Inflict

by Bethany-Kris

  The blood splattered to the floor in time with Lachlan’s screams.

  “It’s an interesting sight, isn’t it?” Connor asked, nodding at the pooling blood. “Amazes me how much blood a body can hold. You’re about fifty pounds overweight, so I’d say you have a bit more than someone my size. Care to test my theory out?”

  Lachlan sputtered, the chains rattling as his body contorted away from the knife when Connor held it out again. “She’s just a wee whore, lad. She isn’t important.”

  “Wrong. She’s important to me.”

  “Then you’re foolish,” Lachlan spat. “Like your father was—consumed by the look of a lass, chasing after that perfect thing.”

  Connor shook his head. “Not at all the same, but keep going.”

  “She came from a whore, one he’d killed. Her name isn’t Evelyn, it’s Katie. Her face was all over the feckin’ place for a good year after he stole her from her crib. She was high profile because her mother was one of his victims, and he’d never done that before. Took something—a baby, I mean.”

  “Killian?” Connor asked.

  A throat cleared behind him. “Yeah, mate?”

  “Go grab the information in the truck. The newspapers, mostly. Bring them in to me.”

  “All right.”

  The door clicked shut behind him.

  Connor was alone with Lachlan, at least for a short while. “Why didn’t he keep her, then? Let her be raised by one of his girls, like I was for all those years.”

  “He already had you in the feckin’ house,” Lachlan mumbled, his head bobbing down as he tried to look at his bleeding injury. “Your mother didn’t last the first six months after she birthed you—lucky you even came into the world, lad, she never even looked pregnant until the last couple months. He thought you might be like him, and he was right.”

  “To an extent. You’re off topic.” Connor tapped the edge of his knife under Lachlan’s jaw, creating a two-inch slice as he withdrew the blade. Hot blood slid down the edge, and over his fingers, but he had the man’s attention again. “Her—tell me about her. I don’t give a feck about me.”

  He was here.

  He was alive.

  Evelyn was another story.

  “He already had you,” Lachlan repeated, “and it was enough, so he passed her on to Declan the night he took her. He knew the man’s wife wouldn’t say no—she was feckin’ dying, couldn’t have her own kids, and it would make her happy. Declan wasn’t stupid, he’d been watching the news enough to know where the wee lass came from, but what was he going to do? He just wanted Sean to feck off somewhere and stay there.”

  “Where would he go?” Connor asked. “Sean, I mean. Where would he take her, now? Somewhere in the states? Back to Ireland maybe?”

  Lachlan let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know. You’re not going to like that answer, but it’s the truth. I just don’t know. They ran his father and brother out of Ireland decades ago, when he killed the daughter of a farmer over there—his father didn’t last a year in the states before his heart gave out. Declan was always trying to keep Sean under wraps, control him as much as he could. He doesn’t have somewhere to go, lad. Not any place he plans to stay for any period of time, anyway.”

  The door opened behind Connor, and he turned to find Killian had come back in with a stack of clippings in his hand.

  “There’s info here on the baby named Katie,” Killian said, never looking up from his papers. “It’s what he says, mate.”

  Connor turned back on Lachlan. “If it was the end for him, and he knew it, where would Sean go?”

  Lachlan shrugged. “Lad, you’re more like him than me. Your eyes are just as dead as his—you’re just as feckin’ cold in your heart, you’ve got no soul. Where would you go?” Then, he added quieter, “Sean had a lawyer, and he’d been running to him a lot these last three weeks. He might know something.”

  “A name?”

  Lachlan rattled it off.

  Connor felt like it was time to end the conversation with that.

  “Killian?”

  “Yeah, Connor?”

  “Leave if you need to, but you’re not to interrupt me for the next hour.”

  “Pardon?” Killian asked.

  “I said what I said.”

  Connor took his time, and he didn’t make it easy on Lachlan. The man was already a loose end that needed to be whacked, so it didn’t matter, when it came right down to it all. He didn’t have more information for Connor to pull from him, or he’d have already rolled over like the pig he was while he squealed it all out.

  So, yeah, he took his time.

  Cutting, slicing, and carving.

  Each line down the dying man’s body felt like heaven to Connor. It was the sweetest relief, because his frustrations fell like the blood pooling on the floor. He barely said a word the whole time, removing strips of flesh a piece at a time, until nothing but raw body was left hanging from the chains.

  Killian left without a word, ten minutes in.

  It might have been the blood. It might have been Connor’s lack of emotion. It might have been the screams.

  It didn’t matter.

  It was only after Lachlan had taken his final breath, a painful, shuddering sound, that Connor finally dropped his knives and stood back, deciding he was done.

  The man had been right.

  He was more like his father than anyone.

  In that moment, if Connor saw his end coming for him, he knew exactly where he would go.

  Back to the beginning.

  To that moment he met Evelyn in the woods when they were children. To the day she didn’t known how horrible life could be, or the monsters that surrounded her. To a time when she had been bright and innocent, and only wanted a friend.

  He’d go back to the beginning.

  Connor suspected Sean would, too.

