Page 186 of Bad Bishop

Pressed my lips to his ear.

Used my right hand to draw my gun.

“You’ve always been a stupid cunt, Fin. But for you to think I’d let you get away with what you did to my wife, you’ve really outdone yourself.”

I put a bullet in his spine. He dropped to his knees before me. I stepped back, watching him tremble and convulse, holding his back with shaky fingers as he stared in horror at the scarlet liquid pouring out of him.

The surprise and disappointment in his face were exactly why I’d lied to him. Why I gave him futile, foolish hope.

“B-brother…” he stammered weakly.

“You’re not my brother. Alex is. Always was. Not you.” I rounded his limp figure on the floor. “Now I’ll ask questions, andyou’ll answer them. I’ll kill you anyway. If you say the truth, I’ll take minutes. If you lie—hours. Am I understood?”

He nodded quickly. Hysterically.

“Why did you do it? Remember. The truth.”

“I swear I did it because of what they did to you,” he groaned, losing blood. I was lying. He was going to die in the next fifteen minutes or so. I would still make it painful, though.

“But also…she was so fucking beautiful, Tiernan. It was almost painful to watch.”

“Did you plan this all along?”

He shook his head.

“Words, fucker.” I stopped my pacing to grab his ear and rip it from his head.

He arched, howling in pain. “N-no,” he cried out, heaving. “Th-there wasn’t a plan. She was just there. Gorgeous. All alone. Nobody paid attention to her. Nobody but me.”

“You followed her into the woods?” I prompted.

He gave me a hesitant look, probably knowing I was going to rip something else from him soon. He wasn’t wrong about that.

“Answer me,” I said.

“Y-yes,” he chattered. “She went outside, and I followed her. At first, I thought I’d corner her in one of the rooms, cop a feel, n-nothing more. But then she surprised me by leaving the property through the cellar and heading to the shore.”

“Was she upset?” I kneeled down and undid his trousers. Touching my own brother’s knob was not on my to-do list in this lifetime. Poetic justice required it, though.

Fintan winced, knowing where it was going.

“Sh-she…was beside herself.”

“Did she fight you?” I took my dull knife out of my pocket. He stared at it in horror.

“Did she?” I roared.

“Yes,” he admitted. “She fought tooth and nail. Managed to get in a few blows. Cracked my rib.”

I grabbed his limp knob in my fist and slashed his balls off. Blood sprayed everywhere.

His scream put another hole in the ozone layer. Fucking weakling.

“I tried to finish her off in the hospital room when you were in Vegas,” Fintan spat out blood, staring at me with wild hatred in his eyes. “But your asshole brother-in-law, Enzo, had the foresight to loiter there. He wouldn’t fucking leave. Even when he wasn’t in the room, he was just beyond the door.”

In the end, I did the right thing by keeping Enzo in New York. He saved my Lila.

“You’re about to die in the next three minutes,” I informed him flatly. The color slowly drained from his face. “Blood loss. There’s no saving you now. One last question.”