*Maddox*
Leaving a nice warm bed where I was snuggled up in the arms of the woman who loves me, the woman I have finally admitted I love, too, wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve done in my life, but as I head to the dungeon the morning after we brought in the assholes who slaughtered the innocent people in the house at Duster pack, I know my job is about to get all the more difficult.
I am hopeful that some of the difficult work has already begun. While Isla had slept with her head against my chest, I’d utilized the mind-link to let my most persuasive warriors have a turn or two with the bastards. My hope was that I would find a bunch of broken men who had all confessed to their crimes so that when I had them terminated, no one would feel any sympathy for them.
Dealing with Zabrina would be more difficult, but that could wait.
I take the steps quickly, feeling like the king I am. My mind goes back to the sight at the house, all of the blood, the dismembered bodies, the crying children.
No one who was there deserves to see another sunrise.
“Your Majesty,” Blade says, meeting me at the bottom of the stairs. He is aptly named; his father was a strong warrior and wanted to raise a son who would carry on his legacy, so he’d named his child after a weapon–and then he had become one.
I give him a sharp nod in greeting before I ask, “Have they all confessed?” I have no doubt, if anyone in this castle is capable of getting full confessions from the prisoners, it’s Blade. The only one more capable of doing so is me.
“Yes, they've all confessed to being present at the murders in Duster pack,” he says as we walk down the narrow hallway side by side. Our shoulders are so broad, we nearly scrape along the stone walls as we go, and whenever we come to a light on the wall, he steps slightly behind me. “We do have a bit of a hiccup, though, one I thought you’d want to handle yourself.”
I turn to face him, pausing almost at the section of the dungeon where the men are being kept. “What’s that?” I ask.
He clears his throat, his eyes twitching just a bit. Even though he’s been up all night, I don’t see a trace of tiredness on his face, just concern.
Concern that he might let me down, something he’s never done before. But he’s one of the few I can say that about.
“They say they had no choice,” he replies, his hands behind his back, standing up straight and tall, which makes him nearly my height.
I arch an eyebrow. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I inquire. “Of course, they had a choice! Vinny wasn’t even their Alpha, not that an Alpha can order anyone to do something immoral and make them follow through.”
He shakes his head slightly, his dark hair looking slightly gray in the light as it bounces off of his part. “No, sir, that’s not what I mean. Most of them are saying that Vinny had members of their family held in a cell in the Alpha’s residency with other guards there ready to kill them if they didn’t go through with the plan. Most of them didn’t agree to the plan and had told him so before they even left Hill Country pack territory. That’s when Vinny decided he’d have to use some of the other guards to help… persuade these men.”
My eyes are still locked on his for a few seconds as he finishes speaking before I pinch the bridge of my nose and squeeze my eyes closed, dropping my head so that when I open them again, I’m looking at a blood splatter between my shoes on the stone floor.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask. I don’t have to take that into consideration–but it is something to think about.
Blade shrugs. “That’s what they said, five of them, all in separate interrogation rooms.”
These particular interrogation rooms were less about asking and more about ass-whipping.
Before I say more, he continues, “One of them said that they threatened to kill his two-year-old daughter.”
“All right,” I say, shaking my head. “Let me speak to him. What’s his name?”
“Mike Weaver, Sire.” Blade gestures with his hand, and I proceed down the hallway to the third cell on the right.
I look through the window and see a man slumped on the floor against the wall, his clothes covered in blood, one shoe missing, and rips in what used to be a white shirt. He is staring at the ground, but I can see enough of his face to know that he’ll likely be permanently disfigured from the beating he’s taken since he arrived here.
I gesture for the guard at the door to open it for me and walk in.
Immediately, Mike Weaver tries to get to his feet, but it’s difficult for him. He pushes off of the concrete, grimaces, sinks down, and then tries again, but I raise a hand to let him know he doesn’t have to get up. Not right now anyway.
Blade takes a position behind me as I look him over. The man is staring up at me, his dark eyes wide, even though they are bruised and bloodshot. His nose, which is rather large, juts off to the side, and his lip is covered in dry blood. One cheekbone is sliced open and the other is misshapen. The way he is holding his left arm makes me think it might be broken, and as my eyes drop to his black slacks, where the right knee is all torn out, I can see why he couldn’t get up. His leg is bent at an odd angle.
