Chapter 9
Overdrive
Kilo had given me all the information that Rue had told him. It didn’t help. Rhino was a stubborn motherfucker, that was for sure. Even with Relay going at him, he refused to give us much of anything.
That was as much an admission of guilt as him spilling his guts.
An innocent man would’ve been blubbering every secret in his life as Relay had gone toward him with the hammer on the first hit.
The fact that Rhino was taking this torture meant he knew something.
And he was protecting somebody. Out of loyalty or out of fear—fear greater than the hammer smashing on his kneecap—I wasn’t sure.
Either way Rue was right. He was involved in whatever was happening with those kids.
Though, according to her it wasn’t only kids who were dying.
There were adults as well. Men, women, and children.
Whatever this was, no one was off limits, but it was mostly people down on their luck.
“He’s not going to talk.”
I looked over at Kilo and nodded in agreement.
“Guilty as fuck,” he continued as Relay grunted over his work.
“My thoughts, too.” That was the thing about Kilo. He and I thought a lot alike. Ruck had told us more than once that he was sure we shared a brain. Not in a complimentary way though.
“What’s the plan if he doesn’t give us anything to go on?”
“We find it for ourselves,” I told him, arms crossed over my chest as I watched Relay do one of the things he did best. The fact that Ruck had made him our chapter’s chaplain really was a slap in the face to any man who took that role seriously.
Not because Ruck didn’t respect religion, he had as much respect as any of us.
But he’d done it because a man who’d seen and done the things that Relay had done, he knew could counsel anyone about anything.
Not that our chaplain did a lot of counseling, but I was pretty sure Ruck was hoping that one day he would.
There was nothing the rest of us could get up to that he wouldn’t have advice on.
Except maybe getting married. That might be beyond his scope, but the guys knew better than to ask him about things like that.
“You going to let him keep going at him?” Kilo asked after a few more minutes filled with agonized screams.
Cocking my head, I studied our brother and the look on his face as he tortured the man in the chair.
He almost looked serene. Relay had a lot of fucking demons.
It wasn’t a surprise considering all he’d been through.
“We’ll give him a few more minutes,” I replied.
“He doesn’t get this chance very often.”
Kilo snorted in amusement. “Not lately anyway. We going to check out this fucker’s apartment?”
“Yeah. But not tonight. We’ll have the others dump his body out in the desert and then hit it hard tomorrow.” Kilo was studying me. I could feel his stare all but penetrating the side of my face. Eventually, I couldn’t ignore him anymore. “What?”
“You like her.”
“You’re the one who claims I like the crazies,” I pointed out.
“I don’t think she’s crazy,” he replied. A particularly sharp scream had us both focusing back on the gruesome sight in front of us for a few moments before going back to our conversation.
“She drugged a guy, called a man she hardly knows, and basically asked us to help kill him.”
Kilo shook his head. “That counts as sane.”
“You think?” I asked with a grin.
He nodded. “Definitely. I don’t think she’d go through with the killing if it wasn’t for us. She didn’t call you on a whim. She has good instincts.”
He was right about that. I’d seen her face as they’d walked her out of the room. She was full of doubt and indecision. I wasn’t. This piece of shit wasn’t going to be breathing much longer. If we left him alive Rue would be the one who ended up in a body bag. Fuck that.
“Saying that Rue is crazy for defending herself would be like saying Mercy was crazy for running for so long. They both were just doing what they had to for survival.”
I glanced over at him. “What’s your damn point, Kilo?”
A slow, slightly maniacal, grin spread over his face. “You like her.”
The first time he’d said it had been mostly monotone.
It wasn’t this time. He was starting to realize what I was trying to remain in denial about.
Rue was different. She awakened this piece of me that I hadn’t even realized I had.
I wanted to protect her. To keep her safe.
To…keep…her. Keep. Fuck me, I was screwed.
“Relay,” I barked, my irritation with Kilo making me sharper than I meant to be. “Enough.”
He looked over at me with his own frustration showing on his face. “He hasn’t given us much. Just a couple fucking names.”
“It’s enough,” I said. “Finish it.”
As much as I wanted to drain the life out of Rhino for going after Rue twice, I knew Relay would pitch a fucking fit if he didn’t get to off the guy.
I was killing two birds with one stone letting him do the deed and keeping Kilo from giving me more shit.
Well, three birds because Rhino was one of them.
