25. Cupid
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CUPID
“Fucking balls,” Oaks gripes, following me into the damp basement of the bunkhouse next door to Whiskey Wheelers. “I forget how cold it gets down here. My junk’s retreating into my body like a damn turtle.”
He’s not wrong. It may be spring in Colorado, but that doesn’t mean it’s warm, particularly when going into the earth, and these old municipal buildings go deeper than modern builds today. The walls are stone and cold to the touch, making the holding cell for our guest a cold storage locker.
“Suck it up, Oaks. We have work to do,” I say, stepping off the stairs to the stone foundation.
We move down the narrow hall toward the back rooms where a dim bulb is our only light source. The closer we get to our destination, the louder a man can be heard shouting.
Our newest prospect—Cookie—sits on an old crate outside the holding cell, scrolling through his phone and looking bored as hell. He stands when he sees us coming, pocketing his cell and ready to take orders.
“Prez. Oaks,” he greets us with a head nod.
“Cookie,” I say in hello, smiling when I hear the asshole acting up on the other side of the steel door, banging on the metal. “Where’s Crypt?”
“Crypt needed a break from all the yelling. It was setting him off. I offered to stand guard to give him a break.”
I frown, upset with myself for not considering Crypt’s sensitivity to loud noises. If I assign him to guard another prisoner again, I’ll tell him to bring his noise-canceling headphones.
“Thank you for stepping in. I owe Crypt an apology for leaving him to deal with this piece of shit for too long.”
“It’s no problem,” Cookie says.
The pounding on the other side of the door intensifies as if our prisoner has heard our muffled voices and realizes he has an audience to curse at.
“He doesn’t sound too happy,” I say, my tone amused.
“Not very appreciative of our accommodations, I guess,” Oaks says with a chuckle.
Cookie shrugs. “He’s a bit of a complainer. Nothing I can’t handle.”
To show how he’s handling our prisoner, Cookie pulls out a small black box from his back pocket. It gives off a high-pitched whine when he turns it on. Cookie presses it against the steel door, and the man yelps on the other side.
Jesus Christ! Cookie just tased our prisoner with a stun gun.
“What the fuck, Cookie! I need him alive for questioning.”
“Chill, Prez. The steel door is highly conductive, meaning when an electric current is applied it has less resistance than a human body and the charge is grounded.”
Oaks and I blink at the young prospect, not following a damn word he said. “Speak to us like we’re wet behind the ears,” Oaks suggests.
“He got a slight shock—not tased. It shuts him up for a while.”
“Oooh,” Oaks and I say in unison, realizing the guy is fine—for now.
“We knew that,” I say quickly, feeling stupid for not paying more attention in high school physics class.
“Totally knew that sciency stuff,” Oaks adds, playing along.
“Why don’t you go get Crypt and Ruger? They can bring our guest into the storage room,” I say, getting back on track.
“You want to move him across the hall?” Cookie asks, his brows pinching together.
“It’s the only area big enough that has a drain in the floor,” I explain.
Oaks grimaces, and the prospect’s brows shoot to his hairline when he catches on to what I’m saying. He gives me a quick nod before rushing up the stairs.
Less than ten minutes later, Crypt and Ruger wrestle our prisoner into the storage room and restrain his tied wrists to a hook on a pulley system hanging from the support beam on the high ceiling. The asshole shouts every insult in the book, his voice thick with a Slavic accent.
Cipher enters the storage area with two laptops. “You should be able to contact Atlas without communication issues—I’ve got the leaky feeder system running on this laptop. I’ll have my other on standby in case the Russian reveals anything we need to do a deep dive on.”
“Good work, Cipher. Get Atlas and his crew on the computer,” I say, circling the man who tried to abduct my woman. “I want to get this shit over with and get back home to my ole lady.”
“When are you going to introduce her to the crew, Prez?” Crypt asks, rolling out his tools of torture along the wood workbench, unfazed with what he’s about to do to the fucker hanging from the ceiling.
Oaks wrinkles his nose at the mixture of rusted tools and shiny medical equipment in Crypt’s arsenal, anticipating the gore. Ruger chuckles at his discomfort, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against the wall to get comfortable for the show.
“When she decides she’s ready. For now, she rests. Psyche has been through a lot thanks to these assholes,” I answer Crypt before punching our prisoner in the kidney.
The prisoner cries out, his face pinched with pain.
Scalpel enters the storage room looking as angry as a hornet’s nest. “Crypt, you klepto! Give me my medical tools back.”
“Oh, good! You’re here,” Crypt says, unaware of how miffed Scalpel is with him raiding his medical bag. “Come and get some gloves on.”
