11. SIN
If you’d ever told me there’d come a day when I was happy to become a dad, I’d have told you to fuck off.
Kids and I didn’t gel.
And ever since I’d teamed up with Nyx on his quest to rid the country of as many pedophiles in as many painful ways as possible, the desire to have children had been dampened even further.
It was probably why, however, Faudreaux got to me more than most now.
My woman had my baby in her belly.
The thought still blew my mind.
Her small voice on the phone, the way she had to psych herself up to tell me…it all fucked with my head.
We’d had a weird relationship. Secretive, closed off, but close nonetheless. We’d shared a lot in the time we’d been dating, and while some of it was DNA, not all of it was.
There’d been times when we’d just been. I’d bought a fucking hammock for us, for Christ’s sake, because I knew she loved my yard, and I liked seeing her happy.
I knew she took that godawful coconut milk in her coffee, and that bedhead actually looked good on her.
I knew she loved Sponge Bob, even though she’d never admit to it—it was always on my ‘Recently Played’ list on Netflix, and I sure as fuck didn’t watch it—and I knew she was lost, uncertain of which way the future was going to take her.
Funny how fate had a way of taking control of things for you.
I already knew from her texts and the quick call we’d had earlier, before we’d snapped up Faudreaux, that today hadn’t worked out that great.
She was supposed to help the captives the club had saved, and apparently, it hadn’t gone well.
Tomorrow was another day, though, and she hadn’t sounded upset about them rejecting her help. If anything, I’d sensed some resolve about her.
Like she knew she was needed, and even if they didn’t want that help, they were going to fucking get it.
Just the thought made my lips twitch, because she was so goddamn obstinate, and she didn’t even see it.
A scream shattered my thoughts—as a truly haunting scream should do—and I cut a look at Giulia, who was standing there, watching Nyx at work.
I wasn’t sure why he was letting her watch. Had no idea why she was here.
He said she had anger issues.
I mean, I knew that. Jesus, didn’t take someone with a fucking degree to figure that out. Christ. But still, she was standing there, trembling.
Link hovered nearby like he was there to shield her if shit got too bad, but any regular person would shiver at the sight of what their man was capable of.
I mean, there was knowing someone was insane, and then there was seeing it with your own fucking eyes.
Personally, I was used to it.
And I got it.
I wasn’t one of the old-school brothers like Steel, Link, and Rex were. But I’d been around long enough to know what fucked with Nyx’s head.
We were brothers, and even if I’d let him down, that wouldn’t change. Sure, he’d be pissy with me for a while, but we went too far back.
I’d run from home to New Jersey because my ma had told me my dad was a Sinner, and whether or not he was, she’d never told me his name, and I hadn’t given a shit.
I’d just wanted to get away, so I’d gone to West Orange. Bear had heard my story, hadn’t turned me away, and I’d patched in as a Prospect when I was sixteen years old.
I’d never have enlisted if things hadn’t derailed and I needed to get out of the country. Fast.
I tugged at my cut, one of the few things I valued, and knew that I’d take it off for Tiff.
That was what she meant to me.
I wondered if Nyx felt the same way for Giulia, and if he was about to have his heart broken because he’d revealed too much, too soon.
They’d barely been together before he was letting her see this, and that wasn’t smart.
Not in my opinion anyway.
I leaned back against the wall as Nyx sliced and diced Faudreaux.
The images Nyx had taken from his safe were on the floor around us in shreds, no part visible anymore. That was how tiny the pieces were, and he was making Faudreaux eat them.
The bastard was sobbing with each gulp, but Nyx had pulled some fucked up shit with the guy’s dick.
He’d created a tourniquet around it, and every time Faudreaux bitched, he yanked that tourniquet a little tighter.
Absentmindedly wondering if his dick would fall off, if that was even possible, I watched as Giulia flinched when the pedo fucker let out a particularly high-pitched scream.
Nyx had gone around behind him, and fuck only knew what he was doing to the naked piece of shit.
Rex pulled a face at the noise, but returned his focus to his phone. Link just looked stoic—like this wasn’t how he wanted to be spending his night, but for Nyx, he’d have his back.