My guys roughed him up good.
“Mike is it?” I ask.
“Yes, Alpha King Maddox, Sir,” he says, his eyes glued to my shoes now as he realizes he probably shouldn’t stare right into my face.
“I’d like to hear the story you told Blade about how you came to find yourself in Alpha Hayes’s house,” I tell him, folding one arm under my elbow as I stroke my chin.
“Yes, Sir,” he repeats, clearing his throat. It’s obvious his mouth is dry, and I have a feeling, since he’s missing a few teeth and the rest of them are pink, his tongue is probably sticky from blood.
With a deep breath, he says, “I worked for Alpha Bryant. I was a member of his guard. When Vinny took over, he wanted to do something to impress you. We’d all heard Alpha Jordan say that he thought his daughter would be looking for help from Duster pack, so Vinny had us stake out the location along the river’s edge. He came, too.” He blinks a few times, looking uneasy.
“Go on,” I insist, rebalancing myself on the balls of my feet.
“Well, sure enough, she surfaced down by where Lou Robb was standing, and he let us all know using the mind-link. Vinny had us move down there, quietly, and I figured we were just going to snatch her up and then let you know we had her.” He tries to shrug, but a pain radiates through his likely broken arm, so he sits still.
“But that’s not what happened?” I ask, knowing that there was more to it because of the bloody scene. I shove my hands in the pockets of my suit jacket and wait.
“No, Sir,” he says. “We did snatch her up and put her in the trunk of one of our vehicles. But then… well, Vinny had us circle back around and move into the village, Duster pack village.”
“Did he say why?” I ask.
“Not at first, but when one of the bolder guys asked how come, Vinny said he didn’t want the other Alpha coming after what was his. We all looked at one another and knew that he had something up his sleeve, something that was likely to start a war. I was the first to say I wasn’t comfortable with that, and then Vinny said, ‘I thought you might say that.’”
Mike takes an uneasy breath, and I wait, knowing he’ll continue when he’s ready.
It takes him a few seconds to continue. “When I asked him what he meant, he said, ‘You know where Jessica is right now?’” Mike looks at me, and I see tears filling his eyes. “That’s my daughter. She just turned two last month. Of course, knowing what time it was, I told him I figured she’s home in bed. But he just starts laughing, and I know I’m in trouble.”
I hear Blade moving slightly behind me and wonder if even the assassin is uneasy. He has a little girl now, so I can imagine he might be.
“I tried mind-linking my wife, but I found out later she was asleep. She had no idea anyone had broken into our house and stolen our baby. In the night, the other guards, the younger, inexperienced ones, the ones that had wanted to really impress Vinny, they’d gone all over the village and taken all the kids. All of ‘em.”
I am puzzled now. “Wait a minute–even the ones that belonged to people who weren’t in Duster pack?”
He nods. “That’s right, Your Majesty. That’s why, when you showed up, everyone came out to fight.”
It’s my turn to stare wide-eyed as the breath leaves my lungs. “What? That bastard still had the kids in a cell?”
“That’s right. They’ve been released now that Vinny’s dead. A lot of the guys you killed in the battle were his arrogant bastards, too. Anyway, last night… we didn’t have any choice, Sir. We had to kill those people at Alpha Hayes’s house. If we didn’t… our kids would’ve been killed. And even those of us who didn’t have any kids, they didn’t want to see any of our kids die.” The tears slip from his eyes now, mingling with the blood from his cheeks to form streaks of rose-colored water that further stain his ruined shirt.
It seems Vinny, even in his death, has left me in quite a conundrum. Can I punish his warriors for doing what they were told to do while Vinny had their family members held against their will and was threatening to kill them?
Did that make taking other innocent lives okay?
It didn’t. But at the same time, I don’t know what I would’ve done in their place. If someone was threatening to kill Isla if I didn’t destroy a rival, would I do it?
“We didn’t have a choice,” Mike says between sobs.
I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I do know one thing for sure. In a deep growl, I remind Mike, “You always have a choice.”
Now, the choice is mine….