Chapter Ten
Griffin
We only used this basement room when the person we “invited” inside wouldn’t be leaving alive.
Didn’t happen often, but when we used the place, the person being worked over inside deserved everything we did to them.
The prospect limped between Inferno and Tiny, acting like he still had something left to bargain with, but you could see his fear, if not his resignation.
I watched Knuckles shut the door and heard the lock click. Now, we’d find out what this guy knew.
Tiny shoved him into the chair bolted to the concrete floor.
The kid was mid-twenties, mouth swelling from where Diesel’s elbow had found him in the hall back at Veda’s, right eye half-lidded.
He wore a Steel Serpents cut. A brittle kind of cockiness had him raising his chin.
Maybe he thought this was the start of a negotiation. He’d learn different soon enough.
Tiny zip-tied his arms at the forearms and wrists to the chair arms, then pulled the strap tight around each ankle until the plastic bit into his flesh.
Tiny could scare most men just by being present.
At seven feet tall, Tiny weighed in over three hundred pounds, every single ounce of it muscle.
And a lot of it. Every time the prospect glanced up, he found Tiny’s gaze and flinched away.
Inferno stood at the back wall, shadow carved deep across the Phoenix ink on his neck, arms crossed. I grimaced. I liked the guy, but I hated working with him.
I grabbed the battered metal chair from under the worktable and swung it around, sat astride it with my forearms on the backrest.
Knuckles leaned into the doorframe long enough to meet my gaze, arms folded, waiting until I focused on him. “Get it all, Griffin. Every single scrap of information he has.” When I nodded, he slipped back outside, door shutting tight. Just us, the prospect, and the consequences now.
“Name,” I said. Flat, conversational, no threat in it.
He tried a grin, like the split in his lip was a badge. “Blaine.”
“You know where you are, Blaine?”
He spat, the blood dark on the concrete. “In the asshole of the fucking world?”
I smirked and held his gaze until he looked away. “Let’s talk about the shipment tomorrow night.”
“Don’t know shit.”
“We both know that’s a lie.”
He snorted out a nervous laugh. “You really think I’m gonna roll over just ‘cause your fuckin’ muscle breathes on me?”
“Here’s your shot,” I said. “Talk to me straight, I see if I can make your night a little less… final.”
“Why the fuck should I? Iron takes me out if I squeal. You assholes do it if I don’t. Looks like my luck’s up either way.”
“It is.”
His eyes widened, like he hadn’t expected me to cop to my plans for his fate. “Then why should I tell you anything? Ain’t nothin’ in it for me.”
“Well,” I said with an evil grin. “You can either die from a bullet to the head, all clean and neat. Or you can last a while. A really, really good. Long. While.”
Blaine tried to stare me down. The effort was almost funny, given the state of his face and the way his hands visibly tightened around the chair arms, straining at the zip ties.
He looked at Tiny, then back at me, and I saw the moment something in him realized the magnitude of shit storm he found himself in. He tried to cover it with bravado.
“Fuck you. You wanna scare me, go ahead. I’ve had worse.” He puffed out his chest, but his forehead beaded with sweat to run down his temples and into his eyes. Yeah. He knew.
I glanced at Inferno, letting the silence grow. Inferno moved in a slow, deliberate way to cross the room. In his hand, he carried a butane torch. Crouching in front of the kid, Inferno raised the torch and a blue flame shot out with a soft whoosh and a continuous hiss.
Blaine squirmed. “Hey, whoa, what the fuck?”
Inferno held the torch level with the kid’s eyes. I nodded to Inferno, just the smallest gesture.
He brought the flame closer, just under the right zip tie at the prospect’s wrist. The kid started screaming before a single flame licked him.
The plastic softened first -- edges greying, beads of chemical smoke drifting up.
The scent of burning flesh wafted around us, and I nearly blanched.
This was why I hated working with Inferno.
“Wait, wait, wait!” his terrified, pain-filled screams echoed through the room. “Goddamn -- God, man! Fuck you! FUCK! I’ll talk! I’ll fucking talk!”
Inferno didn’t blink. Torch stayed in place. The plastic melted at his wrist and his skin reddened and began to blister.
“Who’s on the shipment?” I asked again, raising my voice to be heard over the guy’s continued screams. “When does it move? How many?”
His breathing turned ragged. “Tomorrow night! Two cages -- one’s an SUV, one’s the brown box truck.
Same ones as before. I swear! Iron’s got a crew handling it!
Guys I don’t know, a couple prospects, some freelancers outta Memphis!
Route is west! I don’t know past the roadhouse! That’s not for prospects!”
I nodded again. Inferno snapped the torch off with a loud click. Blaine whimpered, staring at his wrist.
“How many women? What’s the list say?”
“Six, maybe seven. Manifest had five written in, two added last second, special handling. That’s all I got! Please! Please, man, I told you --”
“What kind of special handling?” I stayed on him.
“Shit that don’t go up for sale. Buyer don’t show his face at the club. Club moves ‘em directly.”
I leaned in. “Who put the bounty on Veda?” I already knew, of course. I needed to keep the guy honest. If he told me wrong, I’d know which way to direct my questioning. And how hard he would die if I found out he lied to me.
“Iron,” he answered immediately. “Said she walked out of éclipse with something he wanted. Price is twenty-five large. Don’t care how she’s delivered, just wants her back alive.”
“How’d they know it was her?”
“He found a city camera catching her jump from the second-story window.” His head tipped, a grimace of pain. “She’s dead, man. Iron don’t let things like that go.”
“Names,” I demanded. “Who’s riding on the cages?”
He shook his head, then winced at the movement. “I swear, they don’t tell prospects that. All I got was the manifest call. Not even full names. I can give you road names. Ratchet, Lou, something with a J --”
“Tell me about Tessa Garrison,” I said. Calm as I could fake.
