Chapter 11
Overdrive
“Bro’s name should have been pig,” Kilo said in disgust as we walked into Rhino’s apartment. “Who the fuck lives like this?”
“Single guys who weren’t in the military,” Drifter answered.
“No one ever taught them to clean up after themselves,” Strike added, using the toe of his boot to shove over a bowl sitting on the floor.
“Their mommy’s all did it for them,” Bolo said, picking up a dirty fork off the counter in the kitchen and removing a pair of skid marked underwear off the table in the small dining area. He shoved aside some papers, looking for anything that might point us in the right direction.
I spoke to Ruck this morning. He was on his way back, but I was keeping him apprised of the situation here. He was in full agreement that we help Rue out even though he’d never met her. I had a feeling he, like Kilo, had already clocked the fact that this girl meant something to me.
Damn it. I wasn’t the settling down type. That was for my best friend, and I was fucking happy for Kilo, but it didn’t mean that was what I wanted. Only…every fucking time I looked at Rue I wondered if it could be.
“Glitch is checking out the names Rhino gave us,” I told the group as we spread out in the small apartment to look around. Glitch was a friend from Wyoming. He was a part of the Berserker’s Rage MC, an ally club of ours. If anyone could find out who the fuck Boscoe and Glenn were, it would be him.
I took a picture of the name on the mail sitting on the couch and sent it over to Glitch. Frederick White was likely Rhino and anything we could give Glitch to piece this all together was better. Frederick. Wouldn’t have pegged that as the huge fucker’s name.
“Someone should’ve taught him what fucking soap was,” Flir said, his lip curled in disgust. “This place needs to be quarantined.”
I chuckled, knowing that our more than likely, but never diagnosed, treasurer was OCD as fuck, and that this place was killing a piece of his soul just standing in it. It was messy, dirty, and I was pretty sure that the chunk of mold in the corner was moving.
“Do you think-” Relay broke off and we all froze as the sound of a key in the lock interrupted us.
As one, we moved in different directions, getting out of sight, as much as we could in the tiny space, and pulling our weapons.
The man came through the front door, glaring down at his keys as he stepped inside and shut the door.
“You missed the shipment this morning, Rhino,” he called out as he fucked with the keys.
“Carrick is pissed. He’s going to-” The guy broke off as he looked up and found himself nose to barrel with Bolo’s Glock.
He swallowed hard, his eyes darting around to all of us, but he didn’t speak. So he wasn’t completely stupid.
“Who’re you?” I asked.
“Boscoe,” he gulped in response. His eyes flicked to my weapon. “You friends of Rhino’s?”
“Oh yeah, BFFs. Why else would we be here?” I asked.
“You seen him?”
“Yeah,” I said with a toothy smile. “He’s busy this morning. Sent us to help out.”
His eyes narrowed. “Rhino wouldn’t do that.”
Holy shit was this guy slow. I shrugged. “Was worth a shot. Fine. You got me. We’re not friends of that fucker.”
“What do you want?” he asked, wary now.
“Answers,” I told him. “Give them to us and we’ll let you go.”
“There’s nothing I can give you answers about.”
“Why’s that?” I asked. “You don’t even know what my questions are yet.”
“Because anything I say will just get me killed,” he replied, looking sullen.
“That can be arranged,” Bolo told him. He picked up one of the rickety chairs from the table.
Relay sighed.
Eyeing him, I frowned. “What’s wrong with you? I thought you’d be thrilled to have another round of this.”
He sighed again. “It’s so fucking tired.”
“What is?” Kilo asked in disbelief.
“We tie him to a fucking chair. Cut him up a bit. Break a few bones-”
“You’re tired of torturing guys?” Strike asked, gaping at him like a fish.
“No. I’m tired of that fucking chair,” Relay growled.
We all looked at the chair Bolo was holding. “So what the fuck do you suggest?” Bolo asked him in amusement.
“I don’t fucking know,” Relay snapped. “I’m just sick to death of that fucking thing. It’s just so…predictable. Played out.”
Boscoe was looking back and forth between us, panic rising in his expression as we discussed his torture so nonchalantly. He was realizing not only that he wasn’t going to get out of this, but that he was indeed going to feel a lot of pain in the process.
“Tie him up,” I told the others. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Wait,” Drifter said, motioning to Boscoe. “What are we going to do about him?”
“He’s coming with us.” I shot Relay a grin as he scowled at me. “I have an idea.”
“You want us to drag this guy, bound, out of here in broad daylight?” Kilo asked. “Are you insane?”
