Chapter 24
Rooster
After seeing Sparrow safe and hearing her finally speak the three words I wanted to hear, I was so drunk on her that I forgot Shiv was waiting to fix my arm.
That was until I finally moved so Sparrow and I could clean up, and she panicked because Jackal’s makeshift butterfly job over my wound came apart.
I hustled to find Shiv and got an earful in Hindi as she tried to fix it.
After she closed me up, she pulled her gloves off.
“It’s going to be an ugly scar. It wasn’t closed properly and we are right on the line of the stitches actually working.
We should have done that before you went upstairs,” she said with a brow cocked high.
“Sorry, Doc. You know how it is,” I said as I pulled my shirt back on.
Her judgy eyes looked me up and down, but she finally said, “Yeah. I do. But I’m not a magician. I did my best. I’m off to bed now. Finally.”
Hawk and the others would be back tomorrow– later today, if you wanted to be technical– but Eagle was already working on getting the earlier-collected info from the Heathens.
Sparrow was passed out and I was exhausted after a long and busy few days. But I had some personal beef with these assholes. Hawk had club issues with them, and he got the final say on what happened to anyone who made it to the shed, so I wanted to get my time in with them now.
The shed was set toward the back of the property, practically in the tree line. The glow from the torches that kept the yard lit were out of reach of the shed, but the moon gave enough light to show the way.
Two members guarded the shed at all times when it was occupied. Walking up, Coop greeted me. “Rooster.” Scar was watching the back. He lived offsite, but worked at the tattoo shop and came when his shifts were assigned.
Nodding, I pointed to the door. Coop knocked, then moved out of the way. The door opened a few inches and Eagle waved me inside. I took the three steps up, then pulled the door behind me.
Covering my face instinctively, I sneered. “Seriously?”
Red was standing behind one of the guys I recognized from the break-in video of her apartment. I didn’t recall either from the truck ambush, but I vaguely recalled their faces from the grainy video now that I could see up close.
“Yeah, they pissed themselves pretty early on,” Red said, looking down at the man on his knees with his hands tied behind his back.
“Bunch of little bitches,” Eagle said with a chuckle.
The one with stringy blond hair tied back spat blood toward our feet. “Yeah, little bitches. ‘Cept you had to tie us up to work us over.”
Looking down at the bloody spray he left near our feet, I asked, “Who was driving?”
Red pointed the man in front of him with short, dark hair. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his lip was bleeding.
Stepping behind the blond one, I pulled out my pocketknife and cut the zip tie that bound his wrists.
“Rooster,” Eagle said. But I held a hand up.
“It’s alright. C’mon then. You’re not tied up now. And they won’t interfere,” I said calmly, my hands by my sides.
He sniffed, wiping his nose and looking at the blood smeared across his hand. “He was driving, not me, stupid.”
Taking a deep breath, I rushed him, grabbing the back of his head, then slamming his face down on the wooden bench built into the wall.
A loud pop was followed by a spray of blood over the bench.
When he fell to the ground, I took a swift kick to his gut, then when he rolled, another to the side of his head.
He rolled further, trying to escape my reach. But I followed, kicking him into the back wall. I grabbed his arm, twisting it behind him until I heard a snap, and he wailed.
Red and Eagle laughed behind me as I pulled the arm higher, sending another loud cry from the piece of shit.
“C’mon, man,” I said in an even tone. “You said you weren’t a little bitch.”
He screamed again as I pulled at the broken arm. “He was driving, man!”
“Shut up,” the dark-haired one called out.
Shoving his face to the floor, I rested my knee on his neck, bent down with my knife, then grabbed his leather and cut it down the middle, patch and all.
“You don’t deserve to wear colors, even if they’re the enemy, you little fucker.
And if he was driving, that meant you planned to grab her, or worse.
” Both were dead men walking, but I had a special hatred for the fucker who was going to put his hands on Sparrow.
I spit before standing up, then got one more kick in. Not taking my eyes off him, I asked, “Now why the fuck were you following my woman?”
