Reaper Chapter 22
In the end, we let Serpent and his guys stew until the next morning. After we ate, Chey and I went back to sleep. The next morning when we woke up, I made love to her again before making sure she had breakfast. Alisse was at the house and she cooked for all of us. As soon as breakfast was over, I left them to do whatever, while I got the guys together to go to the bunker. I texted the guys to meet me at the clubhouse first. Once all of us were there, I told them what we were going to do.
“We’re going to talk with our guests this morning. I know we’d usually go to work, but we need to get this done. Not all of us need to be there. I’d like at least six to come with me. Then if a few others will stay to keep guard, the rest of you can go to work.”
“Are you expecting more trouble? Is that why you want guards?”
Dare asked. I shrugged.
“I don’t know. That’s the trouble. The Soldiers might send others to check on these guys. How soon, I don’t know. How many, again I don’t know. However, I don’t want to get complacent and have them take us by surprise and someone gets hurt. This is war and they’re not going to go down easily or quickly. We have to destroy what they built, one club at a time.”
They nodded and murmured their agreement. A quick run-through and I had my six men. I could tell all of them wanted to be with me, but we had to do this smartly. Not all the Punishers could be absent from work without someone noticing it. In the end, I had Crusher, Blade, Rage, Fury, Knight, and Venom stay with me. With this decided, the rest took off to work or to guard the compound.
My team and I went to the bunker. Brax and Mayhem were the ones standing guard there. When we came inside, I saw they had the five men all chained and hanging by their arms from the ceiling. Someone had patched up Officer Long so he didn’t bleed to death. He did look worse for wear. He was the one I’d dispatch first. I walked up to them and paced back and forth in front of them. I didn’t say a word. I just stared at them.
They watched me. Serpent and the one they called Tires just glared. Loon and Chubbs looked rattled. Officer Long was the one who looked the most scared. I stopped to stand in front of him. I ran my eyes from his feet to his head and back. He gulped.
“How are we feeling this morning, Long? Good, I hope. I have a lot of things to talk to you about. I don’t want you to give out before I’m done. Though looking at you, I’m afraid that’s a given. Are you ready to save me effort and yourself pain? Tell me what you know and I’ll think about making your death a quick one.”
His breathing sped up, and he started to shake. “Please! I’ll tell you whatever you want. But you can’t kill me. I’m a cop.”
“You’re wrong. You being a cop doesn’t change anything other than I have to be careful to make sure they never find your body. If you were counting on your job protecting you, then you were an idiot. You said you have a buddy in Ohio who put you in contact with Serpent. I need his name and his contact information. Then I want to know of anyone else they’ve had contact with here in Bristol. Anyone who might be willing to help them.”
“His name is Tayler Thomas. His address is in my phone. The pin is five-five-one-one. Other than Loco and his gang of dealers, I have no idea of anyone else they’ve been around here.”
I nodded as if I agreed with him, but I slid my MK3 out of my sheath on my belt. I heard him whimper. I started to clean under my nails with it.
“See, I wish I could believe that, Long. I do, but scum like you lie. I have to be sure that you’re not. Do you remember how nice this cut yesterday?”
He nodded frantically. What a pussy. “Well, you didn’t get the full demo on how great it works. And that cutting through butter thing I told you about. I think we should show you.”
He tried to wiggle, and he screamed at me, “No!”
I looked him over. He was shirtless but still had on his pants. I crouched down and ran the blade up the leg of his pants, parting the material. As it fell open, you could see the cut I’d made, not so accidentally, in his flesh as I cut his pants. A cut that had him screaming louder. I repeated it on the other leg. When I was done, he was in nothing but his underwear with blood running down his legs.
“Tell me again. Who do they see or hang with here?”
He denied there was anyone else. I worked him over for a half hour. In the end, I was sure he really didn’t know of anyone else. His usefulness to me was at an end. While I worked him over, I ignored the others. They all watched me and had varying looks on their faces. It went from horror to indifference. Serpent was the one who looked indifferent. I was saving him for last.
As I looked Long in the eye, I gave Crusher a slight chin lift. He walked behind him and cut him from ear to ear. He gurgled as he choked to death on his own blood. Chubbs was trying to shout through his duct taped mouth. He was the one I planned to talk to next. While I sat and drank a bottle of water, the guys took Long down and wrapped his body in plastic. They dragged him over to a corner out of the way.