“This apartment building look like it has cameras?” I asked, my tone skeptical. “Or residents that care?”
“No,” Bolo answered that.
“This is the area that people have been showing up dead on sidewalks for a couple years now. You really think anyone’s going to stop us from dragging this guy out of here?” I went on.
“Probably not,” Kilo said, as he was bent over and unlacing Boscoe’s shoes. He used the laces to tie the man’s hands behind his back.
I searched around and finally found a set of keys tossed in a basket on a small table near the couch. Going to the window, I looked down at the street and clicked the key fob. A car’s lights lit up. “Perfect.”
Glancing over my shoulder, I grinned at my brothers. “Ready?”
“Not going to find much else here,” Flir said. “I checked the bedroom. Zero out of ten recommend going in that bathroom.”
We all laughed at that and stepped out into the hallway, manhandling Boscoe between us.
We’d made it almost to the elevator when a woman stepped off and froze like a deer in headlights.
She blinked at us, her eye make-up smudged and lipstick nearly wiped completely off.
She was in a tube top and a skirt short enough we could almost see her pussy.
It wasn’t hard to guess that she was a prostitute.
“What’s your going rate?” I asked.
She blinked at me again. “For the special?”
“Sure whatever.”
“Hundred bucks,” she said, her brown eyes glittering.
That was enough to tell me that was at least double her rate, but I didn’t give a shit. My brothers shoved Boscoe into the elevator as I took my wallet out and handed her five twenties. “For your silence.”
She clutched the money to her chest and nodded. “People round here mind their own business,” she said, a bit reluctantly. She wanted that money, but felt obligated to let me know I didn’t need to pay to keep her quiet.
That admission made me feel sorry for her. But I wasn’t a fucking savior and I already had one woman I was working on rescuing. “Keep it anyway,” I told her, then I stepped onto the elevator.
Kilo moved his hand off the doors so they closed. No one else even shot us a glance as we dragged Boscoe out to Rhino’s car and stuffed him in the trunk.
We’d brought our own cage as well as some of the bikes, so I wasn’t going to have to leave my motorcycle here, thankfully. “Follow me,” I told them.
Bolo got into the cage we’d brought and the rest got on their bikes and pulled out after me. I grinned as I took the highway and headed out of town. Relay was sick of the same old torture routine? Then we’d try things a bit differently this time.
“Boscoe Williams,” Glitch said as I watched Kilo shove the man into a patch of cholla.
My brothers laughed as Boscoe stuck to it like it was a pin cushion. Boscoe let out a moan of pain. Those fucking cholla were no joke. It was like throwing a man onto a pin cushion made of fishhooks. Nasty, barbed, fishhooks. Fuckers didn’t let go easily.
“Give me a quick rundown then email me over the rest, G,” I requested.
“Thirty-eight, born fucking loser, works for some prick named Carrick,” Glitch told me, reading off Boscoe’s information.
“Anything shady?”
“Oh yeah,” he said with a laugh. “Looks like nothing Carrick is involved in is on the up and up.”
“Perfect. Anything they’d kill for?”
“Drugs. So yeah. Drugs, extortion, you name it, this guy deals in it. Boscoe, Glenn, and someone named Frederick are Carrick’s right hands. They help run this shit as far as I can tell.”
“Thanks, Glitch,” I said. “Send me the rest and I’ll let you know what we need next.”
“Anytime, Bro. Talk to you later.”
I ended the call and watched as the tension slowly leeched out of Relay’s shoulders. “Better?” I asked him.
“Much.”
“You can drag him behind the car,” I suggested.
“Bury him up to his neck,” Kilo added.
“Should have brought honey. The fire ants would get a kick out of that,” Bolo said in a mournful tone. “Missed an opportunity there.”
“All sorts of shit you can do to him out here,” I said, slapping Relay on the shoulder. “In fact, it’s better you didn’t bring the honey. You don’t want to do everything at once. Otherwise you’ll get bored like you did with the chair.”
“Good point. I’m gonna start with the car for now,” he said with a malicious grin.
“Good.” I moved out of the way and left the others to torture Boscoe for more information.
Flipping through the document Glitch had sent over, I read over what he’d found.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough to go on for now.
We’d have more soon. Boscoe didn’t seem to have the diehard attitude Rhino had.
Glancing up as Kilo came over, I handed him my phone to read.
“Leave it to Glitch,” he said, eyes scanning the document. “Fucker can find anything.”
He paused for a moment, then asked, “He find Ryan?”
“He’s working on that,” I replied. “Kid isn’t using a card or anything that would identify him, so it’s going to take time.”
