Hold (Gentry Boys, #5)(64)
He snorted. “What kind of trash you going on about? That woman never met a needle she didn’t like and I did what I could with her.”
My hands wanted to grab his smug skull by the ears and bash it right into the table. I took a deep breath. “Yeah, you’re a real big f*cking man. Beating your wife bloody whenever the mood struck you and shooting her up with garbage so you could keep her under your thumb.”
Benton shook his head and scratched his chin. “You got a shit memory, boy. There was no getting between Maggie and her junk. Whenever I tried she’d come at me, claws swinging. See this old gash on the side of my face? That was a reward for trying to cut Maggie off.”
“You brutal, lying f*ck. That’s your story? That you were forced to love her half to death with your fists?” I chuckled without humor. “Must be why you had to batter her unconscious when she was seven months pregnant, almost killing us all.”
A weird look crossed his face. If I didn’t know him better I’d say it was guilt. But no guilt lived in there. Guilt required a soul.
“And what about us?” I asked ominously.
His mouth twitched. “What the f*ck, Cord? What the hell do you want from me?”
“Nothing. I just want you to know that you’re worse than dead to the only blood you’ve got left walking this earth. So you sit here in your filth and you choke on that for a while and then let it sink in that there aren’t any more resources coming your way. And yeah, I’m talking about what you’ve managed to claw out of Deck’s palm. You see, I’ve got a pretty good idea what you’ve been threatening him with and it’s done. You’re done! It’s over.”
He stared at me. He betrayed no hint that anything I’d just said had made the slightest dent. Keeping a wary eye on him, I stood up and started backing toward the door. This would be the last time I would ever see this place. This would be the last time I’d ever utter a word directly to him. I turned around and had my hand on the doorknob when he let out a raspy laugh.
“How’s your wife, Cord?”
No. I wasn’t taking the bait. I opened the door.
“And your girls? How old are they now?”
The threat was clear. I paused, watching my hand close the door without having stepped outside.
“Maybe they’d like to find out they have a grandpa other than that waste of skin McCann.”
Slowly I turned around. Benton Gentry sat there grinning in all his bloated triumph. He rocked the chair back on its hind legs, clearly enjoying the sick expression I could feel crawling across my face. No, he wasn’t going to let us shake him loose that easily. He was a regenerating tumor that choked off life and breath. He was evil.
I found myself staring at the bottle on the table, imagining the glass broken and jagged, sharp enough to gouge an important piece of flesh that guarded a man’s lifeblood.
“What are you thinking, Cordero?”
I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I stared through the bottle glass. Objects on the other side appeared wavy, distorted.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Benton whispered. He wagged a finger and then allowed his right hand to rest on his hip. “You figure you can take me down. You might be right. But son, there’s something you haven’t figured on and it’s hidden under my shirt here. You move sideways and I’ll put a bullet between your eyes. Self defense. Fact is you’re f*cking lucky I haven’t done it yet.”
The evil giant laughs and gives the knight a rotten green-toothed grin. He is completely confident that he will easily destroy the knight, as he has destroyed everyone else who has ever stood up to him. It’s what evil giants like him do. He ruins all that is good. And once the knight is gone there will be no one to stop him from invading the peaceful kingdom and attacking everyone and everything in his way.
“I hate you.” My voice didn’t sound like my own. The words were primitive, delivered in a growl.
But the whole time the knight is thinking, ‘I must win. No matter what, I must win.’
Only now did I fully realize my mistake. The sight of the gun took the air out of me. If I rushed him he’d shoot. If I turned and ran out the door he’d probably fire anyway. Shooting a man in the back wasn’t the outcome of self-defense but maybe Benton just didn’t care. He was drunk and he was crazy and he was so filled with wicked bile that the law was nothing but a distant nuisance.
And either way I’d be dead. Saylor widowed, my girls orphaned. Benton Gentry’s final word on the matter. Except it wouldn’t be. If this was the end of me, then this was going to be the end of him too.
The knight has his sword raised, prepared to die fighting if that’s what it takes to defeat the evil giant, when suddenly….
I had my back to the door but the sudden stream of light into the room and the squeal of brakes that stopped not ten feet away threw Benton off balance. The gun went slack in his hand and confusion took over as he squinted into the glare. I saw my chance and took it, my right foot kicking out with enough force to upset the table and send it crashing at an angle right into his chest. A bolt of pain shot through my shin but I ignored it and leapt over the table to grab the gun that had clattered to the floor as Benton scrambled around like a crippled rat.
The knight’s two brothers, great knights themselves, come rushing in just in time! They stand beside their brother, offering up their swords together.