Page 73 of Connor's Claim
“You know shit. And what has that cunt and her bitch mother got to do with you?”
Arran tutted. “You don’t get to ask the questions here.”
“The fuck I don’t?—”
Victor’s interruption was short-lived, as Connor snapped out a fist and drove it into his face. The rapist stumbled back, teetering at the edge of the gantry and over the water rushing below.
Connor lurched to grab him, steadying the man with a grumble. “Fuck. That was close. Grab the hook, aye?”
Arran tugged a chain, and a hook rattled down from the steel rafters above. In practiced coordination, they strung Victor’s hand constraints over it, then Arran pulled the chain again. With a clatter and groan, it lifted Victor to his tiptoes, his arms stretched above his head. They slid him back, over the water so his toes barely touched the gantry.
He whimpered and bucked, losing his footing and dangling. “Let me down. Let me fucking go.”
“Did ye stop when the lass ye hurt begged ye to? I don’t think so, Victor.”
Shade slid a knife from his belt and stepped up to the dangling man. He sliced open the front of Victor’s clothing, the hoodie and t-shirt parting to reveal a pasty body with crude prison tattoos here and there on his chest.
In another few slices, the clothes fell away altogether, then his trousers were next. Arran bundled up the ruined material and tossed it beside the door, I guessed to destroy it all later.
A last couple of cuts left Victor completely naked, crooked dick and all.
I wrinkled my nose at the sight.
“God,” Genevieve commented.
Victor’s gaze jumped to us. “Hey, hey! Help me. I’m begging you.”
Arran smashed a fist to his mouth, his eyes slanting our way in warning.
I took the point. We needed to stay out of this and just watch.
So I did. I kept my gaze on Connor, as he’d requested.
I watched from when the first spray of blood hit him, to the cold fury in his eyes, to the way he managed the punishment of the rapist in steady, controlled cuts. He announced the crime and the sentence, then delivered.
A man who did what he said he was going to do. I appreciated that.
But I couldn’t focus on the victim. No—that was the wrong word. The individual whose deserved sentence they were delivering. The red at the edge of my vision, the shaking, the pieces falling away, and the sounds he made. Even the smell, at one point. I couldn’t accept that into my brain any more than the tiny slice I witnessed of it, not if I wanted to sleep at night.
At one particularly gruesome hit, Genevieve buried her face in my shoulder, her soft, barely there cry reaching my ears. “They cut off his penis. I’m glad, but God.”
“Just watch Arran,” I guided her.
She snuffled but raised her head, fixing on the important part of this.
It was the strangest parallel. Just like I’d helped the anxious councillor at the event only days ago, I was able to do the same for Genevieve now. It was easy to maintain my calm and find my centre in this scene. Connor was doing a job and one I saw value in.
I couldn’t do what he did.
I couldn’t even look.
But I respected him, and I agreed that this needed to be done. Perhaps Piers’ attack and Connor’s protective kidnapping me had broken something in my head because I wasn’t panicking or freaking out.
Should I be? To the tune of Victor’s gurgle and a dark laugh from either Arran or Connor, I pondered that point.
If anything, him giving me this insight was a gift. It showed me Shade, the gang enforcer, and the reach of his darkness. It filled a gap in who he was. He’d wanted me to understand him. Perhaps I’d never truly know what enabled him to do this, but—another splatter of blood soaked his t-shirt—I wasn’t scared of him.
The death cries of Victor finally ceased. Connor and Arran handled the dangling remains, pieces hitting the water below with a deep splash or some in silent surrender.