Leather & Lark (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #2) (11)

… and all of what he was doing.

“What in the feckin’ hell are you making?”

Leander takes a slice of meat lover’s pizza and stuffs it into the blender where a first slice is already folded, grease and condensation smeared across the glass. “Smoothies.”

I look from the pizza box to the blender and back again. “What?”

“Smoothies. You know, drinkable food.”

“A … pizza smoothie …?”

Leander simply grins as he pours half a can of beer into the blender.

“Why?”

“Robbie doesn’t really have teeth anymore. How else is he going to have a last meal?” Leander shifts his attention to Robbie, who cries in his chair. “Didn’t anyone tell you that candy will rot your teeth out, dickhead? Speaking of which …”

Leander slides the teeth off the counter and onto his waiting palm before he plops them into the blender and turns it on. The beer froths. The melted cheese sticks to the glass. It takes a few stops and starts, but eventually he gets the mixture whipped into a thick, bubbly brown paste.

“Feckin’ Christ Jesus. That is truly horrific.”

Leander shrugs. “Still just pizza and beer, but with extra calcium.”

“Didn’t he have a gold cap on one of them?”

Leander sloshes the mixture around and peers into the jug, but there’s not much to see in the brown sludge. “Yeah, he did. So, it’s got fancy calcium. Anyway, I’m sure it tastes pretty much the same.”

“Doubtful. You should try it. Test your theory and let me know.”

“Fuck no,” he says on the heels of a barked laugh as he pours the mixture into a pint glass. “I have a thing about teeth.”

I groan and Leander cackles again, clearly delighted with himself. He runs a hand through his silver hair and then rummages in drawers behind the bar until he pulls out the funnel with a sound of triumph. “Christ Jesus, man. I’m leaving.”

I turn on my heel but don’t make it even a step away before his words stop me dead.

“You know, kid, I could make you stay.”

I stare at the door for a long, unblinking moment before I pivot to face Leander. He’s still smiling as he walks past me with the funnel in one hand and the full glass in the other. But there’s always a threat beneath his bleached smile and the creases that fan from the corners of his eyes. There’s a predatory edge to Leander that cuts through that mask like a razor.

Leander jerks his head toward Robbie in a bid for me to follow, and I do. “Good thing I’m all benevolent and shit. I wouldn’t want you to miss your little brother’s special night. And I definitely wouldn’t want him spitting in my meal the next time I pop in for a visit. Word is that while he might have scaled back on his Boston Butcher theatrics around town, he’s still a bit unhinged. I understand he was recently up to no good in Texas with that girlfriend of his. That’s where they went, right? Texas? And … oh, where was it before that …? I remember now. California. Calabasas, specifically. And West Virginia—”

“What do you want from me?” I snap.

Leander grins. “Just hold him steady.”

With a flash of a lightless glare, I step behind Robbie and press my palms to either side of his head. He trembles in my grip.

“Open wide, fucker.” Leander pushes the end of the funnel past Robbie’s gag. Robbie tries to thrash free of my grip, but there’s no escape. “Last meal down the pipe. Did you know the Nelsons’ kid had to be tube-fed after he OD’d on your fentanyl candy? This is kinda the same thing,” he says as he pours the first thick dollops of pizza smoothie into the funnel.

“Not really the same at all,” I grumble over the sound of Robbie’s gurgling cough.

“Close enough.” Leander pours more mixture in, but it only ends up dribbling from the corners of Robbie’s mouth. A frustrated sigh leaves my psychotic boss’s lips. “He’s not swallowing it.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

“It’s just pizza and beer, Robbie.”

“And teeth.”

“Just imagine it’s protein powder. Come on, man. Down the hatch,” Leander says as he tries again. Robbie whimpers and whines, but still doesn’t swallow. A petulant sigh leaves my boss’s lips as his shoulders fall. “Pinch his nose.”

“Hard pass.”

“That wasn’t a question, kid.”

“Leander—”

“Do it, Lachlan, and then I’ll let you head off to your party.”

Our eyes lock for a moment that feels endless.

I could snap Leander’s neck. With one punch to his throat, I could crush his trachea. I could shove the heel of my palm into the base of his nose with a satisfying crunch. Or I could take the easy way out and shoot him. Leave him to bleed across the floor like so many others before him who have found themselves in his basement on a Friday night.

But revenge for my betrayal would be swift and merciless. His equally batshit brothers would hunt me to the ends of the earth, just like I would do for mine. And their vengeance wouldn’t start or end with me.

My fingers curl around Robbie’s nose and pinch it tight.

“The Nelsons wanted him to suffer like they have suffered. This is not torture, Lachlan. It’s not murder. This is justice,” Leander says, his eyes not straying from mine as he fills the funnel.