Page 10 of Upon Blooded Lips (Vengeance #1)

ERIC

“ S hut the fuck up,” I bark, dragging the bound and blindfolded man through our warehouse. His legs fumble and scrape against the concrete floor, and he begs me to let him go.

“I’ll never touch another kid again!” he promises, stumbling and almost taking me down with him.

“Sure you won’t, Lester.” I shove him into the elevator, humming along to a song only I can hear until the doors open, depositing us into a dark hallway surrounded by thick metal walls.

When we arrive at the double doors at the end of the hall, I push them open and lead him inside to our kill room, where Nate and I conduct the majority of our actual business.

Club Oblivion is a legitimate business. According to the IRS and government officials, we’re law-abiding, tax-paying citizens of the great state of Illinois.

But it’s a front.

We’re known on the dark web simply as The Brothers.

The revenge business is alive and booming, and we’ve taken full advantage of it.

I’m considered one of the best hackers in the world while Nate excels at being a sniper.

Our combined skills allow us to offer bespoke services many others can’t compete with.

Want your abusive husband skinned alive?

You got it. The bishop trafficks young boys?

We can arrange an explosive gas leak and stage it like an accident.

Your father forces you into prostitution?

I can hack into his computer and create a devastating trail of evidence that will send the FBI straight to his door.

President, prince, chief of police, judge—it doesn’t matter what title they hold. As long as the client can pay, our services are at their disposal.

But we take particular pleasure in eradicating child abusers.

Lester Roach, here, spent seven years locked up in Cook County Department of Corrections for distribution of child pornography. Should have been longer, but his sister refused to testify against him, even when she caught him with her four-year-old son.

But that little boy’s father was furious and contacted us to take care of the problem. His request? That we inject Lester with one of the most painful poisons out there while being live streamed to the client.

After years of routine torture and killing, I started spicing things up.

Little by little, I added costumes, props, music, and other such exciting things to our routines.

After all, work made Jack a dull boy, and we can’t have that.

Nate plays along because he can’t say no to my irresistible charms. Or because I suck his dick like a champion. I’m not sure which.

Lester has nosocomephobia—an intense fear of hospitals.

So, just for shits and giggles, I set up a corner of the warehouse to resemble a hospital room.

A bright surgical light hangs over a medical bed surrounded by curtain-draped walls.

I attached thick medical-grade restraints to the metal bars, brought in an EKG machine and defibrillator, and set up cameras to record the live stream.

A surgical tray stands at the ready, containing the poison and surgical gloves.

I haul a still-struggling Lester over to the bed and toss him onto it before attaching the restraints to his legs. After untying the rope from his wrists, I do the same with his arms. “Please, no. Please, I promise I’ll never do it again,” he cries, his limbs straining against the straps.

His words don’t move me. He doesn’t deserve my sympathy, not after what he’s done. None of them do. Life is precious and not everyone is deserving of it. I have no trouble sleeping at night.

Sometimes, I wonder if I would have turned out differently if I’d been born into a loving family. Would my conscience speak up more often? Would it be horrified by my actions and beg me to reconsider? I mentally shrug. Life handed me a certain set of cards, and I have to play what I was given.

There are only two people on this planet I care about—Nate and Tessa. The rest of the world can burn for all I care.

After closing the curtains, I jog over to the small studio apartment we built up against the far side of the room. I step through the door, my gaze landing on my brother dressed in a white coat, blue scrubs, and white clogs.

“Dr. McDreamy is in the house,” I say, scooping up the scrub cap off the bed. My eyes narrow on the fabric, and I bark a laugh. “Rifles? Really?”

Nate shrugs, grabs it out of my hands, and ties it on. “I got a computer one for you.”

“Ahh, you really love me, don’t you?” I bat my eyelashes at him, and he smacks my ass.

“Get ready, clown. Tick tock.”

After I change into matching clothes, I send a message to the client before we stride over to the makeshift hospital.

We pull our masks on before stepping through the curtains.

Nate adjusts the surgical light and switches it on, illuminating Lester’s prone body.

He jerks away when I yank his blindfold off, blinking against the bright light.

When he realizes the setting, he renews his fight, the whites of his eyes showing, his muscles buckling and straining in protest.

“Hold him down,” Nate orders, and I press Lester’s shoulders to the bed.

Nate rips his shirt open, the buttons flying off and scattering along the floor.

He attaches electrodes to his chest, switches on the EKG machine, and turns it so it faces a camera.

The incessant beeping increases with each passing second as Lester becomes more and more distressed.

