Page 84 of Broken Discipline
“Be reasonable, Carter,” Saunders stammered. “This isn’t between you and me. This is between you and Upchurch. I’m a neutral party. I haven’t done anything to the children. And you don’t—”
I grabbed the hypodermic needle from my pocket, ripping it from the case, and jabbing him in the neck, pushing down the plunger. A paralytic. It would force him to asphyxiate while he watched everything collapse around him, and to me, that seemed fitting. But I was too impatient for that. He fell back, and I walked back to the other soldier, removing my ax from his skull. I rammed the blade into Saunders’s neck. Blood pooled around him. Power inflated my chest. I couldn’t tell Ramona what to do or how to run her life, especially when it came to keeping our kids safe.
But I could kill everyone who hurt our family.
I stared into his blank eyes. His pores were big, his skin greasy, and his sour scent wafted into my nose. I found the keys in his pocket, then went back to the locked bedroom. Larkin and Leon looked up at me, their eyes wide, red droplets splattered on their clothes, but I saw no visible injuries; the droplets were someone else’s blood. I wrapped my arms around them, heat filling my chest, so damn grateful that they were safe.
“Daddy, you’re bleeding! Are you hurt?” Larkin squealed. “Poor Daddy.”
“They said we couldn’t leave this room,” Leon said. “But is Mama okay?”
I held them close, berating myself for letting it get this far.
“Mama?” Larkin asked.
I held my breath, preparing my answer: “She’s—”
“Right here,” Upchurch said.
Every hair on my body stood on end. I shoved the kids behind me and raised my gun. Duct tape held Ramona’s mouth shut, her arms bound in cuffs behind her back. She shook her head frantically. The muzzle of a gun pressed into her temple.
One shot, and she’d be gone.
“Your second-in-command—what was his name? Chip? I blew his brains out. Your wife is next,” Upchurch said.
“Daddy,” Larkin said, clutching my pants. I shoved her behind me.
“The fortune is yours,” I said. “What do you want?”
“Ah, if it were only the fortune that I cared about,” Upchurch said, shaking his head. “The deal was that I got his wife and the children too, you know. I’ve always wanted a family. Never had the time though.” Upchurch, a family man? What was he getting at? He kept his lips pressed firmly together. “Seems as though my cousin’sfinalwife is rather dramatic, and I can’t have that.” He rolled his eyes. “You’ve made this whole situation quite inconvenient for me. The fortune and the business can work themselves out eventually, but the family?” He rolled his eyes. “Unlikely for them to obey me now, sadly.” He cleared his throat, digging the muzzle into Ramona’s temple. “So, I propose a new negotiation. You don’t want me to kill your wife or your children, do you?”
My eyes shifted between his gaze and the gun fixed on Ramona’s head. “What do you want?” I growled.
“I want you or your wife to be my sacrifice.”
I blinked. “For the Masquerades?”
“Once the rest of the Marked Blooms Syndicate realizes that I killed the owner of Carter Care, or fucked his wife, no one will question me. I might even be able to take out Bloom myself if I want,” he sighed.
My blood cooled. There was no need for a board member to offer a sacrifice. Upchurch was out to gain the most power by humiliating or killing me.
“The way I see it,” he continued, “you have two choices. One: Sacrifice your wife. Run off with the kids, knowing thatyoucan always provide shelter for them. Your wife will likely live through the night, enduring all the torture we can dole out, and you can hold on to the hope that one day, you’ll be able to hunt me down for good. And that’s satisfying, isn’t it? We can keep hunting each other until one of us is dead.” He smacked his lips. “Or two: Sacrifice yourself, knowing that men rarely make it through the Masquerade alive. Just like your father. Let your wife run off with the kids. She’ll raise them, and you’ll die with the promise that your death means that I’ll never bother them again.”
“Daddy?” Larkin asked, clinging to my leg. “What is he talking about?”
“Which one is it?” Upchurch pulled back the hammer on his gun. “I’m running out of patience.”
There wasn’t any debate in my mind. “I’ll sacrifice myself,” I said.
Ramona shook her head frantically, and Upchurch nodded at my hands. “Then you know what to do.”
I stowed my gun, then offered my wrists. Upchurch took handcuffs from his back pocket, clicking the links shut around me. One by one, Upchurch removed my weapons, stowing them in his own pockets.
“What’s going on, Daddy?” Larkin shouted. “Tell me!”
“Daddy?” Leon asked.
Once I was unarmed, I kneeled down, meeting the twins at eye level. Their lips hung down in angry scowls, like they knew this was bad, even if they didn’t understand it at all.