Scalpel glowers at him. “You took my stuff on purpose, knowing I’d come down here after them, didn’t you?”
Crypt shrugs, unabashed. “Two hands are better than one. You can help me when we get to the flaying part of tonight’s activities.”
“Fuck, no! Please no flaying this time,” Oaks says, turning green. “That shit is gross.”
“Do you prefer the term skinning instead?” Crypt asks, his face composed as he snaps his gloves into place.
Oaks blanches. “No. No skinning.”
“Death by a thousand cuts?” Ruger offers as an alternative, taunting him further.
“No! I know that’s the same thing.”
We all laugh—well, minus Oaks and the prisoner. They look equally sick with our dark humor.
“Fuck all of you,” Oaks mutters, pouting as he takes a seat on a barrel in the far corner of the room. “Don’t ask me to take part. Last time I helped, the dude vomited all over my boots.”
“Don’t worry, Oaks,” I say, staring at the prisoner. His chest rises and falls quickly as he gawks me back, a dark spot spreading over his crotch where he pissed himself. “I’ll be doing the really ugly work.”
“Ah, come on, Prez,” Crypt whines. “You know I enjoy the messy parts.”
“He hurt my Butterfly,” I say, making sure the prisoner understands why he’s getting what comes to him. “He’s mine to end, but you can certainly help.”
Crypt relents, nodding in agreement. “Fair.”
“Connecting the call,” Cipher says from where he’s set up against the wall. He turns the laptop screen in my direction. I laugh at the video image the Mercy Ravens see, showing our prisoner hanging on his hook beside me, like a fisherman posing with one of his giant catches.
A biker I recognize as Chase—the Mercy Ravens MC head of tech—sits in front of the screen with Atlas, Gauge, and a few others from their crew standing behind him.
“Atlas,” I say in a warm greeting, opening my arms wide. “Welcome to the party. Let me introduce you to the pig of the hour.”
“He looks like he’s had a rough twenty-four hours,” Atlas says impassively, assessing our prisoner with cold eyes.
“About to get a lot rougher for him if he doesn’t start talking,” I say before slapping him in the balls.
The prisoner screams behind his clenched teeth, sucking wind.
“Find anything on his identity?” Cipher asks Chase, sounding eager to hear what he may have uncovered through his hacking.
“Had to do a bit of digging, but I found him,” Chase says.
“His name is Artem Morozov from Shakhty, Russia. Age thirty-two. He did time in IK-9 along with his twin brother, Mikhail Morozov, for running an illegal gambling ring. After their release from prison, the brothers moved to Moscow, where they joined the Sokolov Bratva and were essentially yes-men, doing the dirty work. When a turf war broke out between the Sokolov and the Gromov Bratvas, it was assumed the competition took the brothers out when they went missing. Turns out Artem fled to the States and hitched a ride with the Black Market Railroad. My guess, his brother, Mikhail, escaped the Bratva turf war with him. Maybe he was one of the other masked abductors the night they tried to take your ole lady, Cupid. And based on the look of fury on your captive’s face hearing me mention his brother’s name, I’d put five-Gs down on that bet. ”
All heads turn to our prisoner. Sure as shit, Artem looks downright murderous, glaring daggers.
“The Black Market Railroad is a large organization with multiple branches across the country,” Atlas says, bringing the conversation back on track. “We need to know who is running this branch of the operation and how big a territory they’re covering.”
Understood.
Facing Artem, I ask, “Who’s your handler?”
“Отвали!”
Ruger chuckles. “He’s a spicy one, ain’t he?”
“You are a dog,” Artem snaps in his direction, making Ruger laugh harder.
I smack Artem on the cheek, making him flinch. It gets his attention. “I’m only going to ask you one more time. Who is your handler?”
Artem spits on my cut, disrespecting me and my club. My men hiss, fists clenching and knuckles cracking.
“Fuck you and your whore,” Artem says with a sneer. “When Mikhail finds her again, I hope he fucks her dead.”
“Shit.” Atlas groans on the other end of the laptop, knowing the gloves are off.
Nobody disrespects me or the club without suffering serious bodily harm. That he threatened my Butterfly means the punishment will be extra excruciating.
Wiping his spit off my cut, I calmly walk to the workbench where Crypt has all his tools laid out. My enforcer watches me intently, waiting to see what torture instrument I pick first.
“Cupid,” Atlas says through the laptop, trying to break through my murderous mindset. “Before you mess him up, we need answers.”
“You’ll get them,” I say confidently, picking up a double-crush emasculator tool used for livestock. A perfect instrument to use on a monster that preys on women.
“Great choice, Prez,” Crypt says, rubbing his hands together enthusiastically.