Page 60 of No Mercy

Rock

Fuck with our club, we fuck back. Kill one of ours, we kill one of yours. In this case we would take out as many as we needed to in retaliation for killing a brother, ambushing our runs, and stealing product. And we wanted the president of Blue Knights most of all. You can’t fight the enemy if you don’t know who he is.

Bullet was dead.

His injuries had turned out to be a lot worse than we’d been told in the beginning. Further tests had revealed that he had internal bleeding, which the doctors had been able to get under control. But the hit to his head had caused a cerebral hemorrhage so severe that he hadn’t made it through surgery. He’d never regained consciousness. And worse, he’d died alone. It had all happened so fucking fast and unexpected that most of his brothers hadn’t made it in time to say their goodbyes.

Bullet had been a good brother. He’d been a member of the club from the start, an old timer who’d seen and been part of a lot of shit. He’d always been loyal to his brothers, and like most of us, he would have done anything for the club, and had paid the ultimate price doing just that. Allie had been in the hospital during his funeral, but I’d slipped away long enough to show my respect. Never married, his only family had been his brothers and club women.

It was always fucking hard to say goodbye to a brother.

I stormed into the clubhouse and headed down to the basement where the Blue Knights were being held. It was a great place to hold uninvited guests. Phantom Riders had refurbished the part of the old farm house that was above ground, but there’d been no reason to touch the dank, musty basement. The floor was nothing but rock and dirt, covered by large sheets of plastic in case things got messy, making cleanup easy.

Shit always got messy down in the cellar.

Big John was in charge of extracting information, and he was damned good at what he did. So far no one was giving up their president though, and the information we were getting was minimal. They knew that the longer they held out, the longer they lived. At least we were finally clear that their club had nothing to do with Dirk’s Blue Knights. These guys were hard-core nomads with nasty reputations.

It didn’t surprise me to see that one man was strapped down onto a long table, and the others we’d seized were hanging from the ceiling, naked from the waist up, blood running down their arms and torsos, faces broken and swollen beyond recognition. Big John kept them that way when he was interrogating them, or else they were chained to the wall where most of the time they sat slung over, too weak to offer any resistance. I had to give the fuckers credit, though, they were a tough bunch. Of course, giving them a couple of days to recoup in between beatings didn’t hurt.

Three weeks of beatings, and just enough food and water to keep them alive, had taken a toll on their once strong bodies. They looked like fucking rag dolls hanging there, defeated and worn out. Big John held nothing back when he was working. He’d do and say anything to accomplish his goal, but what made him so good at what he did was that he was a patient bastard. The fuckers held off as long as they could, knowing that they would never leave there alive. There could be no other outcome but their death. It was the only thing these men expected, and it would send a message to the rest of their club not to fuck with us.

“They give up their fucking president?” I asked upon entering the room.

Big John didn’t even take his attention off of the fucker on the table, holding a tool that resembled pliers in his hand. The bloody white object clenched in the end revealed that he’d just pulled a tooth. “Fuckers won’t give him up,” he grunted. “I’m beginning to think he doesn’t exist.” He turned to face me. “Either that, or they just enjoy pain.”

I smirked at that. “Do we have any numbers?” I questioned. We needed to know how many Blue Knights we were dealing with, how many was still out there.

Big John shrugged. “Said they were all accounted for on this run, but we know that ain’t true.”

Until we found the fucker Allie had described and knew for sure who he was, I wasn’t going to be happy. I knew there had to be some connection between him and Blue Knights, and my gut was never wrong. I stared at Big John. He looked like he was enjoying himself too much. He was a mean bastard and liked inflicting pain. “Who’s giving it up?”

Big John motioned to one man in particular. I found myself standing in front of the one who looked to be the youngest, not surprised that he’d been the one talking. It was always the younger ones in the club who broke first. This kid looked like he should have been prospecting. With a deep sigh I stared at his busted-up face. His eyes were open, barely, and I was pretty damned sure the blood on his face was mixed with tears.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Toby.” He gritted out with defiance. He pressed his mouth tightly closed, but there was a tell- tale quiver of his bottom lip.

“You want to die, Toby?”

He snorted, and shook his head. “No. You wanna die?”

A snicker escaped me. “Looks to me like you’re in a better position for that than I am. Maybe you should think about telling us what we want to know.”

“I’m not fucking stupid,” he rasped in a tired tone. “I know we ain’t leaving here alive.”

“You’re probably right. So why don’t you make it easy on yourself by just talking to us. I can make sure you don’t suffer anymore. Make sure you go quick.”

“Fuck you!” he croaked. He made an attempt to spit. In the next instant Big John hit him in the kneecap with the pliers. The kid screamed out, and his body twisted in pain. When Big John pulled back his arm to swing at his other kneecap, he cried out, “No! Please! Not again!” He was clearly at the end of the rope of what he could endure.

Big John held off at my sharp look. I walked to him and spoke low so that only he could hear me. “Do you think you can get more out of him?”

He gave me a chin lift and grunt. “Fuck, yeah. I’ll have him squealing. He doesn’t have the guts to last much longer.”

Yeah, he was young, and it was time to end this shit. “Get rid of the others then and work on him. When you think you’ve gotten all you can out of him, you know what to do.”

I left the cellar without a backward glance, my thoughts shifting to Allie. These days I didn’t like leaving her, but I couldn’t ignore club shit. She hadn’t been out of the hospital for very long, and she didn’t like being left alone. It gutted me that she didn’t have faith in my brothers to protect her, but I knew that we would have to earn her trust again. I had to earn her trust that I could keep her and Sam safe.

I’d told her about Marnie, wanting her to understand that Marnie had been a club girl who’d thought that she had a claim on me. The only reason she’d been allowed into the house was because Cooper had known and trusted her. He hadn’t thought to check inside the box she’d said she had to deliver, which we’d found empty. Knowing that Marnie couldn’t hurt her again had reassured Allie, but it didn’t take away all of her fears.

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