Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
GRANITE
A river of crimson flowed across the floor, rounding my boot. It was beautiful, soothing, calming. Knowing it was Python blood freed me of my guilt for a few moments. I chose to savor those moments because soon the peace would be gone, replaced by the suffocating remorse.
The poor fuck screamed as Ink pressed the scorching hot blade against his cheek. I could hear the sizzle as his flesh seared and melted. When Ink pulled his knife away, the charred skin bubbled with blood and ooze.
We’d been pulling this man apart for the last two hours.
It was easy to lure him here with a whore spitting promises of sucking his dick.
But rather than finding pleasure, he strolled right into a fuck-load of pain waiting for him in an abandoned building far away from where anyone could hear him scream.
Now he was hanging from the ceiling, wrists tied above his head with chains holding him in place.
Ink took the blowtorch and heated the knife again. Judging by the malice painted across his skin, Ink was far from done.
“Fuck it.” Ink tossed the knife aside and rounded to stand behind the Python, who had been weeping. With every tear that crossed his burned flesh, he screamed even harder. Nothing like salt on open wounds.
“Granite, you got another knife?”
I plucked one out of the side of my boot and handed it to him.
“What…please…” the SOB begged, but his voice was barely audible, exhausted as fuck.
I moved to stand behind Ink, wanting to watch what his evil mind was going to make him do now.
It was entertaining as hell, watching his demons give him the strength to torture the shit out of this man.
And by shit…I meant shit. He had pissed himself twice, and judging by the putrid smell that clung to the air in the small, confined space we were in, I’d say he shit himself as well.
Ink took my knife and tore through the guy’s shirt. The Python cried out, a streak of blood running down his spine. Ink didn’t exactly care whether he sliced the fucker’s skin while he tore through the fabric.
Ink lit the blowtorch, glanced over his shoulder, and winked at me. “Time to get extreme. I’d close my ears if I were you.”
“Nah. Make him scream me a melody.”
Ink laughed. “Got it, boss man.”
The Python tried to look over his shoulder. “Please…what are you—” And then he screamed. No, he fucking wailed and shrieked, the sound reaching a pitch it hadn’t before.
Ink moved the blowtorch—slowly, torturously—the flame burning the skin of the guy’s back.
On and on and on the screams went, an unending sonnet of pain and suffering. It was fucking beautiful. Mix those tormented sounds with the horrid stench of burning flesh, and we had ourselves a fucking party.
Ink laughed manically, consumed by rage and a hunger for torture.
Abruptly, the screams stopped, the Python’s head lolling to the front.
Ink looked at me. “Did the fucker pass out? Tell me the fucker didn’t pass out.”
“Yup. He passed out. Or he’s dead.”
“Seriously? This was just starting to get fun.” Ink threw the blowtorch down on the ground, annoyed that our little Python voodoo doll decided to check out.
I walked around, stared at the fucker’s mutilated face, one ear cleanly cut off, an eye shut and still bleeding from my thumb I had forced into his eye socket earlier. I placed a finger to his neck, not caring that he was covered in blood. My hands were already soaked with it.
“Yup. He’s dead.”
“Oh, come on!” Ink threw my knife across the room and against the wall. “I still have a list of shit I want to do to this motherfucker.”
Stepping back around, I stopped beside him and stared at the corpse’s back. “Nice,” I commented, admiring Ink’s handiwork—a giant, distorted K burned into the flesh. A cruel way of engraving our mark on the fucker’s flesh.
“Symbolic, right?” Ink grinned. “From now on, every one of these fuckers will have this burned into their flesh for what they did to her.”
“Yeah, I feel ya.” I leaned back against the wall and lit a cigarette, taking the time to soak it all in. Soon, the adrenaline would subside, and guilt would once again take its place, so I appreciated every goddamn second of relief this bloody scene brought me.
I looked over to where Ink was standing.
His face was covered in blood, his eyes wide and unsatisfied.
It was safe to assume he wasn’t experiencing these moments of calm.
Quiet. The demon raging in him was too strong to be sated by blood and death.
It wanted more. It wanted annihilation, war, total chaos.
I tossed my cigarette in a pool of blood, picked up the severed finger, and placed it in the zip-lock bag I brought along specially for it.
Slither would receive yet another package with this little surprise in it.
Symbolic for the finger he cut off Neon’s hand.
Fucker wanted a finger, well, Ink and I would send him several.
