Brutal Prince Bonus Scene (Brutal Birthright, #1.5)(48)

Unfortunately for Jackie boy, the Du Ponts were a little too successful at spreading their name and their seed, because there’s now about four thousand of them, and Jack’s particular branch barely had enough scratch to pay for his fancy private school education, without the usual accompanying trust fund. So poor Jack is reduced to driving Callum around, running his errands, watching his back, and occasionally breaking kneecaps on his behalf. Like he did to my brother.

Fresh from the sight of Sebastian’s dark circles and unhappy smile, I want to grab the closest piano wire and wrap it around Jack’s fucking throat. Callum has wisely kept his bodyguard on the back burner, away from casa Griffin and out of my sight. But I guess he didn’t expect me home so early.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” I snarl.

Callum and Jack have already stood up, startled by my sudden appearance.

“Now, Aida,” Callum says, holding up his hands in warning. “That’s water under the bridge.”

“Is it?” I snarl. “Because Sebastian is still hobbling around. While this punch-drunk fuck boy is apparently still on your payroll.”

Jack rolls his eyes, sauntering over to the fruit bowl on the counter and picking out a nice, juicy apple.

“Put your bitch on a leash,” he says to Callum.

To my surprise, Callum drops his hands and turns on Jack, his face still but his eyes blazing.

“What did you say?” he demands.

I see the dull gleam of metal inside Jack’s suit jacket. A Ruger LC9 in the inside pocket, hanging over the back of his chair, instead of securely attached to his body. What a fucking amateur.

In two steps I’ve reached the jacket and pulled out the gun. I check that it’s loaded, then slip off the safety and chamber a round.

Both Callum and Jack freeze like deer at the sound of the bullet sliding into the chamber.

“Aida!” Callum says sharply. “Don’t you—”

I’m already pointing the gun at Jack.

“Leaving your weapon unattended.” I click my tongue, shaking my head in mock disapproval. “Very sloppy, Jackie boy. Where did you get your training, the Chicago Police Academy? Or was it clown college?”

“Get fucked, you lippy cunt,” Jack snarls, his blocky face red with rage, and his teeth bared. “If you weren’t married to him—”

“You’d what? Get your teeth kicked in like last time?” I snort.

Jack is so mad that I know he’d already be charging at me, if I didn’t have the gun pointed right at his chest.

Callum is in a more ambivalent position. On the one hand, I can tell he’s pissed that I pulled a gun in his kitchen and pointed it at his bodyguard. On the other hand, he doesn’t like the way Jack is talking to me. Not one bit.

“Put the gun down, Aida,” he orders me.

But it’s Jack he’s looking at with cold fury in his eyes.

“I will,” I say, lowering the gun so the barrel is pointed directly at Jack’s knee. “After he pays for what he did to my brother.”

I haven’t actually shot anybody before. I’ve been to the range plenty of times with my brothers. We’ve put up those paper cut-outs, sometimes a blank human silhouette, sometimes a zombie or a burglar. I know how to aim for center mass, how to group my shots. How to squeeze the trigger instead of jerking it, how to control the backfire.

It’s strange aiming at an actual person. I can see the droplets of sweat along Jack’s hairline, the way his right eye twitches slightly as he glares at me. I can see his chest rising and falling. He’s an actual person, despite being a raging douche. Am I really going to put a bullet in him?

Jack decides that the best way to get out of this is to try to intimidate me. Maybe he thinks it’s reverse psychology. Or maybe he’s just dumb.

“You’re not gonna shoot me,” he sneers. “You’re just a spoiled little mafia brat, a wannabe tough girl like your pussy-ass brother.”

Callum, more perceptive than Jack, sees my intention before I even move.

He dives for the gun, knocking my hands upward right as I pull the trigger.

The report is shockingly loud in the enclosure of the kitchen. It seems to echo around and around, deafening us.

I miss Jack, thanks to Callum’s intervention. However, the bullet digs a groove along the outside of Callum’s left arm, before burying itself in the door of one of Imogen’s custom cedar cabinets.

Like scarlet ink on white paper, blood soaks through Callum’s shirtsleeve. He glances down at it, stoically surveying the damage, before twisting my arm behind my back and pinning it tight.

“I said don’t,” he growls in my ear, furiously.

“She tried to shoot me!” Jack shouts in disbelief. “She pulled the trigger! You dirty little bitch! I’m gonna—”

“Shut your fucking mouth and keep it shut,” Callum barks.

Jack halts in place, frozen in the act of advancing upon me. His big, square face looks confused.

“If you EVER talk to my wife like that again, I’ll empty that clip in your chest.”

Jack opens his mouth like he’s going to protest, only to shut it again when he sees the look on Callum’s face.

I can’t really see it myself, since Callum still has my arm twisted up behind my back, rather painfully. But I can feel the heat radiating out of his body. I can hear the deadly seriousness of his threat. He means it. Every word of it.