The Bachelor Bargain (Secrets, Scandals, and Spies) by Michaels, Maddison (short books to read TXT) 📕

words, Seb knew they wouldn’t get anything more out of him. At least not this way. He stood.

“The world ain’t got no need of ya and that lame jezebel! Someone should have killed the damaged bitch long ago. She’s a blight on Society. She should be gotten rid of.”

Rage flared inside him at the slur against Livie, and his fist smashed into McGinchy’s face. Blood spurted on them both as the man’s nose shattered, and the force of the blow toppled him and the chair he was strapped to, slamming the man down hard onto the floor.

The fool started laughing as he spat blood out of his mouth. “You’re falling for the pathetic excuse of a woman, aren’t ya! Has she spread her legs already for ya? Can she even fuck with that leg of hers?”

A red mist of fury consumed Seb. He stepped over to the man and began to punch him, over and over again, as images of Livie being hurt by the man clouded his vision.

“Boss, that’s enough.” Rowan grabbed his arm, forcibly pulling Seb away from the man, who was moaning in agony on the ground. “We need him alive until we get the information from him.”

Gradually the rage began to subside, and slowly his self-control started returning. Rowan was staring at him in concern, and perhaps some hesitancy, and who could blame him? If Rowan hadn’t stopped him, he could well have beaten the man to death. Such a loss of control was unacceptable and Seb couldn’t let it occur again.

“Do ya worst.” McGinchy’s gravelly voice sounded labored as he struggled to take in a deep breath, lying on the floor still attached to the chair. “Keep torturing me and bloodying up me face some more, but it won’t work, I tell ya! Cause I ain’t saying nothing to the likes of ya. I ain’t scared, ya hear!”

“Then you are indeed a fool.” Seb couldn’t keep the contempt from his voice. “And you blindly follow a leader who I promise doesn’t give a shit about you. Your principles and misguided loyalty make you a damn idiot to protect someone like that.”

“I follow a man who is going to fuck you to hell and back,” McGinchy screeched, his blood-covered face mottled with abrasions and swelling. “He will have his revenge on you, so go ahead and kill me, ’cause I’ll never betray him.”

“Kill you?” Seb laughed at that. “I’m not going to kill you. Your wonderful leader will do that.” He turned to Rowan. “Keep him in a cell until Monday morning and then release him.”

An expression of incredulity crossed Rowan’s face. “Let him go? Are you serious?” The young man’s gaze couldn’t have been more confused if Seb had told him the sky was red.

“If he still hasn’t told us anything by Monday morning, release him and put out the word he’s rolled on the Lads and given us all the information we needed.”

“But that ain’t the truth!” McGinchy screamed, rocking his body back and forth trying to get out of his bonds, but they didn’t budge. “I ain’t told ya a darn thing! And you bloomin’ well know it!”

“Yes. I know it.” Seb walked over to the door and grabbed his jacket from the hook, then shrugged it on over his shirt, the knuckles on his right hand grazed and bleeding. “But your leader doesn’t, does he? All he’ll know is the information he hears being bandied about on the street. Whispers that you ratted him out to me. Do you think he will forgive you for something like that? Or do you think he might punish you instead?”

The man’s jaw began to shake, and his eyes grew wide.

“If I were a betting man,” Seb continued, “I’d wager my money on him punishing you. Permanently.” He glanced at Rowan and motioned him over. The lanky young man was at his side in a few short strides. “He’s not going to talk, but I’ll give him a chance over the weekend. But if he hasn’t by Monday morning, spread the rumors for a few hours that he’s told us everything, then cut him loose.” Seb then lowered his voice so that only Rowan could hear him. “But trail him closely and see where he goes and who he talks to, and then let me know. Don’t let anyone see you.”

Rowan nodded. “Consider it done. Where are you off to now?”

“Bethnal Green Cemetery.”

“Bethnal Green Cemetery? What the devil will you be doing in that place?”

It was a question he was sure he was going to be asking himself several times in the course of the coming hour. “According to the note supposedly consulting me, I shall be assisting a bloody stubborn female with a blackmailer.”

Chapter Twenty

An owl hooted in the distance, and something ominous and black flew across the dark sky overhead, its wings flapping like a gargoyle’s.

Livie jumped and shivered in spite of the warm layers of her clothing and the thick cloak she’d worn. It’s only a bat, Livie. Get ahold of yourself, girl.

She made her way down the winding path into the heart of the cemetery, toward where the large angel statue was meant to be standing in the center of the space. Holding her lantern in front of her with one hand and her cane in the other, she was trying not to startle at every little noise that echoed like a cannon in the still night.

The moon was barely visible, with thick clouds obscuring its light and casting a heaviness over the entire atmosphere. Not to mention the wind had kicked up a notch and was howling its way through the headstones like a company of ghosts.

Not that Livie believed in ghosts. Or at least she hadn’t until her imagination started running wild with being alone in a cemetery and at night, too. At least Gregson was waiting with the carriage at the entrance to the cemetery, shotgun in hand, with instructions to come in and find