As I rested, me and my guys chatted. We chatted about anything and everything, but one thing I made sure to include was all the plans I had for me and Cheyenne. I could tell it pissed Serpent off. I wanted him to be nice and angry by the time it was his turn.
After twenty minutes or so, I got up. I went over to Chubbs. His eyes got round, and he tried to kick at me, even though his ankles were tied. I laughed. “Really? You think that’s gonna save you. Damn, you’re dumber than I thought.”
I tore off the duct tape, and he cried out. I walked back to the chair in the middle of the room and sat down.
“Chubbs, I want to know everything you can tell me about the Soldiers. Where have they already infiltrated? Who are they currently targeting along with my club? Who do they plan to target in the future? I want to know numbers, weapons, and any other resources they have.”
I knew he most likely didn’t know most if any of this. He struck me as a follower, and one not to be trusted with the important stuff.
“I don’t know, man. They don’t tell me that stuff. I just go where they tell me and do what they tell me.”
I looked at Crusher and nodded. He walked up to Chubbs and punched him in the ribs. I could hear them crack. He howled in pain. Crusher had brass knuckles on his fist. We punched Chubbs all over his body on and off for the next half hour. I asked him the same questions over and over, but he held fast. He could tell me they had been hanging with Loco and his crew. He confirmed he only knew of Officer Long as being in their pocket on the Bristol police force, and he told me where their main club was in Blue Creek, Ohio. When Crusher was done with him, Blade was the one to dispatch him, using a knife to the heart. The same thing was true of Loon. All he seemed to be able to tell me was what Chubbs had said. His death was courtesy of Venom.
I took another break. Not because we needed it, but to up the tension and stress on them. They had to wait and wonder. When it came to Tires, Rage and Fury got to handle him. They broke his fingers, pulled out his nails and beat the soles of his feet. He confirmed that there were five different clubs they’d already targeted and took over. He gave us the names and locations. He had no idea which were future ones. He told us the cabin in the woods had been rented through a local man who thought they wanted to use it for the summer as a retreat. They’d only talked to him over the phone. He had no idea he’d been renting it out to bikers. Tires, they shot through the temple.
I got up and went to stand in front of Serpent. He was spitting mad. I tore off the duct tape. He spit at me. I laughed. “Now, it’s time for us to get to know each other better. You saw what we did to your buddies. Imagine what we’re going to do to you. Though, I’m betting with the guys you’ll be the easiest.”
“Why would you say that?”
he sneered.
“Because Cheyenne told me what a pussy you are. What a sick, pathetic excuse for a man you are. She never considered being with you because she said you’re not even a man,”
I taunted him. She’d never said any such thing, but I knew it would drive him nuts, thinking she saw him like that. He screamed and fought like crazy to get loose from his binds.
We stood there and laughed at him. “What a fucking loser, Reaper. No way any woman would ever be with this joker. Not unless he forced her. Women want a man who’s able to satisfy them in bed and protect them and their children. He can’t do any of that. That’s why Cheyenne chose you to be her old man, husband, and father of her kids,”
Crusher explained.
Serpent glared at him and swore.
“Fuck you! I’m more than a man. I have no problems getting women. They beg to have my cock.”
“Let’s face it, Reaper. That woman wants you like mad. She’s constantly dragging you off to fuck your brains out. You’ll be lucky if you don’t have a baseball team of kids,”
Venom added. The other guys laughed. Serpent was so mad he wasn’t saying a word, just fighting to get loose and swearing.
“I don’t believe this shit has women begging for his cock. Let’s see,”
Knight said with a grin. He whipped out his knife and cut off all of Serpent’s clothes. We all stopped and stared at his cock, then we started to laugh and point.
“How in the hell could he fuck a woman with that? It’s tiny. She’d never know it was in her. It sure as hell couldn’t get her pregnant,”
Rage said as he bent over, holding his stomach as he laughed. We were spinning Serpent up nice and tight. His face was practically purple with how mad he was. His screams of rage filled the room.