  Except, his father’s beginning was not the same. It had happened in a different place, in a different time.

  Connor sincerely hoped Evelyn was able to stay alive long enough for him to figure out where exactly Sean’s beginning had started.

  Connor checked his watch, ignoring the pressure building in his ears. “I don’t like this.”

  “Flying?”

  “We’re in a tin can, several thousand feet in the air, over a feckin’ ocean.”

  “We can trade seats, mate.”

  Connor glanced out the porthole window, getting a glimpse of clouds and blue skies. As long as he didn’t look down too much, he didn’t think about how high they currently were in the air. “It’s grand.”

  Killian was already moving on to a new topic. “We’ll land in Ireland at Westport around six in the evening. A friend will meet us at the arrivals, and we’ll go from there.”

  It sounded easy enough.

  Connor didn’t know if it would be.

  He was coming to be extremely grateful for his friend, however. Without knowing, or probably even realizing, Killian had done a great deal for Connor in just a span of couple of days. He never questioned Connor, simply did what he was told or asked, and offered help when he could.

  Killian had contacts that Connor didn’t, friends that spanned several countries, due to his family ties, not to mention some of the business he participated in. It helped to get them on a flight, albeit last minute, and even a private jet to get them back when it was needed. The man’s contacts also provided them with the promise of information once they landed, plus whatever they needed while they were in Ireland.

  Connor had thought he was quite bereft, where friends and allies were concerned in this entire mess. It turned out, he only needed the one friend. A damn good one.

  “Give me that file again, would you?” Connor asked.

  Killian handed over the file in question.

  Like he had already done at least fifty times in the last seventy-two hours, Connor flipped through each piece of paper, each photo, every newspaper clipping, and some other information he had been
able to gather. It all related to Sean, or the Strangler’s, victims, and some of the newer stuff was his father’s ties to Ireland.

  Or rather, the farm house and plot of land that still belonged to a man named Sean O’Neill, with two L’s, not one. It appeared, through documentation of a will that Sean’s lawyer had provided after Connor broke the guy’s face, that the property had gone from one man, to the first son, a Declan O’Neill, and then to the second son. A bit of looking into some things, and some talking with the lawyer, and Connor was sure this was where his father had grown up. It seemed once Sean’s family had immigrated to the states all those decades ago, they had dropped a single L from the surname, in an effort to smudge some of their past records.

  It made sense.

  Connor still couldn’t say if he was on the right track or not.

  He felt like he was, but that didn’t mean anything.

  “Where else would he go?”

  Killian looked up from the magazine in his lap. “Hmm?”

  “I’m thinking out loud, that’s all.”

  “Should probably stop that, Connor. You’re beginning to overthink, and that’ll do you no good, boyo.”

  Killian was right.

  Connor couldn’t help it.

  “What if I fecked up and missed something?”

  “And there you go, ‘round the feckin’ bend in a right state, mate. Don’t do that to yourself. Even the lawyer mentioned he had put in for fake passports and other stuff for Sean recently. He left breadcrumbs behind, but it made a whole slice of bread in the end.”

  “That’s a shite comparison.”

  “No, you’re just in too much of a mood to understand.”

  Connor scowled. “Do you blame me?”

  Killian shrugged. “This is quite an event for a woman, mate. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Fair enough.

  “Find a woman you love,” Connor dared his friend, “and get back to me on that one.”

  Kilian chuckled, settling into his seat like he might try for a damn nap. “I’m too busy chasing after your woman at the moment to worry about finding my own.”

  “I’d hit you, if we weren’t stuck in a feckin’ plane.”

  “I have to get my shots in where I can, Connor.”

  He went back to the stack of information in his lap, ignoring the flight attendant when she came around with a cart of drinks and snacks. Without warning, Killian grabbed the file out of Connor’s hands, slapped it closed, and shoved inside his jacket.

  “That’s enough of that,” Killian said.

  “Give me the file back, you damn cunt.”

  “Have a nap.”

  “Give me—”

  Killian passed Connor a sad glance. “Stop thinking for a while. You’re already crazy enough. Don’t add to it.”

  Well, then …

  “It helps me to be calm,” Connor admitted. “I don’t understand him, and the stuff inside that folder helps.”

  “Maybe that’s half the problem. You’re more focused on being in Sean’s head, rather than using what’s inside of your own, Connor. You can’t put yourself in Sean’s head, he’s not like you, mate.”

  “Some might think differently, given my issues and tendencies.”

  Killian smirked. “I didn’t say you’re not fecked up in the head a bit. I just said you’re not that kind of fecked up.”

  • • •

  Connor surveyed all the beautiful things in the trunk of the car, momentarily distracted by a row of knives, rather than the guns and vests. He pulled out a particular blade that was unlike any he had ever used before, though he knew exactly what it was called.

  A Jagdkommando fixed blade knife. Three stainless steel, sharp-edged blades melded together to create one feckin’ terrifying knife. It was said to be so lethal, that a victim would bleed out in mere minutes, and should they even manage to get to a surgeon, the damage would always be too great to correct.

  “Ye like that, mate?” Brian asked.

