Page 30 of Devil's Retribution

“The Mexican food’s here!” Nick ran in a small circle in excitement. I watched him in quiet amazement. I’d never seen anyone, let alone a kid, bounce back from a traumatic situation so fast.

Of course, I could be mistaken. He could be doing better, but not well. But as I got up to pay room service for our burritos and drinks, I just couldn’t stop being fascinated with the situation I had found myself in—even if, like looking after the boy, it was full of unfamiliar situations.

“Yes, yes it is. Go wash your hands and we’ll have burritos.” I paid cash to the skinny, liveried kid at the door, tipping him well and taking the bag.

“What about Mom?”

I smiled, wondering if he remembered his real mother, or if he had been so young that Emma had stepped into the role seamlessly. “She’s very tired. Let’s not wake her up just yet.”

I unpacked the big, warm bag as he went to wash up in the bathroom. The boy had shown fear of me, back at the studio. Now, though, I had suddenly turned into every other adult guest he had ever had in his young life. Like a babysitter, or his mom’s boyfriend.

Isn’t that all kinds of ironic.

Here I was, in the belly of the beast—the very home of my enemy, with his family in my hands. I should have been delighted. This should have been my endgame. But the coward had fled, even knowing that the two innocents he had left in my hands would pay for his abandonment.

Except I didn’t want that.

I had just spent three and a half hours getting Minecraft explained to me by an enthusiastic little kid who reminded me so much of my younger brother that it hurt. Nick was a ray of sunshine, innocent, sweet, endlessly optimistic. Emma had done well by him. But that very quality, along with his coloring, was practically giving me flashbacks.

It had to be a coincidence. Leon would have told me if he’d had a son. Though the boy was old enough that he’d likely have been in the womb when Leon died. Perhaps they never met.

No. No, no, I was imagining things. My brother was gone. Learning about my brother’s killer had made the loss even fresher, which was playing tricks with my mind. The poor boy’s only relation to Leon was that he was the great-nephew of the man responsible for my brother’s death.

But I still didn’t want to hurt him. Or his lovely mother, for that matter. I had already done worse to them than they could have ever deserved, something that had made even strong men wince to contemplate. They didn’t deserve it, and harming them now wouldn’t do a thing to Charles.

Only one thing would, finding him and killing him.

For that, I needed Emma intact, and I needed her cooperative. And if I did a single thing to hurt or even threaten Nick, I was certain that I would lose any chance of cooperation. She had too much steel in her, and too much heart, to let it stand.

“I’m back!” Nick called as he ran back in. He had droplets of water on his sleeves and smelled faintly of the bathroom’s citrus hand soap. “Can we eat in front of the TV?”

I hesitated. My experience with parenting was nonexistent, unless you counted Leon. And that had been advanced big-brothering more than anything. “Okay. But just this once. And if your mom says we can’t do this again, no complaining.”

He nodded and plopped down on the couch while I set the plates on the coffee table.

Once he was fed, sleepy and bedded down, it would be time for me to start searching this place in earnest. Hopefully that would include Emma’s help. I knew she would cooperate to the best of her ability for her and Nick’s safety.

Maybe, if I was very fortunate, I would not have to do anything else to scare her again. At least, not in her presence. But I wondered if I could actually pull that off. Her murdering bastard of an uncle had to die. He had to die in a nasty, public, and humiliating manner, and once that was done, Emma would know who was responsible.

I had to find a way for his death to cause her less pain. To cause Nick less pain, when he finally learned the truth.

There were only two ways to do that, that I had any confidence in. One, I could kill Charles and then cover up the details. Make it look like he’d offed himself rather than be caught by us. But Emma was smart. She might not buy it. So that left me with the other alternative—showing her once and for all what her uncle really was. Making sure that she hated him, was disgusted with him, just as much as I was.

If she knew his crimes, if she knew everything he had done, maybe she would go from outraged and disappointed to truly despising her uncle. Just like he deserved.

I heard movement back in Emma’s bedroom as Nick was busy demolishing his burrito. A few minutes later, Emma walked out in a fresh outfit, hair brushed, makeup fixed and still stifling a yawn. She looked around at Nick eating, the TV on with his game paused, and me standing up to greet her. “Looks like I missed a few things,” she mumbled with a small, tentative smile.

“Just supper and Minecraft. I didn’t know what you liked so I got a few different kinds of burrito.” My tone sounded like I was trying to impress her on a date. I coughed into my fist and straightened my shoulders. “I still expect your assistance, but not on an empty stomach.”

She looked back at Nick, who waved at her with guacamole-smeared fingers. “Hi sweetie. Slow down before you choke, okay?”

He slowed his frantic little chomps a little and she rolled her eyes but left him to it, turning back to me.

“You’ll have my cooperation as long as you don’t cause us any more problems. This thing between you and my Uncle Charles should have stayed between you and my uncle from the beginning.”

I opened my mouth to explain myself, then closed it again, frowning. I wasn’t about to apologize any more than I already had. “Had that been possible,” I replied simply instead, “I would have done so. However, as you have seen, he has no problem with sacrificing others to ensure his own safety.”

She sighed and nodded. “It sure looks like it, yeah.”