After we laughed, I got serious. I went up to him and got in his face. “That’s why he’s a pervert who targets young kids. He wanted Cheyenne when she was only ten. A fucking pervert if I ever heard of one. And he’s so dumb that she got away from him when she was fifteen, although they killed her mom for it. Another one they took at fifteen.”
This electrified the guys. My guys knew that part but the others didn’t.
Fury stormed over and plunged a knife into Serpent’s side. I noticed he placed it where it would do the least amount of damage. He left it in him. That had to hurt like a bitch. He shifted his eyes on me. “Why don’t you explain to him who you are and how you got your name? Dumb fucker has no idea.”
I let a cold smile slide across my face. I’d been told it was creepy as hell and looked like the devil had come for you. I lowered my voice so he would have to strain to hear me. Sometimes, a soft voice was way scarier than a loud one.
“Serpent, I found out early I had this ability. This need if you will. It was the need to eliminate enemies of my country, by any means necessary. I’m not sure if you know this, but I was a Navy SEAL.”
His eyes flared with surprise and maybe a little unease.
“I was taught how to kill and torture. All of us were taught that, but in my case, they found I had a real knack for it. See, after the first few times, we realized I had an unnatural ability to kill and not let it bother me.”
I walked over to the table where we had various tools. I ran my fingers across them, like I was caressing them. I picked up a screwdriver and held it to my face. I closed my eyes like it made me feel something good.
“I’m called Reaper for a reason. I reap the souls of the evil, corrupt and deviant. I send them to their eternal damnation with the devil, where they can be tortured for the rest of time. I sleep much better knowing that I can do that, for my country and my family.”
I held onto the screwdriver and walked back to him. He tensed up and kept his eyes on it.
“You’re going to be reaped, Serpent, and I want it to fucking hurt. I want you to remember it for eternity. You tried to take my woman. You would have raped and tortured her, let others do the same. Forced her to do all kinds of terrible things. Because of that, you’ve been judged and you’re going to be executed. The only thing you can do now is tell me everything you know. If you do, I won’t make this last for days.”
I meant what I said about having no problem killing him, and doing whatever I had to do to make that happen. But I had perfected the psycho persona over the years. It was the best training I’d ever had. Beat the mind and the body was a piece of cake. He was looking pale at this point. I calmly stabbed him on the opposite side from where Fury had buried the knife. He screamed in pain and I left the screwdriver sticking in him.
Over the next three hours, he made me and the guys extract the information bit by bit. I hated to say it, but he’d climbed a tad up the non-pussy scale. I knew a lot of it was due to him being a true psychopath. He couldn’t admit defeat or that he was inadequate. His narcissist complex was a strong one.
We cut, stabbed, beat, burned, and even shocked the hell out of him before he gave us all he had. He resembled raw meat in some areas of his body when we got done. He was breathing painfully and slowly. He’d given us what we wanted—where they’d infiltrated, how, and when. That they were only targeting one club at a time and it had to be a stand-alone chapter. We had their list of future targets, what they were dealing and running in each of them. I got numbers and weapons. They had more men than I liked to hear. We definitely wouldn’t be able to take on all the clubs at the same time.
As I stood there staring at him, he slowly and painfully lifted his head to look at me through his almost swollen shut eyes. “She’ll never forget me,”
he whispered and grinned, showing his bloody teeth. I rammed my MK3 up through his jaw into his head. He thrashed for a moment and then went limp. He was dead.
I pulled out my knife. I looked at Braxton, Crusher and Mayhem. “You know what to do with them. Take as many guys as you need. As soon as it’s dark, get rid of the bodies. Get some others to clean this down and get rid of any DNA and blood. As far as the world knows, these guys and Officer Long disappeared off the face of the planet.
“You got it, Reaper. Why don’t you go get cleaned up and then see how Cheyenne is doing? We have shit to do. The party for our new prospects this weekend and then your wedding,”
Mayhem said. I clapped him on the back.
“Thank you, guys. I think I’ll do that.”
I left the bunker and rode back to the house. I needed to have some good before I communicated what all we learned to the other clubs and the Dark Patriots. We were going to have a lot of fights for the foreseeable future. That made the good even more necessary. I planned to love and live as much as I could, because you couldn’t take tomorrow for granted.