Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“Soft tissue targets.”
Smokey blinked. He could do that. Pain. Maybe a few bruises, but nothing permanent or serious. The places he could hit the fucker, and the tools he could use to do it, ran through his mind as he let a grin spread across his face.
“What can I tell Tania?”
“Tell her you need to work off some steam and you’re headed to the gym,” Dagger said. “That way you won’t have to worry she’ll ask questions if you scrape up your knuckles a bit.”
“That works. I can do that.”
“We’re about done here. Why don’t you go change,” Raven nodded in his direction.
“Hawkeye can go back to the command center. I’ve got a couple things to do but snag Shotgun to go downstairs with you.
Tell your woman he’s your spotter if you need to.
” He glanced around the table, nodded once and stood.
Smokey didn’t waste any time. He went out to the common room, let Tania know he was going to hit the gym and if she needed him, to let Raven or Hawkeye know, and where they would be, then he went up to their room to put on workout clothes he could toss if he got too much blood on them.
On his way through the common room to the stairs to the basement, he spotted Shotgun and jerked his head toward the Sergeant at Arms. The other man stood and followed him without a word.
“What’s up?” Shotgun asked when they reached the bottom of the stairs.
“I get to give this asshole a little payback. Prez told me to bring you with me, I’m not sure if it’s to keep me from hurting him too badly or what.”
Shotgun lifted both brows as he stared at him for a moment. “How’s your woman going to feel about you beating the shit out of her husband?”
Smokey shrugged. “Not planning on telling her. She doesn’t know he’s here and I’m not planning to let her know.”
“How’s that kid gonna feel when he finds out in twenty years what you did to his dad.”
“That kid’s mine. We did the DNA test this morning to make sure it’s legal but you saw Tania’s face.
This fucker did that when he realized Carter’s not his.
I think it’s a little bit of justice to give him some of this back.
I just need to be careful. Hawkeye warned me to go for soft tissue.
I can do that and still make him hurt plenty. ”
“Yeah, we can do that. You ready to get started?” Shotgun looked him up and down. “You decided to do this right, I see. Did you tell her I was going to come along or is she going to have questions later?”
“I told her I’d be snagging someone to go with me to spot for me. Told her I need to burn off some frustration at all this and not being able to get to this fucker.”
“Good thinking.”
“Wish I could say it was me. Raven suggested it. Which room’s he in?” Smokey turned and looked down the narrow corridor to the several doorways that opened off it, one actually was a gym, and getting the equipment down here hadn’t been easy, but it worked for them.
Shotgun led him to the room and opened the door.
The smell of overripe human and sewage assaulted Smokey’s senses.
Werner had been here for several hours at least and apparently they were going to use the psychological against him as well as physical.
It would be the best way to make him agree to what they wanted, especially since they couldn’t just eliminate him. Yet.
Inside, a man sat in a metal straight backed chair, his arms behind him in a position Smokey knew meant they were tied, and likely to one of the crossbars there.
His ankles were secured to the legs with several layers of duct tape, ensuring he wasn’t going anywhere.
Smokey stepped into the room and watched the man for a moment.
He was a little worse for wear but this was definitely the stuck-up dandy he’d wanted to beat the shit out of and take his place at the wedding.
“There you are!” the junior Werner demanded, as if he was sitting at a desk or somewhere comfortable, waiting for someone to wait on his every command.
Smokey folded his arms across his chest, lifted one brow and looked at Shotgun. Was this fool really acting like this?
“I demand you let me go or there will be consequences. I know people.”
“We’re well aware of who you are,” Smokey said, turning back to Werner. “But the question is, do you know who we are?” He took a couple of steps closer.
Werner seemed to look at him for the first time. He stared open mouthed for a few seconds then narrowed his eyes.
“You’re the son of a bitch who’s been sleeping with my wife. You’ve been cuckholding me!” Werner screamed, fighting his bonds and making the chair rock dangerously from side to side.
“Wow.” Smokey blinked. “I didn’t think people used that term anymore, at least not outside the BDSM community. I’m kind of surprised that someone as stupid knows what it means.”
“Stupid? What do you mean stupid? I have a master’s degree in hospitality management, while you what? Barely graduated high school?”
