King's Sword

Fuck It

VANCE

"Morgan!" I call out once inside the house, walking quickly to the kitchen when I hear footsteps rushing down the hall. "Get me a towel, would ya?"

"For what?" Julianna asks and I stop to face her as she glares at me. "Why are you covered in blood? Where's Collin?" I look down at my jacket and hands in confusion when I register the blood from Adelaide's nose on me.

"Hospital. With Adelaide." I say calmly and begin to move past her to the hall. "Where's Morgan? She has a better stomach for this kind of things than you."

"You found her? Why didn't you call us?!" Jules asks when I reach the closet where we keep the downstairs bath towels.

"In what way could you have helped? She needed a hospital, so I took her to the hospital." I slam the closet door and turn to Jules with a towel in my hand and a glare of my own.

"Then why are you here?" Jules asks with a pissed off tilt of her head as she crosses her arms.

"Because Dallas thinks I'm fucking around." I say plainly and move past her. "Where is Morgan?!" Making my way past the kitchen and out the back, I see Morgan talking to Hill in the distance. "Hill, plausible deniability, my good man!" I point back to the house as he turns to me with wide eyes and scurries past me to go inside. Morgan looks down at the towel in my hand and sighs as she opens the barn door.

"Morgan, you can't be okay with this!" Julianna yells as she runs after us. I don't enter the barn to find Dallas is sitting in a corner fearfully and scrambles on his feet when he sees me.

"Chair and rope?" Morgan asks.

"And a hose." I say to her as she walks to the other side of the barn when Julianna comes between me and Dallas. "Jules—"

"She'll hate you!" Julianna cries up at me and sticks a finger in my chest as she does. I frown at the tears and the desperation coming from her, and I'm reminded she's just a girl. "Dallas, he-he made a mistake! He didn't know!"

"He didn't know?" I ask her with an incredulous look as her eyes flicker between mine fearfully, before she steps back to face Dallas. "Dallas, how old was she?" He cries and shakes his head so I pull my gun from my waistband and undo the safety before aiming at him.

"Please, please!" Dallas cries as Morgan comes to my side with the hose in hand. "Jules, you have to believe me!"

"Three." I say calmly.

"Dallas?" Jules asks him as he sobs.

"Two."

"Chris' guys will fucking kill me!" Dallas screams at me as Julianna flinches.

"I will fucking kill you. One."

"She was fourteen!" Dallas says with his hands up and I lower my gun to put it back in my waistband. Julianna stares at him wide eyed as Dallas curls up and continues to cry.

"I want everything you know about "Chris' guys" or I will kill you again and again..." I go to him and grab his arm as Morgan pulls up a chair. "And again." I sit him down and she starts tying his arms behind his back before I drop down to tie his legs with the rope Morgan offers me.

"I didn't talk to them, I'd see them around at his office sometimes, but they never spoke to me!" Dallas cries as I tie a knot and pull back to offer him a bored look. "I have the email they sent me when the job was done, does that work?"

"I'll get his phone." Julianna says disappointedly and shoots me a pained look before exiting the barn.

"Keep talking." I say when Morgan finishes up her knots and comes to my side. "What about Elizabeth? Did she ever talk to his men?" He frowns in confusion.