by Zahra Girard
“Fuck you, you fucking pricks,” he snarls.
“Mack, tie this son of a bitch up. You and Snake work on him until he’s feeling ready to talk. Do the kind of shit to him they wouldn’t even do in fucking Gitmo,” Stone says. “This son of a bitch will suffer for even thinking he can lay a hand on my family.”
“And I’m going to go put on some pants,” Blaze says.
“Please. You’re looking way too comfortable, brother,” Axel says. “And you should buy some new underwear. The elasticity in your waistband is wearing out and a lot of stuff is showing.”
“I ain’t ashamed of my body,” Blaze answers. “And if it weren’t so fucking cold in here, maybe I’d stay this way, just to show you what real confidence looks like. But I don’t think the heating system works in this fleabag hotel, and that really puts a damper on things for hot-blooded guy like me.”
“Stop your yammering about shrinkage and put some fucking clothes on, Blaze,” Mack snaps.
While Blaze leaves to go retrieve his clothes from across the street, Mack and I get to work. We soften Silas with a few punches, until he’s nice and pliable, and then we drag him into the bathroom and tie him up in the bathtub. Being in the same room with this son of a bitch and thinking about the threats he’s made against Addie has my blood boiling.
As soon as we have him bound and gagged, I turn to Mack.
“Let he have this one, brother. Alone.”
“Yeah? You having one of your moods, Snakey boy?” He says. There’s a little concern in his voice. “Because we need him alive. At least until he answers our questions.”
“I’m in control, Mack. Trust me. I got this.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll be right outside if you need me, brother.”
The door shuts behind him and I reach down to my ankle and draw out the knife I’ve carried with me since my time in the Army. It feels good to take it out, to know that I will put it to work defending my club, my family, and the woman waiting back at the clubhouse who has her dainty fingers wrapped around my dark heart.
I take a seat on the edge of the bathtub.
Run the tip of the knife across Silas’ cheek. Summon up the black part of me I so often fight to keep buried. The part that hungers to do unspeakable things. The part that only goes quiet when I hold Addie in my arms.
This man tried to take that away from me.
He’s going to suffer like he can’t even imagine.
Silas flinches beneath the knife’s caress. It’s subtle, nearly invisible, but I’ve come up against enough guys like him to know when they’re on the edge. And Silas Cooper is trapped in the worst kind of hell he could ever imagine: he’s trapped here with me — a devil wearing the scarred skin of a battle-worn vet.
“You’re in a fucking mess of trouble, Silas. Oh boy, are you ever going to suffer.”
I press the tip just a little harder, enough to draw the laziest drop of blood.
“You went after my family. You thought you could fucking touch the woman I love. Big fucking mistake,” I say. “I’m going to have some fun with you. And you’re not going to like it.”
The tip goes in a little further. More pressure. I’m halfway through his cheek. Just a little harder and I’ll be grinding the tip of this knife against his molars.
“I have little in this world. If I’m being honest with you, I came out of the army pretty fucked up and things haven’t gotten much better for me since. Maybe I’m too damn broken to be put back together. That’s usually what happens when you see your best friend get his head blown off and you eat a bunch of shrapnel from a fucking IED. Every day, I see his face. Every day, I hear his voice. Every day, the shockwave of that bomb blast echoes through my body. The only glue holding the shattered pieces of my life together is that beautiful woman you tried to kidnap and those men out there I call my brothers. You threaten that.”
I work his face over more with the knife. Little cuts, slices that function as previews of the pain to come.
“Now it’s my job to cut those secrets about where your uncle and your brother are hiding out of you. I take my job seriously, Silas. And I’m going to enjoy cutting you to pieces.”
I have to give him credit. Other than a dilation in his pupils, Silas has hardly reacted to my knife.
He’s tough. He’s trained.
But he’s about to learn what pain really is.
I drive the knife in deeper, to his teeth, till blood spills over the edge of my blade like a crimson waterfall. He doesn’t move, doesn’t struggle — much — because he knows any movement would drive the knife in further.
