The Piggy Farmer (The Barrington Patch Book 3), Emmy Ellis [electric book reader txt] 📗

She raised her leg as though about to kick him.

“No! Peas, no.”

She lowered her foot to the floor. At least she knew he was afraid of what she’d do. His usual bravado was waning; he couldn’t keep it up forever.

“Back to Nathan—because I have a huge problem with killing him. I did it based on your information—and it was wrong. How does it feel to lay the blame at another man’s door when it was yours? You skimmed those takings, not him. You let me torture him, kill him, mince him, while knowing he hadn’t done a thing. I believed you so much that when he told us he hadn’t done owt, I didn’t listen to him, so you can congratulate yourself on that, how clever you were, how convincing. What you probably won’t realise now, though, is you did me a favour. I’ll never trust my right hand again, even if I choose Mam, Doreen, or Glen Maddock.”

His eyeballs moved momentarily at that—Glen Maddock. He’d hate that fella taking his place. He’d been Dad’s right hand, and bloody good at it he was, too.

“He’s a decent fella, never let Lenny down. But you did. By being such a nasty bastard in all this, you let down the one man who took you on as a son. Your own father didn’t give a fuck, but mine did.” She paused, getting ready to say the one word Jason hated when it was aimed at him. “Yours just called you a prick.”

Another skin-stiff flinch.

“And that’s exactly what you are. A lying, deceitful, waste-of-space prick.”

He roared an intelligible stream of shite and looked at her, eyes bulging, and if she wasn’t mistaken, his face wounds cracked in places. Yes, they had. Fresh blood trickled, meandering down the hardened flesh, red rivers over crusty rocks.

“Mind you don’t hurt yourself.” She laughed until her sides hurt—to release the tension in her coiled muscles or because she was enjoying this?

“No thinking. Just get the job done, Cass.”

Her spine straightened at Lenny’s words, and she went to the bookshelf.

Jason snorted air through his nostrils. “No…”

“Yes.”

She opened the case and took out what she needed. Turned to him. Held it to her chest. “You know what this means, don’t you, Jason.”

“Fuck,” Jimmy whispered.

Jason’s fingers played piano. “Peas.”

“Stop going on about fucking peas, pal.” Cassie moved to the electric socket. Slid the plug in. “The choice is yours for the first shot. Your other leg or your arm?” She held the nail gun up and waved it about. “Eight lovely inches. Who’d have thought they’d cause so much pain.” She stepped closer. “Jimmy, free his wrists from behind him.”

Jimmy obeyed and placed Jason’s arms across his stomach. One flopped to the floor. Jimmy returned to the window.

Cassie smirked. “Just think, if I shoot that arm there, the one over your belly, the nail will go into your guts an’ all.”

Perhaps the instinct to get away overrode Jason’s need to stay put. He tried to get up, and his pinned shin lifted, the nail disappearing beneath the bone. His elongated scream got on Cassie’s tits, and anger at him still not conceding defeat burnt through her.

“Admit to me you were going to take the patch,” she shouted. “Tell me to my face you wanted to ruin me. Have you got the balls?”

She aimed the gun and shot his upper arm, securing it to his side.

* * * *

Pain. So much pain. It fired through Jason’s whole body, the tip of the nail digging into whatever innards were beneath the pierced skin. As for the one in his shin…his leg had gone numb. Maybe him jolting like that had done something to the nerves.

Faint from the pain, he fought the need to tell her what she wanted to know, the insistent bitch. Part of him reckoned she’d set him free if he did—surely she wouldn’t kill Lenny’s surrogate son? And they’d got along fine until he’d blabbed about his mission. Well, as fine as you could get along with Cassie. Didn’t she have any feelings for him? He’d been in her life for a long time.

Don’t you have any feelings for her other than to bring her down?

No.

So why should she feel anything for you?

A bigger part of him whispered that she’d murder him for this.

How odd to know that inside a few minutes, his life would end.

What she’d said about Mam. Fuck, why hadn’t his mother rung Cassie yet? He knew the answer to that; it was stupid to ask himself that question: he’d told her he’d be away some nights for work and not to worry about him if he didn’t come home.

Why had he opened up to Jimmy in The Donny, trusted him?

Because he hadn’t thought he was in Cassie’s pay yet.

The voice murmured, “But she mentioned something about bringing him into the business. Didn’t you listen?”

Obviously not. Or he’d ignored it, thinking she was talking bullshit.

That was his problem, he could see that now: he always knew best. But he fucking well didn’t, and Cassie was giving it her all in letting him know that.

“You’re a waster, Jason. A fucking prick, son.”

He growled at his father’s voice.

His arm was more than on fire now, and he teetered on the ledge, ready to sink into oblivion again. At least then he wouldn’t see her coming at him with that bloody nail gun. He wouldn’t know he was dead if he was out of it.

He pushed past the agony, telling himself to admit what he’d done. See if she’d let him go if he did. He had to try, didn’t he? But only if the pain got too much. He’d confess it then.

In the meantime, he needed to remain awake—his