Page 102 of At Your Mercy
Ro didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just stared, expression unreadable. Then, softly, he said, “I’m not sure yet.”
Elias laughed. “You always were more of a spur-of-the-moment kind of man.” His gaze flicked toward me. “He’ll get bored with you soon enough.”
My stomach turned. I could feel every pair of eyes in the room shift toward me, waiting for a reaction. But I forced myself to stay where I was. This wasn’t about me. Not right now.
Ro leaned closer to the glass, voice still calm, but I could hear the tremor of adrenaline beneath it. “Don’t talk to him.”
Elias smiled, looking back at Ro. “I made you, Ronan. Every instinct, every impulse that crawls under your skin when you touch him—it’s me. You’ll always be mine. You’ll kill me today, dump my body, but you’ll never be free of me. Maybe you’ll even miss me in a few years.”
Ro’s breathing hitched. He pressed his palm flat to the glass, eyes burning. “I will never miss you.”
Elias’s smile faltered—just for a second—but that was enough. Ro had him. The power had shifted.
Ro continued as he began to walk around the glass wall, towards the cage door, “No one will. We may remember you, but no, we’ll never miss you. You will die unloved, unnoticed, unwanted.”
Ro’s words hung in the air like smoke—bitter, poisonous, and final.
He moved slowly, circling the glass enclosure with an eerie calmness, his hand trailing lightly along the surface as hewalked. Elias followed him with his eyes, like a snake watching something it couldn’t quite tell was prey or predator.
When Ro reached the far wall, he stopped. His gaze flicked to the array of weapons displayed there—organized with clinical precision—knives, scalpels, pliers, hooks, saws, even a branding iron.
Ro tilted his head slightly. “Can I use any of these?”
Hayes’s grin was instant. “Be our guest.”
I exhaled quietly, the faintest sense of dread tightening at the base of my throat.
Yeah, I ran an underground group of killers, but I actually disliked the killing part. I’d killed a lot in my past, especially when I had just gotten started in this business. But as soon as I brought on people who could do the killing for me, I had happily retired to a life of desk work.
So why did I head an operation of selective contract killers if I didn’t like killing? Maybe it was because the government failed to deliver justice to those who needed it; maybe it was because I was too empathetic for my own good, to the point that I had a need to hurt those who enjoyed hurting others.
Maybe it was for the same reason I’d raised my nephews intending to put their homicidal tendencies to use without harming innocents.
As much as I supported the fact that some people just needed to die, I wasn’t keen on watching. Especially not when it involved my boy.
Ro’s fingers brushed along the metal table, lingering briefly over a blade before sliding toward something smaller. He picked up an ice-pick—thin, wickedly pointed, almost delicate in a way. It gleamed under the fluorescents like a sliver of frozen light.
He weighed it in his hand, nodding to himself.
Then he walked to the reinforced door leading into the enclosure. Every step echoed like a countdown to Elias’s demise.
“Unlock it,” he said softly.
Without hesitation, Hudson keyed in the release code. The door clicked open with a hiss of air.
He stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
The sound of the latch sliding into place registered deep in my gut. I wanted to move—say something, stop this—but Lane’s hand brushed my sleeve, light but firm. A silentdon’t.
Lane whispered, “He’ll be okay. He needs this.”
Greyson caught my eye, giving me a single nod of agreement.
Inside the cage, Elias shifted his position, sitting up a little straighter. “Have you decided?”
Ro didn’t answer right away. He just stood there, head bowed, the ice-pick hanging loosely in his grip. His pale hair fell into his eyes, shadowing his face. Then, slowly, he looked up.
“Yes, I think so,” Ro said softly.
