Chapter 16 #2
Runes with questions—more questions about the operation, about names and locations and details we might have missed.
Ted answers everything, babbling, sobbing, desperate to make it stop.
But it doesn't stop.
Can't stop.
Not until justice is served.
And then it's Tor's turn.
He's been silent through most of it.
Watching.
Processing.
Reliving, maybe, some of the worst moments of his own past, but when Runes hands him the coil of barbed wire, something shifts in his expression.
"Do you know what this is?" Tor asks Ted, holding up the wire.
Ted shakes his head.
Crying too hard to speak.
"It's justice." Tor's voice is flat. "For every child you ever touched. Every kid you broke. Every innocent life you destroyed."
He moves behind Ted and shoves a barbed-wire-wrapped pole up Ted’s ass.
And when Tor starts pulling—slowly, methodically, inch by agonizing inch—Ted's screams reach a pitch I didn't know human vocal cords could produce.
It takes time.
Hours.
The wire tearing through flesh, through muscle, through parts of Ted Tomlinson that will never function again.
Blood pools on the concrete floor.
Runs toward the drain.
Exactly what this room was designed for.
Ted passes out twice, but we wake him up both times.
We’re not just doing what he’s done to the children.
Tor grabs his dick and shoves a pencil wrapped in barbed wire up his urethra as far as it goes, and pulls it out even faster.
The sound it makes is indescribable, and he almost passes out.
He doesn't get to escape into unconsciousness.
Doesn't get to miss a single moment of what's happening to him.
This is what he earned.
This is what he deserves.
By the time Tor is finished, Ted is barely recognizable as human.
A broken, bleeding thing that used to be a man.
A monster reduced to meat.
"Please," he whispers. "Please just kill me. Please."
Fenrir looks at me. "You brought him in. You want to finish it?"
I consider it for a moment.
The gun at my hip.
The knife in my belt.
The dozens of ways I could end Ted Tomlinson's miserable existence.
But then I think about Ingrid.
About the ring in my pocket.
About the woman waiting for me upstairs.
"No," I say. "I need to get back to her. Someone else can finish it."
Fenrir nods and pulls his own gun, pressing it to Ted's temple. "For my daughter," he says quietly.
He pulls the trigger.
The sound is deafening in the enclosed space.
Ted's body slumps.
What's left of his head paints the wall behind him.
And just like that, it's over.
The man who attacked Ingrid.
The man who stole her ring.
The man who raped children.
Gone.
Permanently.
Runes is already moving.
"We clean this up tonight. Burn the body. No traces. Then tomorrow, we hit that motel. End this whole fuckin’ operation."
"I want in," I say.
"You're on shit duty for six months. That doesn't start until after we finish this." Runes meets my eyes. "You're in. We all are. Tomorrow night, we bring those kids home."
"And the traffickers?"
His smile is cold.
"They end up like him. Every single one."
I leave the basement.
Leave the blood and the body and the cleanup.
I need a shower.
Need to wash the last few hours off my skin.
Need to see Ingrid.
The clubhouse is quiet as I climb the stairs.
Most people don't know what happened in that basement.
They don't need to know.
Some things stay between the men who were there.
Our room is dark when I push open the door.
Ingrid's asleep.
Curled on her side, face relaxed, looking more peaceful than she has in days.
I stand there for a moment.
Just watching her.
Just breathing.
She stirs.
Senses me somehow.
"Gunnar?" Her voice is soft. Sleep-blurred. "What time is it?"
"Late. Go back to sleep."
"Where were you?"
"Handling something. It's done now."
She's quiet for a moment.
Processing.
"The man who—"
"He's been handled. He's never going to hurt you again. Never going to hurt anyone again."
I don't tell her he's dead, don't tell her about the basement, the torture, the barbed wire.
Some things she doesn't need to carry.
"I'm going to shower," I say. "Then I'm coming to bed."
"Okay."
She doesn't ask more questions.
Trusts me to tell her what she needs to know.
Trusts me to protect her from what she doesn't.
I love her so fucking much.
The shower is scalding.
Hot enough to burn away the blood.
The sweat.
The memory of Ted Tomlinson's screams.
I stand under the spray until my skin is red.
Until I feel almost human again.
Then I dry off, pull on clean boxers, and climb into bed beside the woman I love.
She curls into me immediately.
Her head on my chest.
Her hand over my heart.
Her damaged arm still bandaged, her bruises still visible in the dim light, but she's alive.
She's here.
She's mine.
And the man who hurt her is dead.
"I have something for you," I murmur.
"Hmm?"
I reach over to the nightstand.
Grab the ring I set there before my shower.
Take her left hand.
"Gunnar—"
"I told you I'd get it back."
I slide the emerald onto her finger.
Where it belongs.
Where it's always belonged.
She starts to cry.
Quiet tears.
Happy tears.
"You found it," she whispers. "You actually found it."
"I made you a promise. I keep my promises."
She lifts her head, looks at the ring, then at me.
"I love you," she says.
"I love you too."
"Is it really over? Is he really—"
"It's over. He's never coming back. You're safe."
She buries her face in my chest and cries harder.
Releasing something—fear, maybe, or grief, or the weight of the last week.
I hold her through it.
Don't rush her.
Don't tell her it's okay.
Just let her feel whatever she needs to feel.
Eventually, the tears stop.
Her breathing evens out.
She falls asleep with the ring on her finger and her body pressed against mine.
I lie there in the darkness.
Staring at the ceiling.
Feeling the weight of everything that's happened.
The attack.
The investigation.
The torture.
The kill.
And what's still to come.
Tomorrow night.
The motel.
Six kids being moved through the pipeline.
Eight to ten traffickers who have no idea we're coming.
The final battle in this war they started.
We're going to end it.
Going to bring those kids home.
Going to make every single one of those bastards pay for what they've done.
And then, maybe, Ingrid and I can finally start our life together.
The life we were promised.
The life we deserve.
Starting tomorrow.
I close my eyes.
Let exhaustion pull me under.
Grateful for the woman in my arms, and even more so for the justice we served tonight.
And for the knowledge that, soon, this nightmare will finally be over.