But boy, does he scream against his gag.
It’s music to my ears.
This is what will happen to anyone who thinks they can touch Adella Stone.
Slowly, I draw the blade out.
There’s now a two-inch hole in his right cheek.
Beneath the dripping blood, I can see his clean white teeth. The man flosses regularly.
“Here’s the deal, Silas: you and your buddies traumatized the one woman who doesn’t look at me like I’m some kind of monster. Now, she’s not always right — I can be a monster when I have to. Like right now. When I need to cut those secrets out of your mouth,” I say, and I move the tip of the knife over to the other side of his mouth and start the same process all over again. “And that’s what I’m going to do. I will keep cutting until you decide the holes in your face are wide enough for your secrets to come out. Got it?”
It’s wicked work. The bloody business that taps into the darkest, most battle-twisted parts of my soul. It’s not long before his screams echo in the tight confines of this dirty bathroom, spilling out around his gag through the dripping holes in his mouth.
He holds out for a long time. He’s big, he’s tough, and he’s loyal to his blood. But eventually, I drain enough out of him that his willpower melts and he looks at me with shattered, weak eyes.
That point comes after I use the tip of my knife to cut a few of his teeth out.
One nod is all it takes for him to let me know that I’ve won.
I’m almost sad to be done with my work. This son of a bitch deserves more pain than he can handle.
I pull my knife out of him, swipe my blade clean on his jeans.
“You ready to talk?”
He nods again.
I take the gag off.
He’s panting and pale, exhausted and broken from my work and from losing blood.
“Please, no more,” he says.
“Then tell me where your brother and your uncle are hiding. Tell me where our fucking guns are.”
There’s a time that passes where he stares at the floor, a look of forlorn pain on his broken face, a struggle in his beaten eyes, and it looks like loyalty is at war with his desire for self-preservation and a quick death.
“I don’t know,” he says.
“That’s not a good answer. How much of your tongue do you think I could cut off before you lose the ability to talk? Do you want to find out?”
“I’m telling you, I don’t fucking know.”
“I don’t believe you. Time for more cutting, Silas.”
“And I’m telling you I don’t know. My uncle’s smart. He doesn’t tell us any more than where we need to be and when. He’s got my brother staying at a different place, I don’t even know where, and I don’t have a way to get in contact with either of them. When he needs to send me a message, he fucking calls the room from an anonymous fucking number. It’s operational fucking security, you fucking psychopath.”
There’s not a hint of a lie in his story — I’ve bled all the deceit out of him.
“You know where he’s keeping the guns?”
“No, I don’t know shit. Slade was the one who went after the guns. Hell, if I had to guess, I think my mission to grab your president’s wife and daughter was just a fucking distraction. My uncle knows how close Stone is to those two and how he’d drop everything to rescue those bitches.”
&
nbsp; His words cut short as I slice a long gash down his thigh.
“You watch your fucking mouth when you talk about those women.”
“Fuck off. You think I give a shit? Think I’m afraid? If you don’t do as my uncle tells you and take care of those FBI agents, losing some guns will be the least of your fucking problems. Hell, you better give that girl one last goodbye fuck, because she sure as shit ain’t going to be around much longer.”
I belt him across the face. Once, twice, so hard his head snaps backwards and crashes into the tiled wall of the bathroom, leaves a streak of blood and skin on the dingy tiles. Then, still burning with rage, I put my knife away, grab him by the throat, and punch him until he’s spitting his remaining teeth at my feet.
“Mention her one more time and you will suffer.”
“Just fucking kill me. I ain’t giving you anything more, and we both got better shit to do.”
I put a second slice into his other thigh, just to even things out and watch him squirm a some more. It’s the least he deserves for what he did to my Addie. I care for that woman; she sees the decent man inside me I thought died a long time ago. I don’t enjoy bringing out the darkness inside, but I’ll be as dark as it takes to protect her.