I scoop up the syringe and give it a flick with my finger before advancing toward him with a wide grin on my face. “This is for your nephew.” His mouth opens wide on a scream when I inject the strychnine into Lester’s upper arm.

It takes two hours, forty-three minutes, and seventeen seconds for the convulsions and screaming to cease.

“Fuck,” I mutter, dropping my legs down from my desk. My elbows land on the metal surface as Presley stares back at me through the screen.

“I want to know why she took this with her when she tried to run,” she says, her voice like nails on a blackboard.

A shiver of disgust rolls over my shoulders.

It’s been fourteen years since I’ve seen her up close, even if it is through a screen.

But the hatred I’ve had for her since has never wavered.

Especially after everything Tessa confessed to us over the years.

Her fingers punch random keys on the laptop’s keyboard, making me snicker. She’s in her forties, not eighties. She should have some kind of grasp on how a computer works.

“Let me see.” Stephen steps in front of it and begins opening file folders.

I doubt he’ll find our app, but I can’t take the chance.

I minimize the camera screen, keeping an eye on him while I enter the back door I installed on her computer.

While he’s busy looking through her homework files, I delete the game, shredding it from existence. She won’t need it anymore.

“How many men have you hired?” she asks, and my ears perk up. Hired for what?

“You have her locked in her room, Presley. She’ll be fine. I won’t let her escape again.”

Fury heats my blood, and my fists clench. “Nate!” Heavy footsteps race down the hall, and he sticks his head in the doorway. He curses at the screen and takes a seat next to me. “They’ve imprisoned her in her bedroom.”

“Fuck.” He runs a hand through his golden-brown hair and sighs. “I know we agreed about going silent after she asked for help, but I can’t help but wonder if we made the right choice. We should have told her we were coming for her.”

I lean over and squeeze his knee. “I know. But we need her reactions to be genuine. You know how she gets when she’s worked up. She might have let it slip or not acted the right way about her engagement. Presley’s a cunt, but she isn’t stupid.”

The thought of her locked up, all alone, and possibly believing we’ve forsaken her makes my chest ache. We’ve spent too long trying to earn her trust to lose it now.

“Six,” Stephen answers. “They’ll arrive tomorrow and work in shifts in teams of three. One outside her door, another in the front yard, and one in the backyard. After her attempted escape, I found a breach in the back wall. I’ll have it filled.”

Presley sniffs. “Good. I want out of this fucking town, and the Martinellis are the key to that. If she escapes ? —”

“She won’t.”

Nate and I exchange glances. “We’re going to need a separate plan in case they don’t allow her to go to graduation,” Nate says, and I nod.

“I’ll get on it.”

He ruffles my hair and leaves while I get started on a second plan. There’s no telling which way Presley will go. Will she have Tessa attend graduation to maintain her image? Or will she keep her at home and under her control?

As I add and discard various ideas, I push away thoughts of my stunning cousin. Adopted cousin? Step? Whatever. I shouldn’t be thinking about her at all, not when I’m ten years her senior. But lately, I can’t seem to help myself.

The love I have for Nate knows no bounds. It’s all-encompassing, a force so strong it often takes my breath away. But over the past couple of months, I can’t shake the feeling that something is missing, like I have lost an integral piece of the puzzle that makes up the boundaries of my heart.

I scoop up my phone and scroll through the photos until I find one I snapped outside St. Mary’s last fall.

A cool breeze slides through my hair and ruffles the brilliantly colored maple leaves above me. The school bell rings, followed by excited chatter and laughter as students pour out of the building. I raise my camera and peer through the lens, my breath held in anticipation for Tessa to appear.

The sea of students seems to part and flow around her when she steps out of the school.

She clutches her textbooks to her chest, keeping her gaze fixed on the ground as she makes her way toward the parking lot.

Look up. As if she hears my silent command, her head rises, and I snap off several shots.

After she gets in the car, I glance down at the camera and enlarge the picture.

At first glance, she looks like any other girl her age, with her golden hair tumbling around her shoulders like a halo.

But when I look closer, I can see all the sadness in the world encompassed in her eyes.

As my gaze traces over the picture, déjà vu hits me with the force of a Mack truck. The wrongness. The rightness. The yearning for something more. The need to hold something precious close. The desire to protect.

It’s the same way I felt about Nate before we finally gave the finger to societal norms and succumbed to our feelings.

The realization cements something deep inside me. She’s ours. The thought formalizes before disappearing in a puff of smoke. I glance back at the picture, vowing to one day turn her sadness to joy.

We’re coming for you, angel.