Redeem Me (Beckett Brothers #2)

45. Caelon

Chapter Forty-Five

CAELON

I hear the gentle beeping of a life support monitor before I see the man it’s attached to.

Man? Huh, coward, more like. O’Connor’s dog. Henchman. Whatever. He’ll be bleeding and pleading for his life any minute now.

I slip into the room with my brothers at my heels. Adrenaline courses through my blood, fizzing through every cell of my body. My pulse pounds in my head like a war drum.

Danny Bourke lies on a trolley bed, half reclined, with his eyes closed peacefully, as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. His complexion is smooth and sallow, his skinny arms tucked tightly beneath the covers from the elbows down. His biceps have wasted away beneath his sagging skin. My eyes home in on the subtle rise and fall of his chest, watching as his heart beats sturdily, while mine has barely survived.

The Danny I remember was a mountain of a man, ripped and muscular, built like a brick shithouse.

The man who lies before me is weak, withered and built like a bird.

I kick the bed which slams against the wall with a crack. Danny’s eyes jolt open, wide and white like a rabbit trapped in a snare. They dart wildly around the room, from me to my brothers, fear flashes over his features.

‘Welcome back, Danny.’ I prowl closer. ‘You certainly kept us waiting.

‘What do you want?’ he whispers. His rancid breath wafts through the air between us.

My nose crinkles. ‘What do I want?’ I repeat, running a hand over the gun tucked in my suit. ‘Let’s see…’ My palm grazes my jaw. ‘I want my wife to still be alive. I want her to see our children grow up. I want to watch her grow old. But seeing as I can’t have any of those things, because you took them away from me,’ I whip the knife from my pocket pointedly and flip it open, its blade glinting beneath the hospital spotlights, ‘I want to know what happened the night you killed her. I want to know who put you up to it. And I want to know how much they paid you. And then, when I’ve cut off every limb, I want to know if it was worth it.’

A low guttural gasp slips from his cracked lips. ‘It was an accident.’

‘Bullshit.’ I rest the tip of the knife in the hollow of Danny’s throat.

The weight of my brothers’ eyes bores into me. The room is silent bar the beeping of the monitor and Danny’s sharp, ragged breaths.

I press the blade harder, not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to blanch the skin. He flinches.

‘Caelon,’ Killian warns me.

‘I was off my head. I barely remember what happened,’ Danny spits.

‘But you remember who gave the order. Who paid you. Who put you up to it.’ My blade pierces his skin. Crimson liquid leaks from the incision, trickling down his neck. I spent so many nights lying awake thinking about this moment, yet it doesn’t feel as satisfying as I’d imagined.

Danny swallows hard, his eyes homing in on each of my brothers. His mouth parts, then closes again.

‘They all want to know as much as I do. Tick tock, Danny. We’re all waiting.’

His eyelids close as he sucks in a breath.

‘I needed the money.’ His resigned sigh reeks of desperation.

‘I didn’t ask about your financial affairs. I asked who ordered a hit on my wife.’ I remove the knife from his flesh and hold it in front of his face. He watches as his blood trickles over the blade.

This was supposed to satiate my rage, but only now do I realise it’s already gone. It has been for a while. Since Ivy’s light broke through my darkness. But I’ve fucked that up. Why is it that everything I touch I tarnish?

I don’t know if she’ll ever forgive me, but I can’t afford to think about that right now.

‘Who ordered the hit?’ I repeat in a slow, low voice. ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way. It’s up to you.’

Danny shifts beneath the bedsheets. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be her.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I hiss, leaning closer.

His eyes snap to James. ‘It was supposed to be Scarlett.’

‘What?’ James booms incredulously. The air vibrates with his wrath.

‘I couldn’t get within a hair’s breadth of her, though. You never left her side.’ Danny’s gaze remains focused on James. ‘Cole wanted to hurt you Becketts and the best way to do that was through your women.’

‘Cole?’ Killian and James bellow in unison.

Cole was Scarlett’s creepy boss, the previous owner of the Luxor Lounge, who mysteriously disappeared. I assumed James had taken care of him, but clearly James has gone soft in his old age. Love changed him. The way it’s changing me.

‘I’d already taken the money, spent half of it, and I couldn’t deliver on the job.’ Danny shrugs, an evil smirk lifting the corner of his lips. ‘So, I did the next best thing and took out his brother’s wife.’

‘You fucking bastard.’ James lunges at him and wraps his hands around his neck and squeezes.

Danny’s face turns pink, then purple.

I should feel a sense of satisfaction as the life drains from his body. Instead, all I feel is a deep sense of sadness.

And it’s not Isabella’s face I see at the forefront of my mind. It’s Ivy’s.

Danny took so much from me already. I refuse to let him take any more.

I choose redemption over revenge.

I choose the future over the past.

I choose Ivy.

‘Let him go!’ I yank James’s hands away from Danny’s throat. ‘It’s not worth it. He’s not worth it. He’s taken enough from us. Don’t give him any more.’

The walls are closing in. The stench of Danny’s scent seeps into my nostrils and crawls over my skin. I need to get out of here. I need to tell Ivy I choose her. And I will choose her over and over again.

James steps away from the bed, the disgust etched into every line of his face mirroring my own.. The skin around Danny’s throat is ringed with violet bruising.

Suddenly, Danny throws back the bedsheets. I register a small, silver blade in each of his hands a split second before I feel one slice my suit open.

I watch helplessly as the other one of Danny’s knives sinks into James’s chest.

The last thing I hear before I hit the ground is Killian’s roar.