Chapter 9

Declan~

I stared down at the phone for a third time, and still there was no response. Though it was hard to imagine that Kenneth Swanson would be lying at this point, it was still possible.

Once Noah had put a bounty on Kenneth's head, it'd only taken us a few hours to find him. Too many people on the street could be bought, and Kenneth hadn't done a good enough job of endearing himself to anyone. Though it'd taken a couple of hours to find him, I felt like I'd broken even by having to pay only fifty-thousand on the bounty, instead of the hundred.

After Cathal had gotten the call, he and Lochlan had gone to pick him up. Lochlan Murphy was a doctor, and though he had a legitimate practice, he really worked for the family, so he was able to get us shit that would otherwise land us in prison. Noah's youngest brother, Aran, was an artist, and successful enough that we were able to launder a lot of our money through his pieces.

At any rate, it was a lot easier to stick a grown man with a syringe than it was to wrestle him into a car sometimes, so that's when Lochlan came in handy. Granted, we were careful to make sure that he never ended up on the medical board's radar, but we still used him to our benefit. Plus, he was a fucking genius at extracting bullets and stitching up knife wounds.

So, after securing Kenneth Swanson, Lochlan had shot him up with a little wake-me-up potion, and the man really was the worst kind of coward. Once he'd found himself tied to the metal chair, the pleading and begging for his life had begun. When it finally occurred to him that I couldn't give two shits about his life, he had offered up information for my mercy, and I was still trying to decide if he was crazy or just too stupid to exist.

"I'm telling you," he wheezed through his broken ribs. "It's the truth."

I looked back over at him, his phone still in my hand. "You want me to believe that some random woman that you took home for a quick fuck killed both my men?"

Kenneth nodded. "She had to," he whimpered. "No one else was there."

"Christ, you really are a piece of shit," Cathal muttered. "If you're telling the truth, then you're telling us that you left an innocent woman behind while you fled like a fucking coward." He let out a disgusted huff, and I didn't blame him. "What kind of disgraceful fuck are you?"

I cocked my head a bit in thought. "Why would you take her to your house if you knew that we were looking for you, Swanson?" I asked. "That makes no sense."

Though his face was busted up, I could still make out the flush on his cheeks. "I…I didn't think that you…that you guys would do anything with a witness there."

"Oh, for fuck's sakes," Noah muttered. "You actually used a woman as a shield? I can't even…"

I could feel heat creeping up the back of my neck, my anger threatening to take over. During our interview, Kenneth had admitted to not having any cameras in his house, and he had also admitted to one neighbor being out of town, the other closest house being abandoned. That's where he'd been spending most of his time hiding out from us. So, there was no way to prove his story of some unknown woman, short of us finding her. Though he'd given us her first name, and Noah had managed to find her online through Miller's Brewery & Tap, there was still the question of whether we believed Kenneth and his outlandish story or not.

Plus, there'd also been her social media profile to consider. Though pictures could be deceiving, if the pictures really were her, and if she really did look like that, then she was too beautiful to be hooking up with the likes of Kenneth Swanson, so that was another thing that made me doubt his story. While Kenneth wasn't a bad-looking man, she was clearly way out of his fucking league.

So, trying to fish her out to see if Kenneth was lying or not, I sent her a friend request from one of his social media accounts, seeing if she'd bite. Granted, according to Kenneth, she had ended her shift at two this morning, so it was reasonable to believe that she could be sleeping right now. However, if that were true, what kind of woman could sleep soundly after having just killed two men? Also, according to Kenneth, she'd heard enough of the conversation to know that Ren and Jacob had been O'Briens, so did she really not know who we were, or did she really just not give a fuck about her life?

"Well, da lass hasn't responded ta yer request," I told him. "So, it's got me wonderin' if yer tellin' da truth."

"I swear," he practically sobbed. "I didn't kill them. It was all her."

"Ye know…even if ye dinna owe us all da money, I'd wanna kill ye just fer darin' ta put that little lassie's life ‘n danger," I informed him. "I mean...yer a real piece o' shite fer da one, Kenneth."