We both looked up as the car started up and watched as Bolo finished tying Boscoe’s legs to a rope attached to the bumper of the car. He and Relay tapped fists together as Relay passed to get into the driver’s seat. “Good thing Rhino had that rope in the trunk,” Kilo commented.
“They’re all involved in this,” I said as Relay peeled out, shooting dirt all over Boscoe.
“Yeah, fuck him. Killed at least one kid Rue knows of for sure so far,” Kilo said, as Relay began to do donuts in the dirt nearby, dragging a screaming Boscoe over dirt, rocks, more cholla, and whatever else was lying on the desert floor.
“Sounds like it’s been a fuck ton more than just one kid,” I muttered. Rue had told me about the people she and her partner had picked up from that part of town. She wasn’t sure how many had died, other than the one that was DOA, but she was sure some she worked on hadn’t made it.
“Yeah. I figured. Glad we’re going to be putting a stop to it,” Kilo replied.
“That shit doesn’t need to be happening in our city.
Using kids and then fucking shooting them in the head when you’re done with them.
Taking others away from their families… Fuck that.
Fuck Rhino. Fuck Boscoe.” He shook his head.
“Next up is Glenn and then Carrick and anyone in between,” I said in agreement. “We’re going to teach these assholes that this shit doesn’t fly in our city.”
“Fuck yeah.”
The others came over and we watched as Relay came up with new, inventive ways to torture information out of Boscoe. Eventually, he walked off into the desert, leaving the bloodied man groaning on the ground.
“Where the fuck-” Bolo broke off when Relay came back. “Bro…”
“You realize those are venomous, right?” Drifter said, eyeing the rattlesnake in Relay’s hand.
“Yeah? So?”
“Where the fuck did you even find it?” Strike asked, taking a step away from Relay.
“You can’t fucking throw a rock without hitting one of these bastards out here,” Relay said with a shrug.
I’d taken them miles outside of the city limits. This was a part of the desert where the tourists didn’t come. We weren’t likely to run into anyone out here. The perfect place to dump bodies where the animals living out here would dispose of them for us.
“What are you planning to do with it?” Flir asked.
In answer, Relay dropped the pissed off snake straight on Boscoe’s chest. Every time the snake stopped striking, Relay would poke it with a stick and force it to bite Boscoe again. At least until the man’s screams died down and the venom in his veins finally stopped his heart.
Relay looked up at me and nodded. “This was much fucking better than that damn chair. I can’t believe you waited this long to take me out here.”
“Oh, right, because I’ve been hiding the desert from you.”
“Yet this is the first time we’ve tortured a guy out here,” he replied with a shrug.
“I promise you it won’t be the last,” I told him. Later I’d need to examine whether that sentence made me as much a psychopath as Relay was. “Go drag the body further out.” I started kicking dirt over the blood stains on the ground.
“What do you want to do with the car?” Kilo asked.
“Desert store it,” I told him with a grin.
“My fucking pleasure,” he said. He got into the SUV and followed Relay out into the desert. They’d find a wash somewhere and make sure that car couldn’t go anywhere, be found, or be identified by the time they were done with it.
Bolo crossed his arms over his chest and gave me an approving look.
“What?” I asked.
“You make a good VP.”
My brows shot up at the compliment. “Thanks.”
“Seriously, that was a Ruck level move figuring out what Relay needed and letting him do all this.”
“Some would say I was a sadistic asshole for helping him find a new way to torture a man,” I pointed out.
“Aren’t we all sadistic assholes?” Strike asked with a grin.
“Sociopathic tendencies,” Flir muttered. When we all stared at him he sighed. “We’d be diagnosed with sociopathic tendencies.” He cocked his head. “Except Relay. He’d be diagnosed with full blown ASPD.”
“What’s ASPD?” Drifter asked.
“Antisocial personality disorder,” Flir answered. “A real sociopath. Probably a bit more going on with him, but that would be the brunt of it.”
“Hmmm,” I hummed noncommittally. “Whatever the fuck we are, I’d take it over being those assholes.
” I didn’t need to clarify that I was talking about Rhino and Boscoe.
We killed people, sure. But we didn’t hurt women and children.
We didn’t hurt innocent people. Especially not for something as fucking stupid as money.
And that was likely what was happening with Carrick.
Shit like this always boiled down to power and money.
We were on the trail now though, and Carrick was going to soon figure out that he’d fucked with the wrong people. That taking the wrong kid had put him in our crosshairs. I was going to get him back for Rue. And put a stop to anyone else getting sucked into Carrick’s world.