each side flapped in the breeze until I pulled them back, tucking each side behind his shoulders so everyone could see him bare-chested. And most importantly, the grinning horned skull of the Steel Demons emblem tattooed across his torso.
Like me, he went big on the ink. The tips of the horns touched his collarbones while the base of them met the skull at his sternum. The full design ended just past his ribs at the top of his stomach.
“Shadow?” I called out.
The large, silent man was at the edge of the platform in an instant, holding up a blow torch to me. I accepted it, switched it on, and meandered back to a horrified Python as I adjusted the flame.
“Only a sworn, loyal patched-in member can wear the Steel Demon,” I announced. Then to Python, “You are defacing that symbol by wearing it on your skin.”
“Reaper, please…” he whimpered.
