BORDEN 2 (15 page)

She just stared at me, like I was a stranger to her. Like she didn’t know me at all, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t break my heart. Swallowing hard, she slowly nodded.

We resumed eating, or at least we pretended to, and not another word was spoken the entire time. When we finished, I stood up and cleaned the table and put away the dishes. Meanwhile, Granny sat there, her body deflated, the look of hate still fierce as she glared at Borden.

“Time to go,” I stated to him.

He didn’t waste time. He stood up, looking between my grandmother and me with an unreadable look. Frowning, Granny watched his movements every step of the way. “I didn’t want to cause trouble,” Borden whispered into my hair as he passed me.

“You didn’t.”

“I’ll be in the car.”

I nodded. His lips twisted, and he turned his head to Granny on his way out, stopping by the threshold of the kitchen. Granny stared at him from the corner of her eye, her body unbearably still.

He sighed, and it felt like eons had passed before he finally spoke with conviction. “I did make Kate that promise, Mrs Warne. I told her everything would be okay, and I failed her. But I’m not going to fail your granddaughter. She wants me, and I make no apologies for wanting her too. She’s mine as long as she wants to be, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can resume your relationship with her.”

He disappeared out of the kitchen, and a moment later the front door closed. Now that we were alone, the wall she’d put up dropped. She looked at me, her devastation clear in her eyes. We both stared at one another, tears suddenly spilling over our faces.

“Granny,” I said hesitantly.

“I’m disappointed in you,” she whispered back, her voice broken. “And I’ve never felt that way toward you before. I’m having trouble coping, and if I have hurt you for the way I have reacted, I am sorry.”

I wiped my tears, pleading for her to understand. “I love him, Granny.”

She shut her eyes briefly. “Yes, I see that you love him. But when it comes down to it this man can’t promise that you won’t wind up dead the same way his former lover was. When you have too many enemies that want to watch you fall, one of them will always find a way. And that’s all it takes, Emma. Just one.”

Linda’s words ran through my mind.
It only takes one.

“That’s not going to happen. I know what I’m doing, and you need to take a step back and trust me.”

“I trust you. I just don’t trust the man you’re with.”

There was a finality in her words. The conversation was over, and there was no point trying to make her understand differently. I hated that I was leaving her like this. I hated that I was going to walk out that door and today was going to burn in my memories forever. I’d spent so much of my time after my teenage years trying to impress her and show her I was a strong and independent woman, but I was pretty sure that was bullshit. Because the problem with love is you start doing things that your normal self wouldn’t be proud of. I had relinquished my independency to be with a man who had enemies bad enough to want to hurt me. It would sound dumb on paper that I would do something like that. But the heart is fucking dumb, and I was content to disappoint myself to make that muscle happy. Even if it meant disappointing my grandmother in the process.

Maybe time would change her mind.

I slowly walked over to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She wrapped hers around me too and despite our disappointments, we hugged each other. We loved each other.

“Come back on your own next time,” she whispered to me before I pulled away.

I nodded, wiping away a fresh tear that had fallen from her eye. I stared at her hard, looking into her warm dark eyes. “I love you, Granny, and I promise everything will be okay.”

She swallowed, her eyes watering further. “Don’t be concerned with me. Just take care of yourself.”

After another nod, I kissed her on the cheek and left.

*

Borden was quiet on the ride back. He held my hand, which was reassuring, but he looked out the window, staring off into the distance. Granny had hit a nerve, and I didn’t blame him for shutting right off. By the time we reached the apartment, he didn’t step out of the car with me.

“I’ve got some things to do,” he told me after I had unbuckled my seatbelt.

My brow furrowed. “Like what? It’s eight at night.”

“Hector found a guy that knows some things, and I need to question him.”

It was too dark in the car for me to study him, not that I would learn anything if I did. He was closed off and impenetrable.

“Okay,” I said uncertainly. “When will you get back?”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure. In the rare event I don’t return later tonight, Gerry and the men will look after you.”

As if on cue, Gerry stepped out from behind the steering wheel and waited for me.  Another meathead I couldn’t remember the name of slipped into the front seat, looking straight ahead.

I frowned. “If you don’t return tonight, can you call Graeme and have him with me instead?”

“Why?”

“He’s familiar to me.”

“Emma –”

“Please.”

Borden sighed. “Fine.”

I wouldn’t push my luck asking for Hawke too. That was not a safe territory yet to venture into. I turned away and opened the door. Just as I put a foot out, Borden’s hand wrapped around my arm. I looked at him just in time to catch his lips against mine. He kissed me tenderly, a kiss filled with assurance, and when he pulled back, he didn’t say anything. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and then I turned back and he let me go.

Borden

It didn’t feel right stepping into the warehouse without his right hand man Hawke by his side. He didn’t like to be surrounded by bikers, circling around him like hungry vultures. But they weren’t looking at him. Their eyes were centred on the fat fuck tied to the steel chair. Hector stood by his side, arms crossed, and his cut on full display.

“This is Bull?” Borden asked, eyeballing the sweaty fat man. He was in nothing but his white soiled briefs on, his chest a black carpet of moist hair, his head bald and glistening, and his eyes blindfolded. He was a major disappointment to Borden. He would be easy to crack. The stench of fear clung to him, an inescapable giveaway that this man would do anything to survive.

But he couldn’t survive this. It was a disturbing fact that came hand in hand with Marcus Borden. This man crossed him the second he opened his mouth and signed his death wish.

“Yeah,” Hector replied. “How do you want to do this? Knives?” The man whimpered. “Hammer and nails?” The man’s lips trembled. “I’ve got some of my best men here that are fucking mint with torture methods. They’ll make any dick squawk like a porn star.”

