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The warehouse doors screeched closed as we left the building and I took the wheel of one our work vehicles, a black jeep. The Cardiff’s lived less than fifteen minutes away and we drove in silence the whole way there.
The gates were shut, locked with a heavy bar. I pulled up and took out my phone, dialing Rhys Cardiff.
He picked up right away.
“Merrick, give us a chance to sit down and—”
“Open the gates or I will burn your house to the fucking ground.”
I hung up, tossing my phone into the console. There was a moment of silence before the bar slid back slowly and the gates parted. We drove up the dark driveway to the mansion at the end and I stepped out onto the gravel.
Caden joined me with another cigarette hanging from his lips. He needed to quit, but it wasn’t my place. Nor was it the time to bring that up. Yale appeared at my other side and paused, his large body looking relaxed, but beneath it all I knew he was tensed up like an arrow waiting to be released.
The lights were on and I thought I saw a flicker of movement, but the door remained firmly closed.
“What a pussy,” said Caden. “Hiding behind his daddy.”
“I might too if my daddy was as powerful as Rhys Cardiff,” said Yale reflectively, eyes passing over the enormous modern house.
“I wouldn’t,” said Caden flatly.
I glanced at him sharply, but he was staring up at the house with a distant expression. Pulling my attention back to the front door, I took out my gun and unloaded two shots into the soft earth of the garden by the step.
Someone screamed inside and something fell, maybe a chair.
“Come out, Cardiff,” I called. “I’ll make it quick.”
The front door pushed open and Rhys appeared, his pistol up by his shoulder. His eyes were wild, the whites glinting, and he was bathed in sweat, his t-shirt plastered to his body.
I took a step closer and he raised his gun. In one perfectly trained movement, Yale and Caden turned their guns on him and waited.
Waiting for my word like a pair of dogs ready to attack.
“You know what happens now,” I called. “There is a debt that must be paid to my household.”
“I won’t just hand over my son to you, please let’s negotiate. I’ll give you anything.”
“I want retribution for Clara,” I said coolly. “I will get it if I have to shoot you dead, burn your house to the ground, and drag your son out. That boy belongs to me, his life is mine to do with as I please.”
From behind him, Osian appeared. Shaking like the fucking coward he was, drenched in sweat. His eyes were wide like a panicked deer and his hair hung wet over his forehead.
It took everything I had not to lift my gun and shoot him on the spot.
He had hit her, he had struck her so hard she bruised. Never in my life had I even imagined a scenario where I put my hands on a woman. It was unconscionable. And I was the worst fucking person I knew so there had to be something so dark, so rotted, in this man that he would strike Clara.
I was the Welsh King, the defender of the weak, the scales of justice.
But I was also Merrick Llwyd, trained to kill, to take a life with nothing but my hands.
It was the path Daphne had put me on so many years ago when she told me I was meant for greatness.
This was greatness—twisted, dark greatness.
I lifted my hands to look at my scarred knuckles and my whole body went quiet. My mind pulled me back to the arena when I’d finally pushed myself to my feet. The sand drenched red with blood, some of it mine.
I’d turned my palms over, shocked to see how pure white the bones of my knuckles were through the mangled flesh.
“Please,” Osian whimpered.
