Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
SILAS
The room was dank and stale.
Clad in gloom and shadows.
Hidden in the depths of the clubhouse.
Walls so fucking thick there wasn’t a chance that anyone else could hear the wails coming from within.
And wails there were.
I dragged the tip of the blade across the bastard’s chest, opening up the flesh.
Motherfucker howled where he was bound to a wooden chair, his wrists tied to the armrests and his ankles to the legs.
His entire body arched from the chair.
Like he was stupid enough to think that he might be able to escape the fate he had condemned himself to.
Blood gushed from the wound, a wave slicking down his chest in a sheet. It thinned out in streaks that dribbled onto his bare stomach, mixing with the wound that had been made there, too.
I leaned in close to his face and demanded, “Not gonna ask you again. What does Kent know?”
Motherfucker angled back and spat in my face. “I’m not telling you shit.”
Rage surged, and I lifted my arm and wiped the blight off with my shoulder, teeth grinding as I attempted to keep the fury reined.
The thoughts of Brinley that kept invading made it damned near impossible. The memory of her trapped with that knife to her throat leaving me close to unhinged.
He was going to feel that same fear and pain a hundredfold.
But first, I needed answers.
“Bad idea, acting like that in the position you’re in, don’t you think?”
He squirmed as I played the tip of the knife around a spot that I’d already opened on his shoulder, but he only clenched his jaw, trapping the words I knew wanted to get free.
Phoenix itched behind me. A barely held frenzy licking across his flesh. A phantom waiting in the shadows. Demon begging to come out to play.
Wanting to dig his talons into this asshole and make him pay the way he deserved.
Phoenix could play with him later.
Right then, I had to extract whatever secrets and dirty deeds this piece of shit was hiding.
Everything was riding on this.
If Kent had any indication of what was coming for him, we were dead.
Every single one of us.
And I wasn’t sure if this scum coming here was a warning that Kent had a suspicion, or if the deviant was just giving another go at putting me and my crew under his thumb.
The latter didn’t fit.
Not when it was clear he was here for Brinley.
This was about Dereck.
If that motherfucker had flipped…
Anger boiled, closing off my throat, and I dug the knife in a little deeper.
Dickbag gritted his teeth, specks of spittle flying from his mouth as he tried to guard himself from the pain.
“If you don’t start talking, I’m going to let my friend here have a little visit with you.” I tipped my head toward Phoenix. “And I promise you, you don’t want that. I’m much nicer than him.”
I gave him a smile.
All teeth.
He thrashed, yanking at his bindings.
“Fighting isn’t going to help you. Confessions are. Now why did Kent really send you?”
When he didn’t answer, I slashed the knife across his cheek.
Deep.
Agony blistered from his being, and he finally shouted, “To deliver his message!”
His breaths heaved, his skin drenched with sweat and blood and pee. The stank of his fear filling up the room. “He wants you to know there is no escaping him. Wants you to know that you belong to him.”
“And why were you taking Brinley?”
Asshole went mute.
I lifted my arm and hacked the knife three times into the top of his thigh.
Howls of agony banged and ricocheted against the walls before the words began to tumble from his mouth.
“Because I recognized her when I saw her with you, and I knew that slimy prick Dereck was up to something. Figured the boss would be happy to see me show up with something extra.”
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I kept the knife poised high, words slashing demands from my mouth. “You tell him she’s here already?”
Did Kent know we were coming for him?
For all of them?
Were the pieces coming together and Kent was realizing Dereck was about to mete the kind of betrayal that could never be taken back?
Sweat poured from the scum’s hairline. “No. I…I did it on my own,” he rasped.
He was now nearly completely covered in blood.
Streams dripping to the ground below him.
“I thought he’d move me up from this grunt position to the place where I belong once he saw the initiative I was taking.”
Initiative.
Fucking twisted bastard.
The rage that had held me in chains since my sister had been taken spun me into tumult.
Lawlessness singeing my already frayed nerves.
“Are you lying to me?”
“No, I swear. I fucking swear.”
“You’re sure?”
“On my life. And I swear I won’t tell anyone that Brinley is here. Your secret is safe with me.”
“Yeah, it’s definitely safe with you.”
I slowly stood, wiping the blood from both sides of the blade onto my pant leg.
Then I turned to Phoenix and gestured at the piece of shit tied to the chair with my chin. “Do your thing and get rid of him when you’re finished.”
I stalked to the door and ripped it open, the wailing screams and pleas that suddenly filled the room clipping off as it slammed shut behind me.