Borden sighed. He didn’t want to do this. What he wanted was to be in bed with his woman, cradling her in his arms, talking dirty in her ear. Torture was different to a swift clean kill. Torture meant getting his hands dirty, and that usually left scars to his mental state.

He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his knuckleduster. He’d put miles of blood on this baby. “Time to go back to the old ways, huh?” he murmured vacantly. The will inside of him had died, though. This type of violence had become nothing but a drain on his soul, and the only thing keeping him going was putting the man behind that message down. “I’d like to get this done fast, to be fucking frank. I’ll handle it my way, and that means I want to be left alone with him.”

“You want
me
gone?”

“Just your men.”

Hector nodded and wasted no time. He turned to his men and ordered the Warlord members out. When the warehouse was completely empty, Hector lingered nearby, watching as Borden approached the chair and removed the blindfold off the blob of man seated there. The man’s eyes shot open, blinking rapidly, bloodshot and swollen. He stared up at Borden, his mouth twisting in fear.

“They call you Bull, isn’t that right?” Borden said, his voice void of feeling as he stared down at him. “You know who I am?”

The man didn’t respond. He could hardly look in Borden’s eyes. The cuffs around his wrists shook against the steel chair as he watched Borden fit the knuckledusters on and whimpered out. Borden glanced disgustedly down at the man’s briefs and the freshly soaked patch between his legs growing bigger by the second. The smell of it hit his nostrils strong, and he recoiled for a moment.

“He’s a pisser,” Hector called out just as the piss formed lines down the legs of the man. “Men say he’s pissed himself four times already.”

“You the kind that begs, Bull?” Borden then asked. “I’d rather get that beta shit out of the way now instead of later.”

“I-I don’t know why I’m here,” Bull cried out.

“Don’t lie.”

“I haven’t done anything, Mr Borden.”

“
Don’t. Lie.
” Borden repeated slowly, his anger rising. “And don’t you fucking think that pissing your underwear and crying out like a little pussy is going to erase who you are and all you’ve done. People talk, Bull. They say a lot of shit, and they’ve been running their mouth about you, talking about how much you’ve been running me down.”

“That’s not true! I swear it.”

Borden immediately swung his fist into the man’s face, splitting his skin and bloodying his mouth in one clean punch. In a split second, the man’s face bloodied and he howled in pain. Leaning over the man, Borden gripped his dusters tighter, already coated in blood, and snarled, “I told you not to fucking lie. Every time you lie, I’m going to take a pound of flesh off you. Either you crumble now and tell me what you know, or I’ll force every word out of you until you’re nothing but blood and bone. Got it?”

But the man just sobbed and shook his head, begging.

Begging like it would do him good.

Borden shook his head and raised his fist again.

*

The man surprised Borden. He was stronger than he originally thought. Even though he sobbed like a little girl, he tolerated pain remarkably. Borden knew what was going on. Bull hoped if he carried on with his lies, they’d believe them. On and on he denied talking shit about Borden. He had no idea who would want to watch him fall. He made no plans to bring him down. He was just an innocent man, unrightfully terrorised.

The more Borden heard, the angrier he grew.

He was tired of playing soft. He was sick of hoping the man had easy cracks. Bull needed a lot of work, and Borden snapped. He lost it. He stopped holding back with his strikes. He erupted.

Hector stepped in at some point, careful not to touch Borden, who was panting and pissed and on a hair trigger. “He won’t be able to talk if you break his jaw, Borden.”

“I don’t give a fuck about him talking anymore,” Borden retorted. “I’m punching to kill next time –”

“No!” Bull screamed, his face swollen beyond recognition. He could hardly open his eyes, but tears continued to stream out of them as he slobbered and begged. “Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me –”

“Then fucking talk or I’ll start with your fucking eyes next!”

More piss.

More blood.

More strikes.

It was the eyeball forced out of Bull’s socket that finally cracked him.

“Terry Mulligan!” he screeched in pain, sobbing uncontrollably. “His name is Terry Mulligan.”

“What about him?” Borden demanded, wiping the blood off with an old rag Hector passed to him.

“He’s after you!”

“Why?”

Bull wheezed, trying to gulp in air. “B-because of what you did!”

Borden threw the rag down and grabbed the prick by his double chin, forcing him to look up. “Fucking get to the point! What did I do?”

“Y-you killed his boys.”

“I’ve killed a lot of fucking people! Be specific.”

“The brothers you murdered…for killing the girl.”

Borden went still. His eyes searched the maggot, finding nothing but truth in the words he spewed.

“Does he have people following him?” Hector then interjected. “What power does he have? Come on, Bull, don’t fucking make us wait all night for this shit.”

Staring at them with his one swollen eye – the other bloodied and gouged out – he shook harder and rasped, “He’s a devil. In prison for-for fifteen years. Just got released five months ago. He ran these streets once. He wants them back. He’s underworld, man. Deep underworld. You can’t find him. He’s the puppet behind the strings, and he wants New Raven back and you dead.”

Borden could feel Hector studying him, waiting for his next move. Truth was, he was taken completely off guard. The brothers he killed had a different name to Mulligan’s. There had been no familial connection.

“What do you want to do?” Hector finally asked him.

Borden exhaled slowly. “I want another chair in here so I can talk more thoroughly to our buddy Bull. We’ve got a lot of bumps to smooth in his story, and if he’s smart, he’ll keep his second eye.”

Hector snickered and went looking for another chair.

Meanwhile Borden stared into the eye of Bull and saw a fear there that even startled him. The man was more terrified of Mulligan than he was of Borden.