BONUS SCENE ozzy
He scoffs haughtily the moment I walk into the room, but my focus is directed at Torin, kicked back in a rickety chair with a blunt and a book in his hand. His ankles are propped against one of the thick pillars, and he could give a fuck that De Leon is bloody and bruised.
He wants him dead.
Just like me and every one of my brothers.
Except Torin left him off his leash. No longer is he chained up but standing in the middle of the room with a bunch of The Nameless and Forsaken Crew around him. Masked men stand at attention, waiting for any commotion that could happen. While most of our crew are leaning up against the walls, appearing bored out of their minds.
My brother is well protected, but I don’t get the gist of why De Leon is out of anything when I enter the warehouse. However, my brother is quick to fill me in when he glances up at me.
“Sup, Oz?”
“Why is he out of his chains?”
He smirks, closes his book, and rises to stand while stealing a hit of his weed. “Thought we could use the extra fun.”
Our definitions are different.
However, I can’t say my interest isn’t piqued.
“What are you two going to do?” Matteo exhorts with a sneer. “Fuck each other in front of me? Because lemme tell you, that’s torture enough.”
Torin lifts an eyebrow but doesn’t bother glancing over at him. “See what I’ve been dealing with?”
He’s dealt with worse.
Tossing his book to the chair, Torin offers me his blunt. “Hold this for me, brother. I need both hands.”
I pluck it from his grasp and then watch him beeline toward De Leon on a mission.
“Oh, no,” Matteo taunts. “What’s the entitled little prince gonna do to me now?”
“Fight me,” Torin deadpans, stopping within two feet of him.
Meanwhile, Matteo gapes at him. “You want me to, what?”
My brother doesn’t repeat himself; it’s one of his pet peeves. Instead, he delivers a punch to De Leon’s face so hard it sends Bay’s ex stumbling back several steps.
But Torin knew what he was doing.
Matteo is quick to react, rushing him out of anger and not smarts. Torin is quick to get out of his way before he trips him up and sends De Leon to the floor.
“Motherfucker!” he roars, turning on his side to get up, but Torin delivers a few kicks to his gut and keeps going.
“This is how you did it, right?” Torin carps out furiously. “This is how you murdered my kid ?”
De Leon tries his best to block the shots, but he never knows where Torin is going to land.
Stomach, chest, legs, and, not surprisingly, his junk.
“Time’s up for you, De Leon,” Torin announces sardonically. “That’s the last fuckin’ time you touch my girl.”
He uppercuts Matteo with his foot, sending his head back, and that’s when Torin eases up a bit.
But not before circling him like the prey he is.
“You know, if you would’ve played your cards right, Bay would’ve stayed with you. It took me weeks to get her to break down and give me what I wanted. To the point where when she saw me, she came without me asking.”
Matteo groans, probably trying to get out some words, but he fails miserably through his pain.
“No, her voice isn’t that deep,” Torin mocks, getting to his haunches behind Matteo. “But you probably got the fake shit, huh? Her just mewling and pleading…for you to hurry up.”
De Leon growls, deep in his chest. “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, it’s plain as day, friend. She can’t stand being within a hundred yards of you. In fact, she runs the other way.”
“Brainwashed.”
Torin chuckles mirthlessly and smacks the back of Matteo’s head. “Right. Keep feeding yourself that line of bullshit.” He looks up to the men lining the room. “Get him up.”
A few of the Forsaken Crew immediately come to order, prying Matteo to his feet while The Nameless hang back.
“Give him a knife,” Torin commands, rolling his shoulders once while our men send him a confused glance. But it’s quickly recanted when one of the men provides De Leon with said weapon. “I need to make this even somehow, right, De Leon? You were never much of a fighter. I like to make it fair so you can go to sleep knowing without a doubt you aren’t shit.”
“I beat your ass in Shoreline Peaks just fine, puta .”
Torin gives him an unimpressed raise of his expression. “You had three other guys. And you landed one punch.”
“ Bullshit .”
My brother scoffs with a chuckle and waves Matteo forward with one hand. “Well, here’s your perfect opportunity to prove me wrong, then. One on one.”
Bay is going to kill me if she finds out I allowed her ex to fight Torin with a six-inch blade.
However, this needs to happen. And Torin has a lot of pent-up aggression he needs to release and get out.
Matteo begins to circle my brother while Torin mocks him, careful to keep him in sight at all times. De Leon is so predictable, it’s almost secondhand embarrassment.
He tries to inch on my brother without him noticing, but he waits too long, and his steps are too wide. Torin jumps back when Matteo swings his blade, going for his gut first, then his head.
And my brother, all he does is laugh.
“Think outside the box, Matt,” Torin taunts with a smirk. “That’s what she calls you, right? Cute little pet name—” Matteo lunges again, almost nicking Torin in the side, which prompts Torin to whoop in excitement.
“Damn, almost got me there. Keep it up. You’re doing great.”
Matteo’s upper lip curls back, but he keeps circling Torin. “You think you’re so tough, Wildes. You don’t know the struggle or how to keep people in line even if they did it themselves.”
“Do tell. And this time, say it with your chest, De Leon.”
“You think you’ve got this all figured out. The Landings, Bay, your little crew . The thing is, you give her too much power. A power she’s going to use against you when she climbs on the Fifth Titan seat.”
He knows she has the Fifth seat.
It’s not exactly a huge secret, but I’m not a fan of him knowing. I don’t like that he knows anything about her.