We watched emotionlessly as Relay stuck a large knife right where Rhino’s liver would be.
A slow, painful way to die, but I didn’t mind waiting.
A quick death was too good for this asshole.
Especially if he was responsible for half the amount of deaths that Rue suspected he was. We’d find out soon enough.
“Get Bolo and Merc to help you dump the body,” I told him as I left the room.
The light was already fading from Rhino’s eyes and that was enough for me.
No way Relay was letting him out of this room alive.
“And make sure you leave enough for the coyotes to eat. They deserve a snack every once in a while.”
It wasn’t nearly as much fun for Relay to carve up a corpse but I wouldn’t put anything past him at this point.
“You planning to comfort her tonight?”
Turning my head, I stopped and scowled at Kilo. “What?”
“Hey, she can’t find her brother, got attacked, watched a torture, and is now being plied with enough alcohol to drown a moose. She probably shouldn’t go home and be alone.” He blinked innocently at me as I stared at him.
“What the fuck is this? You playing matchmaker?”
“Why would I do that?” he asked. “Besides, you brought her here. You’re obligated to help the poor girl out.”
I was and I planned to. I just didn’t like the tone he was taking with all of this. Like he wasn’t implying something other than being a decent fucking guy. Like he wasn’t about to say something more. But then he did.
“Orgasms usually help to calm chicks down,” he said, lips twitching.
“Oh, fuck off,” I muttered, and started walking back toward the front area of the club. “Who the fuck takes advantage of the situation like that?”
“You,” he replied with a shrug. “Under normal circumstances.”
I chuckled and shook my head. “You have a high opinion of me, bro, if you seriously think I’d do that.”
“Fine, maybe not in this exact situation, but remember Sheryl?”
I frowned, searching my memory. “No.”
He shook his head. “How do I remember the women you fucked more than you do?”
“You’re obsessed with me?” I suggested with a shit-eating grin.
“Yeah, fucking right. She’s the one whose cat died.”
I stopped again staring at him in disbelief. “You’re not actually comparing this situation with a girl whose cat died of old age?”
“A lot of women would argue that she was vulnerable and you took advantage of the situation,” he stated. “Fits if you ask me.”
“Okay. First of all, I let her cry all over my shoulder. She was the one who took it farther,” I pointed out. “I even tried to push the pause button and told her that maybe we should wait. I’m an asshole, but not that much of one.”
He chuckled. “I know. I’m your best friend. I know you better than you know yourself.”
“Sure.”
“I’m just saying,” he met my gaze and his was unwavering, “there’s something different here. She’s-”
“Look,” I said, interrupting him. Last thing I needed was him voicing what I was so desperately trying to push down and forget.
“She helped Camila out and I felt like I owed her. We’ll help her out and that’ll be it.
” I walked away before he could argue. Not that the fucker didn’t try. His voice followed me down the hallway.
“Sure. That’ll be it. We still need to talk about that broken wrist by the way…”
I shook my head and headed over toward the table where everyone was sitting. Stopping next to Rue, I sighed when I saw the glassy look in her eyes. “Seriously?” I asked the group.
“She needed to chill out a bit,” Code answered.
“Just help Relay with the sack of meat back there,” I told them. “And make sure it’s all cleaned up before morning.”
“Code and I will clean the room,” Flir offered.
“Thanks,” I told him, grateful that it’d get taken care of.
“Oh man, why do we have to do it?” Code grumbled.
“Because now I have to go take care of a drunk woman,” I told him. “You probably gave her alcohol poisoning.”
“Believe it or not, she really held her own until the last couple of shots,” Code said with a grin. He and the others got out of their chairs and headed back to the interrogation room to deal with Rhino.
My gratitude for their help didn’t need to be expressed, but I would anyway. Later. Looking down at Rue as she smiled up at me and swayed in her chair, I also made a mental note to beat their asses.
I wasn’t planning to let her go home and deal with the aftermath of this alone.
But I hadn’t been planning on comforting her when she was three sheets to the wind either.
I didn’t know much about her, and I was going to lose out on valuable time I could’ve used to do that.
“Come on, gorgeous,” I told her, holding out my hand.
She grasped it, then stumbled as she stood and slammed into my chest. Wrapping my arms around her, I tried to decide if I actually needed to thank my brothers for the assist or still fucking pound on them.
I really didn’t appreciate them thinking they needed to get a woman blitzed for her to want to spend time with me. Fuckers.