Steel was the only one with his back to the cunt. He had his eyes wandering around the warehouse we were using, making sure no bastard came in.
This was Sinners’ territory, a Sinners owned warehouse, but still, with the squealing this fucker was making, we needed to be watchful.
Even though the chapter used this place with this purpose in mind, caution was always warranted when you were torturing someone.
Giulia took a step forward, shakily moving toward Link. Nyx hadn’t let her see the pictures, and I couldn’t blame him.
Though Mav had confirmed Faudreaux deserved to die, Nyx had quickly glanced at one because he didn’t believe in trying a man without proof, and what he’d seen had made him go straight to level one on the map of torture—the tourniquet.
Dick territory.
That was when you knew what he’d seen was really bad.
She muttered something to Link, and he arched a brow at her but handed her something.
She moved toward Faudreaux, who, seeing her and evidently believing she was the weakest link, took the opportunity to plead, “Please! Help me! Stop this—I didn’t do anything?—”
“Guys like you never do anything, do you?” she rasped, her voice low. Her words haunted. “You just take. You don’t care who you hurt, what you leave behind.”
“I don’t, I don’t,” he begged.
She bowed her head as she stared at the scraps on the floor. In between them all were some old-fashioned pieces of film.
The sepia brown foil could be spied between all the flecks of photos.
She bent down, picked up a piece, and remarked, “Do you know cellulose is highly flammable?”
I tensed at that, and with my experience with explosives, I knew where she was going with that question. Rhetorical it fucking wasn’t.
Her tone was wooden, kind of. At first listen. Then you heard the fucking layers behind it.
Jesus, she was just as bad as Nyx.
Loathing and disgust throbbed through every word, seething at such a level that she sounded almost toneless.
I cast Rex a look, wondering if he was going to put a stop to this, but he’d peered up with interest now.
Sick fuck.
Hell, we all were.
The irony being, of course, that as a Sinner, I’d killed more when I was in Iraq than I had running for the club.
And the few deaths I’d helped perpetrate as a Sinner was with Nyx and the crew as we helped Nyx avenge his sister.
I peered around the warehouse, wondering if it would withstand a blaze, but I didn’t have much time to think.
She stepped closer to him, managing to move around puddles of blood, piss, and vomit, then she grabbed the tourniquet, tightened it until his mouth opened in a scream, and shoved the film into his mouth.
He tried to spit it out, but Nyx had made an appearance by now.
He’d grabbed some duct tape, and he rolled it around the bastard’s head, from chin up to his crown, keeping his mouth locked tight forever while ensuring the cellulose stuck out, quivering with each move he made.
When it was done, he turned to Giulia, and asked, “You know it might explode?”
A whine escaped Faudreaux, who promptly pissed himself.
Again.
“I think that’s what the fucker deserves, don’t you?”
“You sure?” Nyx inquired, his tone conversational. Like he was asking her if she was ready to get a dog or something. Maybe asking if she wanted Italian or Mexican for dinner.
Not, ya know, asking if she was okay with setting fire to someone.
She shrugged her shoulders as she stared at him. “He served time?”
Rex cleared his throat. “Two stints. The first for possessing child porn. The second was for child rape.”
She tensed, and I knew that’d just signed his death warrant.
But then, I’d signed that the first time I’d settled on him as my act of contrition for Nyx.
“Some fuckers just need to burn for their sins,” she muttered, then she raised the lighter up high, let it hit Faudreaux’s eye level, and flicked it so the flame burned.
As Faudreaux began to struggle, she let the flame touch the cellulose.
The next thing I knew, Nyx had shouldered her out the way and was hauling her out of the warehouse toward the door.
The rest of us didn’t stick around either.
When we hauled ass outside, Rex huffed. “I’ll get Butch onto the sheriff. Make sure he knows to keep his blind eye turned away from this Podunk shit pile.”
And as he pulled up the call, the rest of us wandered over to our bikes to the happy soundtrack of a man burning to death.
When my mind turned onto the kid in my woman’s belly, only one thought crossed my mind—it was a good day to be alive, because that sick fuck in there was incapable of hurting another kid, thanks to us.