Chapter 16 #2
“Who the fuck are you?” he eventually asks, scrambling to his feet.
I inhale a sharp breath through my nose and crack my knuckles as I take a step towards him. “I’m the Grim Reaper,” I growl. “Your worst fucking nightmare.”
As I advance toward him, I notice his bike helmet sitting on the workbench, so I reach for it.
My fingers curl around the strap, and the second I’m within swinging distance, I lift my arm, smashing him in the side of the head. I move so quickly he doesn’t have time to react. The force of the blow is so powerful that I not only knock the fucker off his feet, I knock him the hell out.
I glance down at his unmoving form, and the first thing I think is, shit, I hope I haven’t killed him. The fun hasn’t even started yet.
I take a step closer, kicking him in the ribs, and when he groans in pain, a sadistic grin curves my lips.
Reaching down, I fist his leather vest in my hand, dragging him to his feet in one swift motion. His boots scrape across the concrete, and his head lolls to one side; he’s still out of it, floating somewhere between high as a kite and comatose.
I steady him long enough to get a better look at the space around us. The exposed rafters above catch my eye, thick beams running the length of the garage. My gaze moves over the cluttered shelves, the mess stacked in the corners, and the old tools hanging crooked on the wall.
I need some rope or wire so I can string him up. I want to secure him until he’s fully conscious. It’s important he feels every little thing I do to him. Just like Emily did when he put his hands on her.
Footsteps approach the open doorway behind me, and when I glance back, I find Romeo leaning a shoulder against the frame, his eyes flicking from the bikie to me as he casually takes in the scene.
“Need a hand?”
I nod. “I need some rope or something I can use to string him up.”
Romeo steps inside without another word, circling the space as if he owns it. His eyes scan the shelves and the piles of junk. His hand trails along a workbench covered in dust and discarded parts until he finds a drawer and yanks it open with a grunt.
When he doesn’t find what he needs, he keeps moving. He crouches near a stack of old paint cans, reaches behind them, and pulls out a length of thick, braided rope that looks like it hasn’t seen daylight in years. He holds it up, brows raised.
“That’ll do,” I say.
Romeo doesn’t hesitate. He steps beneath the rafters and tosses one end of the rope upwards, threading it cleanly over the beam on the first try. The loose end drops back down, thudding softly against his shoulder.
I grab the bikie’s belt when he starts to twitch in my grip, to steady him, and that’s when I see the small leather pouch clipped to it. Inside is a flick knife. I flip it open and test the blade with my thumb. Sharp enough.
I toss it to Romeo and watch as he uses it to trim the rope to the length we need.
“Give me his arm,” Romeo says.
I shove him closer, and one of his hands comes up on instinct. Romeo catches it without missing a beat, binding it tight. The other arm fights harder, flailing in a useless, sloppy panic. I pin it to his side, so Romeo can secure that one too.
The rope goes taut, and Romeo gives me a look, a silent question.
I nod, and he pulls.
The bikie’s boots lift clear off the floor by an inch, just enough that he can’t get his footing. He kicks and thrashes, his breath now coming out in frantic bursts, but it doesn’t matter. He’s not going anywhere.
Romeo ties off the line, steps back to admire his handiwork, dusts his hands off, and turns towards the door. “I’ll leave you to it.”
Now that my hands are free and he’s contained, I take a slow breath, letting the stillness settle into my bones.
With him helplessly hanging and swaying, I finally have the space to move.
To think. To walk the garage and look at him from every angle, study every flinch, every twitch of awareness creeping back into his fogged-up brain.
I want him lucid enough to understand exactly why this is happening and why he should never have put his hands on his woman.
“What do you want from me?” the bikie piece of shit murmurs. “If you want the drugs, take them, just don’t hurt me.”
I chuckle as I step towards the workbench and scoop up a rancid, oily rag, cramming it so deep into his mouth he has no chance of removing it. I’m not interested in anything this motherfucker has to say.
“I don’t want your filthy drugs,” I grumble, pausing for a second to pick up a large steel wrench. “What I want is your broken corpse rotting six feet under. What I want is justice for Emily.”
His eyes widen at the mention of her name, but I don’t give him time to digest that information. My arm snaps back, and I swing the wrench with enough force to shatter his kneecap.
That one was for Lucia; every hit he gets from here on out is all me.