“And yet you failed to figure out that ‘your’ baby,” Smokey used finger quotes, “was born only six months after the wedding. And it took you another eight months to realize he has dark eyes instead of the blue you and Tania have.” He turned and looked at Chainsaw.
“I knew as soon as I saw the kid that he was mine. Have you seen him?”
“I have. He’s a cute kid. He looks just like you, down to your eyes.”
“I could tell she was pregnant at the wedding. I knew you didn’t know when I watched you hand her a glass of champagne. Yet, somehow you think I’m the stupid one,” Smokey said, turning back to Werner. “By the way, there was no cuckholding involved. We were together before she met you.”
“And yet she married me. Obviously you weren’t who she wanted,” Werner sneered. Obviously, he didn’t realize how serious the situation was.
“We had issues. I’m not going into them with you. They’re none of your business.”
“And my family is none of yours.”
Smokey chuckled. “That’s where you’re wrong. That’s my son. We’ll have the paperwork filed by the end of the day to strip you of your rights and have his birth certificate corrected.”
“I’ll never agree to that!”
“You won’t have to. The paternity test results we’ll be filing with the petition will be enough. As for Tania, she’s going to be divorcing you.”
“She can’t do that. I won’t agree. I’ll drag her through the courts for years. How will she survive?” Werner continued to talk down to Smokey, as if he held all the cards here, instead of being the one tied to a chair against his will.
Smokey couldn’t help but smirk.
“We know about the money.” He watched the color drain from Werner’s face. “I’ve got someone looking into it all. We’ve even gone through the prenup. Divorce papers are all drawn up and Tania is reviewing and signing them now. When she’s done, you’ll sign them, and then we’ll have them filed.”
“No one will believe I signed them willingly,” Werner sneered.
“They will when you tell them you did.” Smokey pressed his fists into the palms of his other hand, cracking the knuckles before he rolled his head on his shoulders, stretching and getting ready to show this idiot who was in charge here. Or at least in the room right now.
He circled Werner for a moment, letting his words sink in.
“What makes you think I would ever do that?” Werner’s attitude just wouldn’t stop. It was going to be Smokey’s pleasure to give him the attitude adjustment he needed.
“Oh, I think by the time I’m done with you, you’ll agree to do just about anything I want you to,” Smokey bent and landed a hard blow to Werner’s solar plexus.
While the idiot gasped and tried to convince his body he could breathe again, Smokey and Shotgun cut him loose from the chair and hung him from a large hook dangling from a block and tackle in the ceiling by his wrists.
“People will be looking for me,” Werner said when he figured out how to breathe again. “I’m an important man.”
“Yeah, we know,” Shotgun deadpanned, “you’re a legend in your own mind.”
“Do you really think that we can find out about the lies and the money you, your parents and her parents stole from her and we can’t come up with an alibi for you being out of work for a day or two?
” Smokey asked as he wandered over to the one table in the room, on top of the sheet of plastic covering it lay a variety of tools, hammers and blades.
Most of it was for show with this fucker as they were limited what they could do to him, for now, but this wasn’t Smokey’s first rodeo, he just wished he could use his favorite tool to convince this guy.
But that would leave burns, which could be used against them later.
He held out hope that he’d be able to make sure the man knew pain before they ended his miserable life, but that would have to wait.
For now, he would do what he could. He picked up a machete and ran a thumb across the blade, testing the sharpness as he looked at Shotgun.
“What do you think? A finger or a toe?”
“Toe will be less obvious.” Shotgun said with a shrug. “It will hurt more too, as he’ll remember it with every step for a long time.”
“Good thinking,” he motioned toward Werner, where his feet barely touched the ground beneath him. “Why don’t you take off one of his fancy shoes and we’ll find out how he handles the sight of his own blood.”
“You can’t do this! I’ll never give in!” Werner kicked his feet and screamed, making Smokey laugh.
He had no doubt that with a little pain the fucker would give in and do whatever they told him.
He didn’t even think it would take long.
This was a spoiled boy used to getting everything he wanted just handed to him.
He wasn’t even a challenge for a group of men willing to die, or kill, for the people they cared about.