His shoulders sagged, but what could he say? It was one thing to be a coward, but it was quite another thing to hide behind a female. I couldn't even fathom the very idea of hiding behind a lass' skirt to save myself. Men like that really held no value in my eyes, no matter how bloody my hands were.

"Why are you wasting time with him?" Noah asked. "Just kill the fucker already."

"No, no, no," Kenneth begged. "I'm not lying."

Noah was yanking his head back by his bloody hair. "And that's the problem, you stupid fuck. What kind of man uses a woman as a fucking shield?"

I eyed Noah, wondering what was going on with him. Normally, Noah wasn't this hotheaded. In actuality, Noah was apathetic to most everything in life if it didn't pertain to his family. He was the voice of reason when there usually wasn't any, so I was a little surprised by how pissed he was right now. Could be that he just didn't appreciate how Kenneth had turned out to be a bigger problem than our time deserved, but still. This part usually bored Noah, and I'd never seen any amount of begging move the man. If he partook in the torturing of someone, it was because he was more interested in the information being extracted than he was the gore.

"She was no one," Kenneth mistakenly choked out.

Noah let go of his hair right before Cathal walked over, then sliced all the fingers from his left hand off. Blood squirted everywhere as Kenneth howled, but no one cared. Yeah, this woman was a complete stranger, and if Kenneth was telling the truth, then yeah, we were probably going to have to kill her, but she wasn't a no one. Before Kenneth had made her acquaintance, she'd been a person with a life, a job, possibly a family, friends, and all that other shit. Even if she didn't matter to him, she mattered to someone, and we were about to ruin some people's lives by killing her, and all because the piece of shit in front of me was worse than a fucking coward.

"Okay, so…here's what's going to happen," I finally said, doing my best to calm down since Noah obviously had something going on. "You're going to hang out here until Elizabeth Bathory accepts your friend request or shows up to work."

"Who?" Kenneth asked, his brows furrowing, his pain momentarily forgotten through his confusion. "Who's that? Her name is Keavy."

Cathal let out a deep sigh. "Just when you think that he can't be any stupider."

"Now, Lochlan is going to patch you up, so that you don't bleed out on us," I went on, ignoring both Cathal and Kenneth. "Cathal will be keeping you company throughout the day, and once we've got the girl, once we've got no more need of you, then Cathal will kindly put you out of your misery because he's a compassionate soul like that."

Kenneth started shaking his head as Noah just snorted next to me. "Please…please…I'll do anything," he begged. "It wasn't me…I didn't kill anyone."

"Even if you didn't, there's still the issue of your tab, Kenneth," I reminded him. "And quite frankly, we're tired of hunting you down for whatever scraps you happen to have on you at the time."

"I can get you the money," he lied, sobbing again.

"How?" Noah asked. "I mean…it's kind of hard to roll dice without fingers."

Lochlan laughed as he finally made his way over to patch up Kenneth's injuries. "That's harsh," he said, finally chiming in on the conversation.

"But not untrue," Cathal chuckled.

Ignoring all of them, I brought Kenneth's phone back to life, and there was still no activity on his social media account. Glancing back over at Lochlan patching Kenneth up, I asked, "Can you preserve his fingers?"

Lochlan stopped what he was doing, then looked back at me. "You want to save his fingers?"

I shook my head. "Just his thumb," I clarified. "I'll need it to unlock his phone later."

"You're a sick motherfucker," Noah smirked. "You can just remove the locking feature in the settings."

I grinned. "Where's the fun in that?"

Cathal just shook his head. "Maybe we need to talk to Mam," he said. "Maybe you shouldn't reproduce."

Instead of remarking on that, I handed Noah Kenneth's phone. "Open it up."

"I need some fucking sleep," Noah muttered as he took the device from me.

"We all do," Lochlan agreed as he went back to patching up Kenneth.

I cracked my neck, thinking that they both weren't wrong.