Fourth Debt - Pepper Winters Page 0,76

him home now. You don’t need him to make me behave.” I couldn’t look at Vaughn while I traded my life for his. He’d be full of guilt and rage at not being able to stop me.

Cut rubbed a hand over his mouth. “If you are a good girl, Nila, and he goes home, don’t think he’s untouchable. Don’t think this is mercy or that we’ve overlooked his ability to bring havoc to our world again. This is another checkmate in a game you’re too stupid to understand.”

A question burned in my chest. I needed to know the answer, but at the same time, it led to such confusion. “Why?”

Cut paused. “Why? I just told you why—if you don’t obey—”

“No, not that.” I can’t believe I’m doing this. “Why let him go? I thought you were keeping him until I paid…”

My voice trailed off.

I know why…

Cut chuckled. “Answered your own question, didn’t you?”

My head turned into a bowling ball, sagging on my shoulders.

Vaughn was going home because I wouldn’t be. Whatever Cut’s surprise was…it was the Final Debt. Somehow, he believed he could keep the police at bay. That my brother wouldn’t bring down their empire. That he was safe to continue with his murdering schemes.

Imbecile.

He’s truly slipped from malicious to insane.

Vaughn exploded in Marquise’s grip. He kicked and wriggled, yelling at the top of his voice, nonsense curses spilling from his gagged mouth.

“Shut him up,” Bonnie snapped.

Marquise clamped a hand over Vaughn’s nose and mouth, slowly suffocating him.

“Stop!” I wriggled in Daniel’s arms.

“Don’t make me hurt you before we’ve begun, Weaver.”

I couldn’t tear my gaze away from my brother as his face turned pink and eyes bugged for breath.

Cut checked his gold Rolex. “Right, let’s begin. I have somewhere else to be tonight.”

Daniel let me go, and Marquise dropped his hand. Vaughn sucked in wheezing breaths as Daniel planted himself in the middle of me and Vaughn. “Grandmamma, the dice?”

Bonnie inched forward, her arthritis turning her stiff. Pulling a dice free from her jacket pocket, she handed it to her grandson. With eyes ordering obedience and no room for error, she stepped back.

Daniel puffed out his chest. “As you know, Nila, you’ve paid the debts for the original Hawk family, but you haven’t paid for the glue that held the family together. The mother was the reason we outstripped your family in wealth, power, and rank. However, before you learn what she did to make such a thing happen, you must learn the daily struggle she went through to keep her family alive.”

Cut nodded proudly, giving Daniel the limelight.

In a sick way, the history lesson was a reprieve. Storytelling by a monster before he ate me for dinner.

“You’re not a mother, so I doubt you’ll understand completely, but this little game will prove how far she’d go to save her children.”

Daniel held up the dice. “For every roll, I’ll give you two scenarios. Option one, you have the ability to save yourself. Option two, you’ll have the ability to save your brother. You will learn the depth of my ancestor’s compassion. She wasn’t a martyr—she was a fucking saint. Putting everyone she cared about first.”

Daniel rolled the dice in his fingers. “If there was food, she’d feed her family and starve herself. If there was shelter, she’d make sure her children were warm while she would freeze. If there was pain, she’d put her loved ones first and accept the punishment. She truly was an exemplary woman.”

His voice deepened. “And your fucking ancestors took advantage of her kind-hearted spirit. They tortured her by holding the lives of her children over her. They went above and beyond to make her suffer. Weaver used a dice, similar to this one, whenever he wanted her to do something. Fuck him or sleep in the pigsty. Crawl on her knees or go hungry. She was the strongest member of our lineage because, not only did she never break, but she also singlehandedly destroyed the Weaver’s stature, became friends with the sovereign, and ensured the Hawk name became one of the most feared and wealthiest overnight.”

He laughed. “Strong fucking woman, huh?” His eyes darkened. “Bet you wish you were half as strong as her.”

He wasn’t wrong. My emotional sadness and bodily weakness from the past few weeks haunted me. I’d let them get to me. I’d cracked, if not broken completely.

I’m weak.

Knowing I came from such an awful bloodline made me guilty for our wealth and success. Our prosperity was built on the destitution