Taking a seat across from the hanging corpse, I brushed my fingers up and down my beard. “You don’t blame me. Why?”
Ink didn’t look at me. He was too busy taking mental pictures of the mutilated body and the Python torn into shreds. “I don’t blame you. I blame them.” He nodded toward the corpses.
“It’s because of me—”
“It’s because of you and your father that I’m still breathing today. I’ll always be grateful for that.”
I placed my elbows on my knees and leaned forward. “Even after what happened.”
“Nah, dude.” He crouched while holding the knife in his hand.
“You did what you had to do. You had no other choice, and I respect that. I’m not blaming anyone other than these motherfuckers.
Besides,” he leaned his head back against the wall, “you’ve been beating yourself up enough.
You don’t need me or anyone else to make it worse. ”
I snorted. “You’re just being nice because I’m helping you sate that bloodlust of yours. I’m the Robin to your fucking Batman.”
Ink let out a half attempt at a laugh. “Dude, I won’t lie.
It feels good slicing my blade across these fuckers’ throats, hearing them gargle and choke on their own fucking blood.
But you and I both know you need this just as much as I do, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.
” He eyed me pointedly. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be keeping this a secret from the rest of the club.
You’re afraid they won’t agree and end up forcing us to stop by voting against it at church. Especially Dutch.”
I shrugged. “True. But something tells me we won’t get any shit from the others by doing this. Everyone is hurt because of what happened. Not just us.”
Ink got up and placed his knife back in his pocket.
“Tell them, then. Tell the rest what we’ve been doing the last few nights, and that we’ve buried five Pythons already.
Just remember, you’re the president. I’m not.
No matter what they vote, I’m not stopping until my blade is jammed in Slither’s spine.
I won’t stop, Granite. Even if it means costing me my seat at the goddamn table. ”
I got up and walked over, not in the least bothered by the fact that I was stepping in a dead man’s blood. I placed my hand on his shoulder. “I swear to you that Slither will burn in hell for what he did. And nothing or no one will take your place at the Kings table. You got it?”
Ink’s lips were pulled in a straight line, and up close it seemed like he had aged years over the last few days. “I want to be the one who does it.”
“Does what?”
“I want to be the one who sends that motherfucker to hell. Me. Can you promise me that?” The determination in his eyes, and the way his face remained stone as he stared at me, told me there was only one thing that would ultimately make him able to breathe again.
It was the same thing that had been paving this path we had been on for years.
Revenge.
At that moment, there wasn’t anything I wanted more than to be the one who drove a knife through that bastard’s black heart. But Ink needed it more than I did, and my guys were more important to me than my need to spill blood.
“You have my word.”
He slapped his hand on my shoulder. “Thanks, bro. Just,” he scrunched his nose, “let’s not ever talk about my place in the club like it’s some fucking King Arthur movie, okay? Good God,” he brushed past me, “referring to it as my place at the table sounds all kinds of wrong.”
I let out a laugh. “You started it.”
“Yeah, well…I make it sound cool. You just fucked it up when you said it.”
“Good to know you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”
He glanced over his shoulder with a cocked brow. “Sense of humor? Dude, I could not be more serious right now.”
I smirked. One thing was for sure—our club would not be the same without this man.
“Yo, Ink.”
“Yeah?” He turned to face me.
“I’ll make this right for her. For Neon.”
He nodded. “Nah, man. You got it wrong. We’ll make it right for her.” With that, he left. I stayed behind, listening as he made the call to send a clean-up crew.
I glanced down at my hands, blood stuck in the corners of my nails. Like every one of these fuckers we tortured and killed, I had Neon’s blood on my hands as well. And in some poetic way, Alyx’s too.
For a moment, I closed my eyes, thinking of how it felt to be with her, against her, inside her.
It felt better than I ever could have imagined.
Being president of one of the biggest motorcycle clubs in New York didn’t make me feel as powerful as it did when she finally surrendered herself to me.
For a hardened man like myself, those moments with her, experiencing that euphoria was the closest I’d ever get to feeling the kind of emotion that stemmed from a person’s soul.
God! I didn’t want it to fucking end. But it did. Badly.
Deep down, I had always known the day would come when I’d ruin my pretty ballerina girl. But I took her anyway, corrupted her, then tore her apart. I couldn’t stop myself because I wanted her too much.
Selfish fucker.