He throws his head back, a muffled scream tearing loose from his throat. “Buckle up, arsehole,” I growl as I move to his other knee. “I’m just getting started. By the time I finish with you, you’ll be begging for me to end you.”
“Fucking hell,” Romeo mutters, a slow whistle slipping between his teeth, when he enters the garage half an hour later. “No wonder they call you Dead End Rizzo. Remind me never to piss you off.”
Sweat collects on my forehead, my chest heaving with each ragged breath. The bikie is still hanging limply from the rafters, but he’s barely recognisable. He’d be lucky if he had a single bone in his body still intact.
He lost consciousness a good ten minutes ago, but that didn’t halt my attack.
The bastard probably received more than I intended to dish out, but somewhere along the way, I got flashes of my mum cowering on the floor with my father standing over her with his arm raised, ready to strike.
With a sobbing Violet wrapped in my arms.
That helplessness I felt back then came rushing back to the surface, unleashing a whole other monster.
I prefer to use my hands in situations like this, but tonight I opted for the tools I found lying around in the garage. I don’t want to go back to the house with bruised and bloody knuckles. Emily can never know what went on here. All that matters is he can’t hurt her ever again.
He messed with someone who means something to me. What exactly that is, I’m yet to fully identify, but he fucked around and found out the hard way. The lethal way.
The Cosa Nostra has no beef with the Steel Reapers, so once we clean this place up and make sure he, his bike, and the drugs disappear, it’ll look like he just vanished without a trace.
Maybe they’ll think he did a runner with the stash.
I honestly don’t care what story his bikie brothers settle on, as long as none of it touches Emily.
“Where’s he going to end up?” I ask. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted to know, but with this one, I need to.
“His bike’s already on its way to the chop shop. He’ll go into a fresh grave at the cemetery, covered with quicklime. The boys found one that looked only a few days old. They’re clearing the topsoil now while they wait for the body.”
That’s how it usually goes when the mob wants someone to vanish indefinitely. If they don’t leave the dead where they fall as a message, they hide them under a slab of concrete or slip them into someone else’s grave, forever swallowed up by the earth and forgotten.
It’s an old trick in our world—used for generations—because a fresh grave means no new dirt turned, no questions asked, and no one noticing a body that isn’t supposed to be there. It’s twisted, but it works.
Romeo and I dropped Emily’s pot plants at my place on the way home, a row of silent witnesses now sitting in my back yard, reminding me of the mess we just cleaned up.
I’m not sure how I’m going to explain how her plants ended up here, but hopefully I’ll come up with something believable before I’m asked.
Preferably something that doesn’t unravel the whole night.
Lucia is still awake when we arrive back at the house.
I think she’s eager to find out how things went, but I won’t be telling her shit.
Not even the kneecap I took out in her name.
The less she knows, the better. Fewer details mean fewer chances something slips, which is why those damn plants are already stressing me the fuck out.
I don’t even know why I took them. That’s a lie, yes, I do. They mean something to her, and she’s already lost enough.
I trust Lucia completely, but trust doesn’t erase risk. Emily may have wanted out of her relationship with that guy, but I doubt she wanted him dead. No one needs the weight of our choices on their conscience.
“How’d it go?” Lucia asks, rubbing her small hands together.
“How’d what go?” Romeo counters, and I roll my lips to hide my grin. I’m glad we’re on the same page. Tight story, tighter mouths.
“Don’t play coy with me, De Luca.” Her comeback has me chuckling under my breath.
“We went for a drive. End of story.”
“Ugh. Liar.”
“Did Emily wake while we were gone?” I ask, stepping in before this turns into a fight I don’t have the patience for.
“No.”
“Do you mind if I have a shower here?”
“Of course not. Are you going to sleep in the room with Peach or Emily’s bed?” she asks, waggling her eyebrows.
I grunt and turn towards the hallway. I’m not even going to entertain that question with an answer.
I grab clean clothes from my bag and slip into the bathroom, the door clicking softly behind me. The water’s cold at first, shocking me awake, so I turn up the heat and step fully under the spray, letting it rain over me, washing off the grime, the sweat, and the remnants of what I’ve done.
My mind races, replaying every choice, every decision that led me here, and even in the quiet of the shower, I can’t shake the unease that comes with the unknown. Most of my childhood was spent never knowing what came next, and I carried that into adulthood.
Tomorrow’s a blank page. I don’t know what it’ll bring, but I hope, in some small way, it’s a fresh start for Emily.