“You don’t die until Stone says so. Sit tight, Silas,” I say, then I shove the gag back in his mouth and get up from the tub. Heading to the door, I open it.
Stone’s waiting right outside, arms crossed, fury in his eyes.
“What’d he tell you?”
“Bastard doesn’t know shit. Bowen Dale knows his fucking OpSec. Contacts him through secure channels, keeps them in the dark except for the shit he needs to know. With a guy like Silas, he ain’t the type that needs to know much beyond ‘shoot this’ and ‘hit that.’ Son of a bitch is useless to us.”
“He was fucking useless to begin with.”
“How do you want to handle it?” I say, nodding toward the open door to the bathroom.
“I’ll take care of it.”
Without another word, he heads into the bathroom. He doesn’t shut the door; doing so would take time away from meting out vengeance on Silas Cooper. Soon, the room fills with the sounds of a brutal beating. Fists, knees, elbows, all come to bear against the bound man. They cut his flesh, spill his blood. Bones break, joints twists in every unnatural way. Stone delivers a beating that turns Silas into a groaning, mewling wreck.
In that dank and dirty room, Stone lets free the part of him that comes out anytime someone threatens his family; lets free a ruthless monster that will maim and kill to protect the ones he loves.
It chills my blood, listening to Silas beg for mercy; chills my blood to know this is the fate that awaits anyone who puts Stone’s family in danger.
Even me, if I’m not careful.
Then, with his calloused hands around Silas’ throat, he chokes the life from him.
“This is what you get,” he growls as he stares into Silas’ bugged-out eyes as the man’s last breath of life leaves his body. “And this is better than you fucking deserve. You worthless fucking maggot. Rot in hell.”
When he expires, Stone releases him, and the man’s ruined body falls back flat into the tub. Stone stands up straight, calmly washes his hands clean in the sink, then walks back to me.
The all-encompassing menace that radiates from him envelopes me.
Without a doubt, that will be me in that bathtub if ever anything were to happen to Adella while she is under my watch. As beautiful of a woman as she is, as much light as she brings to my black life, the consequences of a relationship with her are terrifying. Brutal. Final.
“Tell Axel to clean up that fucking mess. Then get back to the clubhouse. You keep a good fucking eye on my daughter. Kill anyone who thinks they can even touch my daughter. I don’t give a fuck who they are, you make them suffer. You hear me, Snake?”
“Sir, yes sir,” I answer.
Adella and I are in the middle of a war zone, now. And one wrong move could kill us both.
Chapter Fifteen
Adella
How long can I go with my heart in my throat?
How long can I put up with the nagging doubt and fear that man instills in me? One minute, I’m with him, I feel like the most important woman in his world; I feel like I’m with the man that I’ve wanted for all these years; and the next, I feel like he’s not there — like he’s drawing away from me, obscured behind the darkness inside him and his loyalty to the club. It’s a dichotomy that makes me feel strong and valued one moment, and fearful the next.
As I sit at the bar at the clubhouse, idly stirring my drink while painful thoughts swirl in my head, I can keep none of this off my face. Especially not from my mother or Ruby. I’ve never been good about lying to either of them — or anyone, for that matter.
“What is it, dear Addie?” Ruby says. “You look like how I feel when the bartender tells me the only top shelf vodka they have is Grey Goose.”
Confused, I look over at her. “Isn’t that good vodka?”
“It’s fucking swill, dear. Not even fit to wash the top shelf that real vodkas sit upon.”
“She’s right,” Violet says, who’s sitting next to Ruby at the bar. Violet has a notebook open in front of her. Recipes, probably, or something else to do with the booze she makes in the distillery the club recently opened. “They distill and filter any flavor out of it. You’re getting just ethanol and water. It’s overpriced and overrated. The real good stuff has character and you can sip it, even room temperature, like a good whiskey or scotch.”
