Page 68 of Alfie: Part One
“Separate ’em,” I said quietly. “If they wanna become Sons, we can’t have Tony dragging Colby down, and Colby needs to focus on growing balls.”
“That’s a good start,” Finn agreed. He glanced back at Kellan. “You reckon our boys in Dublin can help the drunk wise up before he finds himself with a bullet in his head?”
“They once straightened out Colm,” Kellan replied. “They can straighten out anybody. I’ll make some calls.”
“I resent that, mate,” Colm protested.
My mouth twitched.
It was nice to feel a bit of humor in a basement where the death of a drunk was being discussed in front of said drunk’skid brother. Fuck, it was messing with my head. Colby was an actual child. He shouldn’t be here.
“It’s settled.” Finn walked over to Tony, fisted the guy’s hair, and yanked his head back. “But I’mma let you in on a little secret. The only reason you’ll walk outta here alive is because your brother is showing enough remorse to persuade us to givehim another chance. And his…loyalties…might shift if we kill you.”
Tony gnashed his teeth and refused to make eye contact.
“Maybe some fucking gratitude is in order?” Finn pressed. “No? All right.” With that said, he pulled back and punched Tony hard across the face, and I sucked in a breath. “How about now?” Finn continued. Then promptly delivered another fist to Tony’s face, and this one had a muted crunch to it.
Tony swore through a pained groan as blood started gushing out from his nose.
“Show him respect, Tony,” Colby gritted out.
“For what?” Tony spat out. “For not killin’ me? He can suck my?—”
Finn cut him off with another punch, one more, then a third and a fourth.
By then, Tony fell to the floor and couldn’t stop groaning—but that wasn’t enough. Finn muttered something about never beating a man when he was lying down, so he hauled Tony up to continue his assault.
“What am I saying? You’re not a fucking man,” Finn seethed. Then he used both hands to grab hold of Tony’s head, and he rammed his knee up the guy’s face.
“Motherfucker!” Tony yelled.
Colm strode forward, and he positioned himself behind Tony so he could hold him up. Tony’s face looked like roadkill. He had blood everywhere, from his nose, a busted lip, and a cut eyebrow. And he was swelling up.
Finn pulled out an actual handkerchief and wiped off the blood, and he turned to me. “Time to see if you’re with us, Alfie. Give them a good warning.”
Wait, what?
He wantedmeto… Andbothof them? He’d saidthem. I wasn’t hitting a fucking kid.
I swallowed hard, and my ears started ringing.
Time to see if you’re with us…
The bullshit promise I’d made West came back to haunt me, about my not hurting anyone, and I scratched the side of my head.
I could hurt Tony. In fact, he was fucking idiot for not showing his gratitude. If he’d fucked up that much, it meant he’d put operations in jeopardy, and Finn had already shown mercy.
I caught Kellan’s stare, and he extended the baseball bat.
Fuck me, so this was happening.
I swallowed again, and I closed the distance to grab the bat.
Once upon a time, I’d actually considered studying medicine. It’d been a stupid, naïve idea, not to mention outrageously expensive, and one look into how long it took to become a doctor had made me back down. I wasn’t studying for fucking years to become anything. But even so… Kellan had come to my dorm one night, and he’d chuckled at the books on anatomy I’d kept on my shelf.
I’d found it interesting to read about our skeleton, the tissue, all the muscles and the millions of nerves…
I cleared my throat and tightened my grip on the bat, and I switched places with Finn.