His mouth worked, then dropped open. He saw something in my eyes he didn’t like. “I don’t --”
“Don’t bullshit me. Tessa. Is she on the shipment? And before you try to lie to me, I should warn you, I already know the answer to that question.”
Blaine closed his eyes and let out a long breath. “Iron knew it was about that girl. I overheard him tellin’ someone he never thought the sister would keep coming after the bitch.”
“Who’s the buyer?”
“All I know is what the manifest says. ‘I’ for buyer’s initial. That’s all I got.”
“Who’s ‘I’?” I pushed. “What does that letter mean?”
His head jerked left. “We never know. Prospects never get buyer names, never see the trade. Only patched members know who touches that shit.”
“You telling the truth?”
He let out something between a sob and a laugh. “You can burn my fucking hand off if you want. You already know everything. Everything runs through éclipse. Hand-off point for the whole southeast in Iron’s operation.” His head dropped.
Then the door swung open. Veda stepped into the room, a gun at her side, face blank and set. The way she held herself… I moved without thinking, cutting her off with my body.
“Don’t,” she bit out, her gaze locked on the prisoner.
“Veda, honey, give Griffin the gun and step back. Please.” Knuckles didn’t raise his voice or seem the least bit angry.
“I heard it all.” Her voice shook slightly, but she held herself steady. She didn’t raise the gun, but I didn’t like her having it in her current state of mind. “What’s the condition of the women?”
He shook his head, wretched. “I don’t know.
” Blaine didn’t try to pretend he wasn’t openly crying.
“I swear, prospects don’t get to know most of the shit going on.
We’re given a task and we do it.” He looked up at Veda with a pleading look.
“I know they usually drug the girls to keep them quiet and make them easier to handle.”
Veda stared at the guy for a long time, probably willing herself to be able to read his mind to find the truth she sought. Finally, she turned to me. I met Knuckles’ gaze over her head. He gave a single nod.
I picked up a gun with a silencer and stepped close. Blaine didn’t fight. There was no more bargaining left in him. I pressed the muzzle under his chin and pulled the trigger.
Blood painting the wall behind him in a fan. I let his body slump against the chair, lowered the gun, and gave Knuckles a nod. Tiny and Inferno started the cleanup routine.
I glanced at Veda. She stood with the gun loose at her side, eyes locked on the dead man. She didn’t flinch or recoil. When she finally looked at me, it was with a flat, hard certainty. When I reached for the gun, she didn’t resist or raise it to hand it to me. She let me take it from her safely.
Knuckles jerked his head toward the hallway.
I nudged Veda toward the door. Her hand felt cold when I wrapped mine around it, but she let me lead her up the stairs, to the hallway, and out into the main compound.
The rest of the club was lying low, either because Knuckles had told them to or because they’d caught the tension rolling through the compound.
I walked Veda toward the garage, not thinking about why until we were already inside.
The garage was nearly dark, save for the thin strip of LED lighting over the workbenches. The bikes sat in their usual rows, tanks catching the blue-white glow. I moved to my bike and sat on the overturned milk crate next to it.
Veda stood just inside the door, arms crossed tight, her gaze on the floor. I could see the knuckles of her right hand were white from how hard she was gripping her own arm.
I couldn’t stand to see her like that, so I dropped my gaze to the floor and started wiping down the bike’s already spotlessly gleaming tank.
She waited for a long minute, not moving, not saying anything.
I let her. Sometimes you gotta give people space to come at their own pace.
I knew she hovered close to the breaking point, but I also knew how much she hurt.
Eventually, she crossed the room. She stopped in front of me and didn’t speak, just looked at me for a long moment.
I dropped the rag and wiped my hands on my jeans. “You all right?”
“Don’t ask me that.” I could barely hear her whispered voice.
“Fair enough.”
She waited another moment. Then, “You didn’t have to let me see that. In the basement.”
“You followed us down, so I figured you needed to,” I said.
She nodded, almost like she agreed, but not quite. “Does it always go like that?” Her voice was soft, but there was steel behind it.
“No. Sometimes it’s worse.”
She looked away, at the bike, at the racks of tools, anywhere but my face. “Do you think Tessa’s still alive?”
“I think whether or not she is, we’ll find her. We’ll bring her home to you.”
She finally met my eyes. “I need to know you’ll get whoever’s responsible. Not just because Knuckles or the club says so. I want you to promise me, Griffin. Not them. Me.”
I stood, reaching out to frame her face with both my hands. “I promise, Veda.” I did my best to convey my sincerity and determination. “I will find her. I will bring her home.”
She stared at me for a long time. Whatever she searched for, Veda must have finally found it because her shoulders finally dropped, the tension easing slightly. “Thank you,” she said, so quiet I barely heard.
I wanted to say something else, to reach out and touch her, to offer something better to cling to. I thought she might leave then, but she didn’t. I cleared my throat. “You should get some rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a long one.”
She didn’t move. “Will you be here?”
“I’m not going anywhere, honey.”
She finally turned and walked back to the door but stopped in the frame. “Griffin?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t die tomorrow.”
I grinned, even though she couldn’t see it. “Wouldn’t dare. You’d probably come after me.”
She let out a sound that was almost a laugh, then disappeared into the main building, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
I counted the hours until we rolled out. I never slept before I went out. Sleep would come after. After I’d kept my promise to Veda. There wasn’t a force in the Goddamned world that could prevent me from keeping that fucking promise.
I finally stood and locked up the garage. The night outside was dead quiet, the kind of silence that comes before a storm. The approaching squall didn’t scare me. I understood my assignment.
I would find Veda’s sister. I would bring her home. It was time to go hunting.