Page 8 of Stand: Part One

“Fine,” I said, pulling out my knife and stepping up to the side of his head. I took his ear between my fingers and slowly sawed the knife through it, his sharp screams spurring me on as I severed it from his head and dropped it into his lap. Stepping back, I waited impatiently for him to regain his composure before I took the other one. Men who couldn’t listen to orders obviously had no use for their ears.

“If you’re not going to listen, Alan, I’ll take the other one,” I warned.

Alan’s eyes widened with fear as his chest heaved up and down, sweat lining his forehead.

“Okay, okay, okay,” he panted, trying to catch his breath. “L-look, B-brian just saw something he shouldn’t have s-seen. So we s-switched out his guns, knowing he would do something stupid, like a misfire. We were certain you’d kill him for it. P-problem solved.”

I stood there, silent, and absolutely stunned.

What?

“What the fuck did he see, exactly?” Scott asked, his voice low with warning.

I swore I could see the light bulb going on and off in Alan’s head, trying to determine what was safe to tell me.

“Don’t make us bleed it out of you,” he added.

Alan took several more short breaths before his glassy eyes pleaded back up at us as if mercy was still on the table somewhere, just out of reach.

“Some…some of the guys at the docks had taken a few pounds of coke from one of the shipments for themselves. Brian caught them.”

I shared a quick glance with Scott, confirming my thoughts.

“Along with yourself,” I added.

Alan’s gaze shifted to the floor before he nodded sheepishly.

“When?” I asked.

“Y-yesterday.”

“This is the first we’re hearing of this,” Scott replied. “Clearly Brian kept that information to himself.”

“H-he was still a liability to us. He had leverage.”

“So why didn’t you just fucking kill him while you were still at the docks?” I growled.

“He got a-away and we couldn’t f-find him. We knew that o-once he got back to the base, we couldn’t kill him without rousing suspicion.”

“So instead of killing him yourself, you set him up,” Scott stated.

Alan nodded meekly. “We just gave you a r-reason to kill him instead,” he murmured. “No one would question that. All we had to do was make a quick switch. Minimal effort n-needed. He’s a n-new guy. Using the wrong ammunition wasn’t u-unbelievable. He was bound to fuck up at s-some point.”

“Yet you didn’t even bother trying to hide the security footage of you making the switch,” I added. “Not exactly the slickest plan if you’re incapable of covering your own tracks.”

His brows furrowed. “Someone was s-supposed to handle that.”

Scott smiled smugly as he slowly shook his head at him. “Seems they failed,” he answered for him.

“Or maybe,” I continued, arching a brow, “they wanted you to take the fall for all of them and left the footage as is.”

Alan’s eyes bounced back and forth as he considered the possibility that he’d been played. What a concept.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I worked to rein in my rage before I ripped the guy’s fucking face off for his sheer stupidity.

“Tell me. Did you anticipate my wife becoming a casualty in this plan?”

All the blood in Alan’s face slowly drained away at the implication.