Page 101 of Malachi
“Tell you what. I’ll tell you the truth, but you go first,” Gideon chuckled. I looked at him, unable to keep my jaw from falling slack at the sheer idiotic audacity of my brother.
“Excuse me?” Reverend Jacob asked, his eyes narrowing into tiny slits.
“You tell the truth first,” Gideon repeated.
“The truth about what? I’m a man of God, which means I live by a code of honesty,” he explained, his gaze unwavering.
“Oh, now Reverend. Lying isn’t good. Won’t get you far with the man upstairs, if you know what I mean.” Gideon clicked his tongue disapprovingly, pointing his finger up towards the ceiling.
“You’re about two seconds from me pulling this trigger, Son,” he sneered.
“I’m not your son,” Gideon seethed, taking a half-step forward.
“You have one minute to explain yourself and what you meant by that comment,” Reverend Jacob hissed through clenched teeth.
“Simple. We figured you out. We know about the girls. And we know about the fact that you kidnap them, torture them, and then sell them off to the highest bidder,” Gideon shrugged.
I could barely hold back my groan of frustration. He was giving it all away, ruining a year’s worth of work that we had all put in. In two seconds flat, it was over.
“We already brought you all into the plan, Gideon. That’s not new information. Not to you, and not to most of us here. Those who didn’t know, they’ll fall in line just fine.” Reverend Jacob’s confidence was through the goddamn roof. “So try again. How exactly are we all fucked?”
“It’s simple. We have that information and are prepared to take it to the right people, thus proving that you are all wholly and rightly fucked,” Gideon said with a grin.
“You won’t be able to take that information out of this room if all of you are dead,” the Reverend laughed with false bravado. If he only knew—
“That won’t stop shit. You’re assuming that we haven’t already told people,” Gideon tossed right back.
Don’t do it. Don’t do it, Gideon,I mentally begged him.
“Our wives will be more than happy to fill in any blanks the authorities have.” Fucking hell. Fucking damn it all to hell.
“All of you on the ground!” The Reverend barked. I looked around as Ollie and Levi both nodded and we sank down to our knees on the ground. “You lot aren’t going anywhere.”
Reverend Jacob pulled a second pistol from his back, keeping his current piece locked and engaged on Gideon’s forehead as he passed the pistol over to Elder Shepherd.
“Keep these boys under control while I go make sure their wives won’t be a problem any longer,” he threatened. Before he lowered the gun to his side, Elder Shepherd had raised the other pistol, leveling it at Gideon’s head once again.
“On your knees, Son,” the man barked with false bravado.
“Reverend, this isn’t necessary,” Levi urged in a last ditch effort to change the man’s mind.
“Enough!” Reverend Jacob barked, the sound echoing around the room. “By this evening, none of you will have to worry about it any longer.”
“What does that mean?” Ollie asked with an audible gulp.
“It means you will all be widowers by nightfall.”
CHAPTER25
EDEN
“Thank you so much for letting me visit today, Eden,” Delilah said for probably the tenth time since she had come over only an hour before.
“Honestly, you’re helping me more than I’m helping you,” I laughed her comment off.
“How do you figure?”
“Being alone feels like the absolute worst right now. I wish the guys had just dropped all of you off here this morning, and we wouldn’t have had to worry about it,” I admitted with a shrug.