“That’s why I always made her remember who was boss,” Matteo claims evenly. “That little bitch is hard headed. Always wanting to push the bar but see, I instilled fear in her. Something she still feels ’til this day.”
“Not enough if she was willing to risk it all to be with me.”
Matteo flings the knife in a failed attempt to hit Torin, but it clinks to the concrete. “ That bitch will pay for all her indiscretions against me. She knows what will happen when I get my hands on her. And if she thought it was bad before, I’m worse now.”
“What did you do?” Torin presses, his gaze flicking to mine for the briefest of seconds before landing back on De Leon. “Smack her?”
Matteo chuckles with malice. A hardened sound alluding to it being anything but. “What didn’t I do to that girl? Waterboarding, public humiliation because she wanted to be a whore behind my back. The boys loved using her to stroke their cocks to. All that cum, Wildes…there was loads and loads of it, and I wouldn’t allow her to shower them off because you wanted to get inside, didn’t you? Then there was fucking her against her will…”
My blood runs cold as Torin’s expression blanches a bit. He doesn’t scowl. He doesn’t show any emotion, but I know the comment hit exactly where it did for me.
And it was in the gut.
“She screamed and fuckin’ screamed for me to stop. But all it took was one punch, and she’d shut the hell up.”
“Made you feel like a man, didn’t it, De Leon? Fucking and beating on an innocent girl got your dick hard.”
“I liked Bay,” De Leon replies nonchalantly. “But I didn’t like her enough to be exclusive, but that’s beside the point. I didn’t need to be. I just wanted her power, her heirdom so I could take over the Titan seats. Other than that, I broke her every single fucking day of her life. And I loved it.”
I’d broken her every single fucking day of her life. And I loved it.
That’s what men tried to do to me in prison, especially since I was so young. Some wanted another member of their gang. Others wanted me to be their bitch to fuck whenever they pleased.
I was terrified at night someone would attack or kill me.
Until I began to learn the game.
Bay was in her own confinement with De Leon. He tortured and raped her like she meant nothing to him. As if she was disposable and meant nothing at all but what was owed to her.
That’s all he wanted.
That’s all she’s worth.
This isn’t about old crushes or feelings. It’s the fact that he’ll do anything to get his hands on her again.
“Pretty brave to say for a man who’s never going to walk out of here,” Torin conveys with a bit of grit he can’t hide. “Not a cute look.”
“Not trying to be cute, Wildes. You think you have the upper hand here, and you don’t.”
Hand.
Hands.
He touched Bay.
He still wants to touch Bay.
The hair on my body stands on end in warning that, with him around, she’s not protected. It doesn’t matter how many men we have or what kind of protocols we have in place, a snake always finds a way to slither through a very small area. Whether it be him, one of his men, or anybody else he pays off.
She’s suffered at his hands.
Hands.
Hands.
“I’m going to kill all of you,” De Leon continues through the deafening silence. “And I’m going to make her watch. And when she has no one else to fight for her…I’m going to start picking her apart piece by fucking piece while she screams.”
My vision begins to blur into a state of organic focus.
All I can home in on are his words and truths.
The convictions he lays out against him so freely and emotionlessly.
I broke her every single fucking day of her life. And I loved it.
Mindlessly, I stretch my jaw as his voice infiltrates the airspace, but I don’t concentrate on his words. My brain and body have already locked themselves in place for what I do best.
For what I was built to do best.
One of the men on the Forsaken Crew shifts his weight, causing a small glint of something to catch my eye.
A machete.
It’s Sutherland.
I don’t need to look up to confirm because he’s always preferred sharp objects over lead bullets. He’s one of the most violent members of the Forsaken Crew, and we don’t let him off his leash very much.
The last time we did, he chopped up three men.
Which means his weapon is always sharp.
And painful.
It’s not proper decorum to touch another man’s shit, but my disorderly thoughts don’t take heed to how he’d feel about it.
It’s how I feel that has me unsheathing it from its black holster.
De Leon said he was going to pick Bay off piece by piece when he so-called kills us all off.
And what if he does?
What if, by some miraculous set of luck, Matteo does get the upper hand and takes us all down?
He’s not only going to annihilate Bay physically but mentally, too.
And I would never forgive myself if I ever knew the light from her blue eyes would dim because I did nothing about it.
“—would you like to watch, Wildes?” Matteo carries on as I close the distance between us with determined steps. “Shoving my thick cock inside her little pussy while she screams for you to help. Maybe I’ll permit some of my guys to play along. We’ll stuff her and all her holes?—”
My first swipe of Sutherland’s machete is sloppy at best. I barely get him in my view because I want him to stop talking.
His blood-curdling scream hollows out in my eardrums, but my body—my mission in life —won’t allow me to not see this through.
She’s my wife .
Bay is my reason for existing. I may not be tied to her the way Torin is, but I’d still protect her just the same.
So, when the second hoist of my arm goes up for another shot at Matteo’s arm, I’m surprisingly impressed when I see the limb completely fall off.
Fuckin’ Sutherland is on his shit.
“ The fuck !” Matteo shrieks like a bitch, whipping around to face me. “My arm— Fuck !”
“Oops,” I hear Torin drawl evenly, not bothering to show any means of helping him just yet. “That hurt?”
“ Motherfucker! My—my… ” He glances down at his missing arm. Face blanching of all color when Torin finally motions for his men.
He can’t die because she hasn’t had a shot at him yet.
Torin promised her.
And he won’t let her down.
Neither will I.
Because one way or another, Matteo De Leon is going to die.
But he passes out like a bitch instead.