  Connor nodded, sliding the pad of his thumb down one of the three edges. “It’s a nice knife.”

  “Ye can have it. Not many know what to do with it.”

  Connor didn’t think it would be too hard to figure out. It wasn’t meant to be pretty or make nice cuts. It was meant to kill.

  “Although, ye might wanna grab a gun or two, lad, as that knife won’t help you a whole lot in the grand scheme of things,” Brian added.

  Killian scoffed from behind Connor. “Don’t underestimate him, mate.”

  “Aye, well, whatever.” Brian grabbed a folder sitting atop the row of guns in the trunk. He opened it, showcasing a set of photographs of a rundown house on what looked to be land that may have been used for farming at one point. “Here she is.”

  “It looks like shite,” Connor noted.

  “Apparently, hasn’t been lived in for years, and nobody’s used the cottage for any sort of grazing in … well, nobody even knows when the last person was there. But someone did notice a man walking around the outside yesterday evening, and—”

  “There’s a car,” Connor interrupted, tapping the black sedan in the corner.

  “Aye.”

  “So, the house is—”

  “‘Tis a cottage, mate,” the man said.

  Connor looked at the house on the picture. “Bit big for that, no?”

  Brian rolled his eyes upward, tapping his forehead with two fingers as though he was calling Connor an idiot without even saying a word. “Lad, listen to me, don’t get stuck in ye foolish American mouth. It’s a feckin’ cottage—‘round those parts, those dwellings only get used on occasion, and that’s a cottage. All right?”

  Connor glanced back at Killian, who looked to be two seconds away from rolling over and laughing right there on the wet ground. He didn’t know too much about Brian, except he was a distant cousin of Killian’s, and apparently had a feckin’ attitude that could use correcting. Connor held back from being the person to correct it, but only because this was his one chance.

  Brian had access to guns, money, and a way to get them the feck out of Ireland when all was said and done. He didn’t ask much in return, only for a favor to be put on the books at some point, should he need to call one in.

  “All right, so the cottage,” Connor said, holding his tongue the best he could.

  “Aye, what about it?”

  “Where’s the closest neighbor?”

  “A while away on either side, except toward the east, as that’s the cliffs leading to the water. Stay away from the cliffs.”

  “We’re not planning on sightseeing or taking a swim.”

  “Either way, you can get lost easily at night when ye aren’t used to the landscape.” Brian flipped through a few of the photographs. “Killian’s got me number. Call me phone when you’re done—I’ll have the jet on standby. Ye can ditch this car if ye need to, it don’t matter. As for the cottage, it’s rural, and there isn’t a lot of traffic, so we had to be careful not to get noticed. Whoever is inside hasn’t gone into town for supplies, but he’s not been here long.”

  Brian handed over the keys. “If ye get going now, you might make it off the rock before the morning, depending on how everything goes. I’d have given ye a lad or two, but we try to keep this sort of shite quiet around these parts. Burn whatever ye leave behind, we’ll take care of the rest when the time comes. What is in this place that ye want so bad, lad?”

  His heart.

  His life.

  His soul.

  Connor grabbed a handgun, and checked the clip. “My sanity.”

  • • •

  “Why the feck is there a goddamn traffic light in the middle of nowhere?” Connor asked.

  Killian laughed from his position in the passenger seat. “You need to get out of the States more, mate.”

  “Because that will explain this feckin’ shite?” Connor waved at the traffic light next to a wee, one-lane bridge that was doing literally nothing, since there was no traffic
. “What’s it red for?”

  “The animals go back and forth. Cattle and goats, you know. Relax.”

  “Look at that stupid light, Killian! There’s no feckin’ goats or cattle I know that understand red means stop and green means go!”

  “Re—”

  Connor punched his companion at the same time the light turned green and he gunned the car across the damn bridge. He was so close to the cottage—house—that his nerves felt frayed and his skin was feckin’ numb. It was a strange sensation, to be alive on the inside, yet so dead on the outside.

  “Aye, you’re a prick,” Killian mumbled, rubbing at his arm. “You sound like a proper Irishman bitching about the roads.”

  “Feck off somewhere and die.”

  So maybe he was in a mood, too.

  Wasn’t he allowed to be, considering everything?

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, tonight.”

  Connor scowled. “How far are we now?”

  “It’s an hour and half out. We’re not far, now. Might want to cut the lights, and we’ll sneak up on the property. It’s dark enough for that.”

  The anxiety simmering through his nervous system only increased as he closed in on the place where his father was, but more importantly, where Evelyn was, too.

  Killian, on the other hand, barely batted an eye. “It’s going to be fine, Connor.”

  “It will be, yes, when she’s back with me.”

  “Relax.”

  “You keep saying that like it’s supposed to help.”

  “Nah, I’m just talking to hear myself speak, you bastard. Seriously, relax. You can’t go in there blazing and raging like a foolish arse, and you know it. That will only cause a problem that you might not be able to fix. So—”

  Connor swallowed his nerves instantly. “Relax.”

  “Exactly, mate.”

  He was trying.

  It was the best he could do.

  • • •