Neither of them spoke up. Not surprising. But I had a feeling if either of them talked, it would be blondie. I paced around the small space for a few seconds, then headed toward him.
He got bold and stood, his leather falling off his shoulders. His momentum only helped me grab him by the shirt and leg, lifting him high before slamming him down. The building shook and Eagle said, “Don’t break the floor, man,” with a chuckle.
I didn’t laugh. I wanted answers. Shoving my knee to his back, I grabbed his short ponytail and lifted his head. “Tell me, motherfucker,” I said through clenched teeth.
His jaw was set tightly and he reached back, trying to grab me. I slammed his face back to the floor several times, then slammed my knife down through his hand, pinning it to the floor. He cried out, trying to grab the knife with his other hand.
With a swift move, I grabbed it, breaking the four fingers in an easy snap. His scream was piercing.
Knowing he wouldn’t be able to grab it now, I stood, walking to the workbench.
“Talk,” Red instructed one of them. My back was turned, so I could only assume it was the dark-haired one.
“I’m not saying shit.”
Grabbing some pliers, I turned. Blondie was trying to get the knife out using his thumb and palm. I walked over and with another quick twist, broke his thumb. He let out another wail.
“Turn around,” I told the dark-haired one.
Red grabbed his cut and lifted him, pushing him so he had to turn.
“His loyalty sucks. We’ve established that. Yours seems solid so far, but someone is going to talk,” I said, squeezing the pliers.
“I’m dead anyway, man,” he told me casually.
“That’s true,” I answered. “But if you want a quick and easy death, I’d suggest talking. Otherwise, this may take a while. And I got nothing else to do.”
They both stayed silent, so I walked over to blondie and pressed my boot over the fingers of the impaled hand. Leaning down, I gripped a fingernail with the tip of the pliers, then started to pull up.
He flailed the broken hand at me, but I just leaned away. I already had the nail in my grasp. His screams were pitiful and broken. Once I slowly worked that one off, I moved to the next.
Through his screams, a voice behind me said, “Alright, alright. You guys fucked us on the smash and grab with the rancher. We’d seen the whores before and knew their neighborhood. It was easy enough to do a cross-reference and find out where.”
Yanking the next nail up and off, I waited for the yell to subside, then I turned. “Okay, but why? They didn’t fuck up your job. We did.”
“We saw them take off with you. We assumed you were together.”
Stepping closer to him, I leaned down a little. “So you went to her place, looking for them to find us?”
He nodded. “But they weren’t home. We grabbed a few things for our guy, then took off. He found their cell numbers and tracked some messages. We got sent here to do intel on DEMC.”
“What about her cousin?” I asked.
“The other one? Someone else was handling that. I don’t know.”
Standing, I asked, “So it wasn’t even about them? You just used them to track us?”
“And the rancher.”
“So, you were working for someone, a different rancher. Is that it?”
“We don’t work for nobody.” Sweat rolled down his face. “We were offered some money to handle that guy’s load.”
“You only in Cincy?”
“We’re everywhere, man,” he said with a bloody grin.
“Not here, though,” Eagle said. “We ran you fuckers right out of town.”
“Can’t speak for this area. I wasn’t down here until this assignment.
But best believe, for every one of us you kill, two more join.
You fucking clubs with your rules and codes are outdated, man.
You’re a stain on the life,” he said with a sneer.
“Hellbound Heathens are gonna restore what it used to be like. We take what the fuck we want, when we want it. And whether you want to admit it or not, you wish you could live like that. But don’t worry… we’re all hellbound in the end.”
With the pliers still in my grasp, I shoved them right into his eye socket, sending him backwards with a howl.
They were just using the women to get to us. And he confirmed what we thought: They were just a gang of lawless assholes, willing to pillage or deal with anyone.
“Kill me, asshole. You promised a quick death,” he spat out as he rolled on his side, holding the pliers coming from his eye.
“Promised?” I chuckled. “I don’t make promises to heathens. But don’t worry. You’ll meet your destiny soon enough.”