Devil's Pass (The Harlequin Crew #.5) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,43

with a challenge in his gaze. “He stood and watched through a window while Axel tried to rape her and didn’t do a damn thing to help. I’ll bet he had his cock in his hand too.”

"I didn't!" Clive begged. "It wasn't like that."

"He's the reason you're standing here," Luther growled. "He's the reason I know what she did. Because I have to say, you all did a damn good job of covering it up. I didn’t have anything else that would have led me to you. So prove your worth. Show him what happens to those who cross the Harlequins. Prove yourselves to my crew. Prove that you're men who can own their actions. Who can face the consequences of their decisions." Luther gestured for us to approach Clive, but none of us moved.

The weight of the shovel in my hand was suddenly too much and I dropped it as I realised its purpose, shaking from head to toe. I wasn't a killer. And I wasn't a Harlequin. I was just a kid who did stupid shit, who wanted to be free and live with his friends, his girl.

"We didn't ask for this," I said, my voice harder than I expected and Luther arched a brow at me.

"Life doesn't give you what you ask for, Johnny James. You have to take what you want from it. And what you want, is for the girl to live. So here's your opportunity. Are you really going to waste it?"

My heart froze to a solid lump of ice in my chest as I shook my head in refusal of what was happening and suddenly Maverick, Fox and Chase were all walking away from me, throwing their shovels down and closing in on Clive, surrounding him in a circle. Maverick kicked him in the ribs and made him wail in pain. He looked to the others and they both fell on him too, beating him, kicking him, using fists and boots to maim and hurt.

"Please, I didn't mean it!" Clive screamed, tears streaming down his cheeks as he looked to Luther for mercy while trying to shield his head from the blows. But he was never going to get it. Luther was never going to call my friends off and they were really going to do this for Rogue.

"If it's not all of you, there's no deal," Luther's voice rang through the air and his eyes fixed on me. Clive was curled into a ball and blood was starting to pour.

Fox looked to me with a desperate apology in his eyes, but a plea in them too. He needed me to go over there. He needed me to do it for Rogue. And I'd promised her I'd do anything to save her. I'd just never considered it would be this.

Clive started crawling away between them and Maverick grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, throwing him back into the middle of the circle. Blood coloured his knuckles that the rain wouldn't wash away and suddenly they were all looking at me, all begging me with their eyes and I knew I couldn't run. There was no other option but this. For them. For her.

I picked up my shovel, my hands shaking, my body numb from the cold and my pulse thumping in my ears. I just needed it to be over. I needed the screams to stop. And as I stepped beside my brothers while they kicked and punched and beat Clive, I swung the shovel over my shoulder and it came down hard on the back of his head, silencing his screams.

I wanted that to be it, but fate wasn't that kind.

He jerked between us, still moving and bile rose in my throat as Chase and Fox started kicking him once more.

Maverick snatched the shovel from me, wielding it in a furious blow that spattered him and the rest of us in blood and it was finally done.

I fell on my ass in the mud, unable to move as I stared at my friends who'd been turned into killers. Who were painted in the blood of a kid who'd wronged us, but who hadn't deserved to die.

My heart was racing a mile a minute as panic welled up in me and I tried to scrub the splattered blood from my hands while shaking my head in refusal of what we’d all just done, trying to will it not to be real.

"You're Harlequins now. Blood in, blood out," Luther announced and those