“You’re a smart woman, Violet. And I mean that as a compliment, because women are smarter to begin with,” Ruby says. Then she turns to me. “But, yes, as Violet said: it’s quite overrated.”
“I see.”
“Now, how about you answer my question, Addie: what is it that has you looking so down?”
I shrug, then tell her the truth. She’ll figure it out, anyway. “Snake.”
“Well, he is a troubled man. It only makes sense that he would trouble you.”
“I worry about him.”
“Well, isn’t that vague and existential.”
“Ruby, come on,” I say.
“Do you need another drink to get the truth out of you? Because I can tell you have more on your mind than some vague vexatious feeling.”
I look around the room, wanting to talk to someone, but most definitely not wanting any of the words I say to reach my mother. But my mom’s on the other side of the room, talking to Brewer about something. So I get a little closer to Ruby and lean in conspiratorially.
“Do you promise to keep this to yourself?”
“Do you have any doubt, dear?”
I sigh. “Snake and I have been… together… for a little while. And, even when we’re close, I feel like I’m losing him. Like, even when he’s in bed with me, he’s also not in bed with me. And I don’t know how to help him with that.”
“If you get in bed with a member of the club, you’re getting in bed with the whole club, dear,” Ruby says. “Not in the literal sense. Or the fun sense, either. Though I suppose there are some clubs out there where that happens. And, in my younger days, I probably could tell you which clubs they are and whether they’re worth investigating. But even if you think you have a hold on a member’s heart, you will always be sharing it. That’s just how they are.”
“You’re not alone, Addie,” Violet chimes in. “Sometimes Crash is so damn non-communicative and so wrapped up in doing the club’s work — which, do not misinterpret me, Addie, I love the MC for what they did for me, Kendra, and Josie — that it makes me want to empty a whole still into my mouth. Even some of the fruity stuff I’m making for those silly craft bars in Malibu. That’s how bad it is; I would willingly consume mango vodka to deal with his headstrong ways.”
“Thick as thieves, bound by brotherhood, united in their love for each other, for two-stroke engines, and driving sensible women mad,” Ruby says. “They’d be intole
rable if they didn’t look so good in jeans and leather. Oh, but my oh my do they pull that look off. From the time they first put on their cut until they turn into silver foxes, they make it look good. In fact, here’s to a nice ass and a pair of good-fitting jeans, one of heaven’s greatest combinations.”
“Amen,” Violet says, raising her glass to tap it to Ruby’s.
“How do you deal with it, then?” I say.
Sophia comes up behind me, she has a bottle of beer in her hand and a bored look on her face. She sits down right next to me.
“I know that look,” she says. “It’s the same look I have every time some bro comes into my shop and wants some mistranslated Chinese tattoo about ‘peace’, ‘love’, or ‘living life to the fullest’ and it makes me want to scream. What’s up?”
“Snake’s got her all twisted,” Violet says.
She nods, raises her beer bottle to her lips with one tattoo-covered hand. Her arms are a masterpiece of colors and designs, tattoos done with skill that puts most other artists to shame. One of these days, I need to get her to sit down so I can photograph her. She’s so striking.
“You love the man, you love the club. And you accept everything that brings with it. Sometimes it sucks to share, but realize that, even when you’re sharing, you’ve still got a man who’s more loyal than most. It just takes some compromises to keep him. But do they ever make it worth it,” she says. “And the alternative — the other men out there — they do not come close.”
I nod. It’s what I’ve seen so often in my parents’ relationship, but it’s still something I need to hear from others just to have it sink in. And it’s a compromise that worries me. What kind of life can I make for myself independent of the club, if the club will loom over every facet of my relationship with Snake? I may have to make a terrible choice — the man only man I want, or the life that I’ve always wanted.
And, even if I should choose him, will Snake be willing to take me with all the sacrifices a relationship will involve? Taking me as his old lady means he will have a wholly different set of responsibilities — responsibilities that other couples in the club don’t have to take on; my father will always keep a close eye on him, and Stone is not a man you want to cross.