Page 37 of Disobedient Pawn

“This man tainted my image earlier tonight. That is something I can’t let slide. If being part of The Last Rank is what you really want, you will shoot him right here,” I said.

Rory looked at the gun and then at Austin, who was begging louder than I’d ever heard a girl wail through sex. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

“Do you know how to shoot?”

“I lived in the Arizona desert my whole life. Of course, I know how to shoot.” I could tell he was stealing himself for what was to come. His dedication to the Order and his sister’s revenge were stronger than his morals, and that was what I needed from my members. There would always be blood on our hands, and the only way to ensure we all survived was to know that someone else had just as much blood dripping from their hands as we did.

Rory took the gun from my hand and stepped around me.

“Oh god no, please, I’m begging you. Anything you want, I promise I’ll make it happen. I’ll owe you for the rest of my life.” Rory raised the gun, and his hand shook. It was a hard thing to take a life but to take the life of someone in a vulnerable state who hadn’t done anything to you fucked with your psyche in a totally different way. “Please, man, I don’t want to die.”

Tears and snot streamed down Austin’s face, his chest heaving with each terrified breath. Myles and Blake stepped away from the tree.

“Please, man, Nash, please.”

Click

Austin jerked like he’d been shot, and the scent of fresh shit filled the air before he slumped against his bindings and cried.

“It didn’t fire.” Rory looked at the gun and then at me, confusion written all over his face. Pulling my black gloves from my pocket, I put them on and held out my hand for the gun.

“Did you really think I would make you kill someone for your test?”

“Um…well…yeah,” he said.

“I’m a monster, but I’m not a heathen. I did need to see if you would do it, though. If you would go against your instincts and do what needs to be done. Because there will come a time that you set aside your morals for the greater good. Let him go,” I called out to Myles and Blake.

“So this was all just to see if I was trustworthy?”

“Yes,” I said, pulling the clip from my back pocket. “I didn’t need you to step over that line tonight, but the time will come when you will.”

“Thank you, thank you, you won’t regret letting me go,” Austin said, standing still and staring at me.

“What? Do you think you’re going back to the city with us? With shit and piss in your pants? No, I don’t think so. The trail is that way. Run along.” I waved my hand in the general direction of the water.

Austin hesitated for a moment longer than he should, which once more told me his true nature. He was a worm and nothing more. He took off jogging, his legs lifting at an odd angle from the shit I was sure was running down his legs. I checked the chamber of the gun, lifted it, and without even a blink of hesitation, pulled the trigger just like I’d been taught. The bang of the gun was loud in the silence of the night. The echo coming back at us was as haunting as the first night I’d done this.

Austin crumbled to the ground. I walked over to his writhing body as he rolled over, looking at me with his mouth gaping as he tried to get air through the lung that now had a bullet in it.

“The lesson here, Austin, is that you should never fuck with The Last Rank,” I said and shot him between the eyes. “You know what to do with his body.”

Rory’s face was green as I walked over to where he was standing. Liam opened a black lock box, and I laid the gun carefully inside. Liam locked the lid, and I smiled as Rory stared at the box. He sucked in a gasp, and I knew he was putting all the little pieces together.

“That’s right, Rory, it doesn’t matter if you didn’t kill him, your fingerprints are all over the weapon, and that weapon is now my insurance policy. Understand this. I’m fair, and I’m loyal. But if you give me any reason to mistrust you or if you try to ruin me, then I don’t care which way you’re facing. I’ll kill you and crush what’s left of your family.” My lips pulled up into a smile as I clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Welcome to, The Last Rank.”

NOVEMBER 8 – MONDAY 4:00 PM

Ren

Why did I agree to this?

“Oh my god, look at the cute outfit in the window,” Ivy squealed from the backseat of Blake’s car, reminding me how I got rooked into this mess. “And that store is new and that one.”

She sounded like an exuberant child. I was afraid she would jump out of the moving car as Blake parked at the giant mall. I hardly got my seatbelt off before Ivy was out the door and opening mine like an overeager chauffeur or a carjacker as she grabbed my arm and pulled me to hurry up. I just managed to get the door closed on the sleek Maserati.

“It’s just a mall girl,” I said as I was dragged along.

“No, it’s a slice of heaven.” My eyebrows shot up as she raised her arms in the air as if she’d been freed from jail. How long had she been trapped on the property? “We are going in every store.”