Page 103 of King of Cruelty

“You get the fuck out of here, or you won’t see a cent! I told you—” She flicked down. Hurriedly, she unmuted the mic. “No, no, there’s nothing wrong. A few uninvited guests but nothing to be concerned about.

“The bidding for Liam Hunt begins at twenty-five million dollars.” She started the timer. “Now.”

I craned my neck to see. There were a few chat bubbles on the screen which I assumed were the bidders asking about the interruption, but now the chat had no activity.

At all.

Debra muted again. “I don’t know what the hell has gotten into all of you, but you need to leave this room—”

A snort swung every head around, including mine.

Bane straightened up. Rolling his head, he shook away the aftereffects of the hit, and laughed his ass off.

Hehehehehe, came through the gag, and it set Liam off.

He cracked, barking a laugh which made Genny giggle a funny, high-pitched, loopy-on-painkillers giggle. She fell over on River who caught his niece on his back, shaking her and himself as he guffawed.

And then the whole family was gone.

Full-on, chest-wracking, belly-shaking, eye-watering laughter filled the room, and all anyone could do was stare at them.

“What’s wrong with you?” Debra barked. “What’s funny? Stop laughing. I said stop laughing!”

Eagle Tattoo raised a hand. “If I may, Mom, I’m fairly sure they’re laughing at all of you. I bet they’re thinkingif only you five were a better, smarter, class of criminal. Then you could’ve pulled this off.”

Debra, Yumi, Jillian, Natalya, and Maryann went very still.

“What are you talking about?” Debra rasped. “Why would you say that?”

Eagle Tattoo cocked his head. “You don’t know?” he replied over the Merchants’ laughter. “Hmm. I guess we’re not the ignorant cunts after all. That’s still you.”

“Where did you hear that?” Debra shrieked, shooting up. She wobbled and fell back down, clutching her head.

Her friends had her covered. Scrambling for their stolen guns, they aimed them at our visitors—all of them including Natalya.

“If I may,” Sunny chimed in, grinning away. “I believe I have a little guess as to where they heard your true feelings about them. I’m going with YouTube. Is that right, gentlemen, or did someone just send the link direct to your phone?”

“Direct to my phone,” Eagle Tattoo replied, pulling out his cell. “But they got it straight from YouTube, so solid guess. I’ll give you full points for it.”

Eagle Tattoo tapped his screen and Debra’s voice filled the room.

“Finally. Those stupid, ignorant cunts. I know we needed bodies, but couldn’t we have invested in a better, and smarter, class of criminal?”

Debra paled. “What is that?! Turn that off!”

“A smarter class of criminal wouldn’t have believed us when we promised to ‘redistribute’ the wealth of Leighbridge, and share all the auction earnings equally.”

“I said turn it off!”

Eagle Tattoo turned it off, but his stony face went on to say even more.

“That wasn’t what you think,” Natalya blurted, lowering her gun. “So let’s all just calm down. We weren’t talking about you. We were talking about the Merchants.”

Shaggy Beard silently tapped his phone.

“This isn’t a compromise. It’s a trap. There’s no way you’d trade the key to your success for a bunch of worthless thugs.”

“Worthless thugs, huh?” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s funny because when you said this, you were speakingtothe Merchants, not about them. So if you weren’t speaking about them...” His voice dropped the temperature thirty degrees. “You must’ve been speaking about us.”