Chapter 28 #3
I lunged forward and caught Pyro by his stringy, greasy hair, sneering in disgust. Dragging him by his hair onto the patio, I slung him onto the unforgiving ground where Pyro began to do what could only be described as sniveling.
I remembered all the times he’d called Indigo a bitch and pulled my lip back in a snarl.
Priest must have been thinking the same thing because his harsh tone rang out into the night.
“Who’s the little bitch now, Pyro?” Bard, who I was happy to see had not been shot, closed in on the traitor with a malicious chuckle. “That son of a bitch was hiding in the bathroom. Tried to shoot me, but he couldn’t even manage not to fuck that up.”
Priest rolled his shoulders as he stepped out of the clubhouse, the bloodlust from the fight still riding him hard.
Pyro had murdered a man he thought of as an uncle, helped our oldest enemies breach his home, and took our people.
All of that would be reason enough to kill the bastard at our feet on its own, but add in the fact that Pyro hurt his girl?
I knew Priest was one breath away from destroying the traitorous shite, and I knew he had every right to be the one to end Pyro’s life.
However, the ugly thing that festered below my surface itched in my veins, and my feet were moving before my brain even registered what I was doing.
I put myself between the traitor and my VP.
“I need this one, brother,” I said to Priest, who clenched his jaw and searched my face for a moment.
I didn’t try to hide the menace inside me, the need to make him pay for hurting our girl.
For betraying Bones. For murdering Ace. For spitting in the face of everything it meant to be a part of our brotherhood.
Burying the crotchety old bugger, Ace, had brought up a lot of bad memories for me, and I was still working through the darkness they bred in me.
I needed this outlet, and my brother saw that. “I know it should be you, but I need—”
“Do it,” Priest commanded in a gruff tone, “but make it hurt.” With a solemn nod, Priest stepped back, giving me room to work.
I turned to Pyro, and whatever he saw on my face caused the tiniest sliver of desperate hope gleaming in his eye to snuff out of existence, which made the most damaged and sinister part of my soul rumble in satisfaction.
I pulled my gun, pointed it directly at Pyro’s crotch, and emptied the remains of my magazine.
Pyro’s screams were shrill and hysterical, and I knew without even looking we’d drawn a crowd of bloodthirsty onlookers.
“That is for Indigo, you mouth-breathing incel piece of shite,” I bit out, pressing my empty gun into Bard’s hand.
I crouched over Pyro, who had stopped squealing and was now starting to hyperventilate.
Smacking him in the face, I tsked. “Oh no, you don’t, cunt.
You don’t get to die of shock.” I patted over his cut pockets, fingers searching until I found what I was looking for in the front pocket of his bloodstained jeans.
“There we are,” I said in vicious satisfaction as I held Pyro’s stupid, annoying fucking silver lighter.
Flicking it open and striking the flint wheel with my thumb, I sparked the flame to life and illuminated Pyro’s terrified, weaselly face.
“I’ve always hated this damn thing. Well, that’s not strictly true.
I didn’t hate the lighter. I hated the way you played with it constantly. The noise got so bloody irritating.”
The lighter grew warmer and warmer in my hand as Pyro watched the flame bob an inch from the tip of his nose.
“You broke your oath as a Crow and killed our brother. You betrayed Los Cuervos, and now you’ll pay for it in blood.
” The lighter had grown uncomfortably hot, and I pinched it between the tip of my thumb and forefinger to minimize the only burn I’d ever welcomed.
The muscles in my forearm popped as I strained against my instincts to DROP THE HOT THING and continue to heat the lighter.
“This is for Ace, you bastard,” I said as I gripped Pyro’s jaw and pried his mouth open.
I plunged my hand into his mouth, shoving the searing hot lighter so far down his throat I felt his molars scraping the leather of my jacket over my forearm.
Pyro’s screams cut off in an agonized gurgle, followed by the jerky scuffling of his legs and arms as he struggled futilely for air.
I released the lighter and yanked my empty hand out of his throat, only to shove Pyro’s mouth closed and hold it that way as he choked.
In his last moments, his wild, shit-colored eyes bloodshot from his screaming, I backed away and watched him die.
No one said a word as he stopped twitching, and my heartbeat drowned out all other sounds.
I stared down at the man I reluctantly called brother once upon a time, satisfied to know he could no longer hurt the people I cared about, but also still so angry that a Crow would do this to the people who’d tried to give him a family.
Family was the most important thing in a man’s life, in my opinion, and to see it treated with such disrespect and cruelty picked at old wounds I’d been nursing since I was a lad.
It brought out the worst in me, and now everyone here knew exactly how fucked up I really was.
That was fine, though. I’d do anything to protect my family. Anything.