Page 90 of Ink's Devil

He holds out his hand and looks the other way. The shard is still in there. Shielding the beam from my Maglite by turning my back to the warehouse behind us, I examine his injury. “That needs to come out.”

“Pull it,” Liz instructs, still with his head turned.

“Fuckin’ pussy,” I tell him. But I waste no time. As soon as it’s out, I take his glove off to get a better look, but blood is now flooding out.

“Is it bad?” he asks, sounding like he’s talking through gritted teeth.

“Nah, just a scratch. Give me your bandana and I’ll wrap it up.”

He does. I do.

“Can I look?”

I remember and chuckle softly as I reassure him, “My temporary bandage is doing its job, Brother. Nothing to see now.” Well, only a slight reddening where the blood’s seeping through.

Doctoring done, Liz and I make our way back to Beef and the others.

“What happened to you?” Thunder asks, noticing how Liz is cradling his injured hand.

“Liz got a piece of glass in his palm,” I explain. “Went in deep.”

“Fuck,” says the sergeant-at-arms with feeling. “You need to stay back, Brother?”

Beef steps forward, his flashlight landing on Lizard’s hand. Then he turns to Thunder. “What the fuck you talking about? Man’s got a scratch, that’s all.”

Like I’d done moments before, Thunder chuckles. “Liz might pass out if he sees his own blood.” Yeah, Lizard tends to faint if he gets cut. If someone bleeds out in front of him? He doesn’t blink an eye.

Beef looks at Lizard, he’s shaking his head in disbelief. “You’re a fuckin’ tattoo artist. You see blood all the time.”

“Yeah, but it’s not mine,” Liz protests, shifting awkwardly on his feet. “And I’ll be fine, Thunder, thank you for fuckin’ asking. Now we doing this, or what?”

Beef’s still staring at him incredulously, then after a moment, asks, “Well, what did you find?”

“Two men. Drinking and playing cards casual as you like. No sign of Connor.”

Beef exhales loudly. “Still need to talk to who’s there. They might know where he is.”

I nod sharply. If they do, they won’t be keeping that information to themselves. Not when I apply my trade.

“There’s a door at the back, flimsy looking.” Liz notes what he’d found.

“Can we pick the lock?”

“What fuckin’ lock? It’s hanging off its hinges. One kick and I reckon the whole place would come down.”

“Good enough. Where are the men in relation to that point of entry?”

Liz bends down and draws a diagram in the sand. “Don’t know about internal walls, of course,” he taps at a point where he’s drawn an X, “but that’s where we should be heading for once we’re inside.”

He’s seen more than I did. Useful shit too.

“Okay,” says Beef, his head turned toward the building we’ll be entering, “me, Ro, Liz, and Judge will take the front entrance. Mace, you, Thunder, Wills and Hell will come in the rear. We’ll go in at,” he checks his phone, “nineteen hundred zero five.”

This time it’s eight of us crossing the open ground carefully. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, half expecting to be spotted any moment. By the time I get into position by the rear door, which, as Lizard had said, looks like a strong gust of wind would blow it in, my forehead is covered in sweat, even though the evening air is chilly.

My heart is beating fast with anticipation, along with a kernel of excitement and hope. Right now, my brother’s sitting in a cell which is down to the man I’ve come to Denver to find. I’m determined I won’t be going home without him. He might not be in this tumbling down old warehouse, but the men who are will give me their secrets. I’m the enforcer, and everyone does, in the end. I’ve got a one hundred percent success rate at making people talk. Lizard might be immune to other people’s blood, in my role I’ve become impervious to their pain. Administering my torture with surgical precision when it’s the safety of my club, or one of my brothers, at stake.

Thunder’s got his eyes trained on his phone. “Thirty seconds,” he mouths. Then “Ten, nine… one.”I turn to face the door and push on it. It swings open with a slight creak. With a mental image of the hastily drawn diagram in the sand, I move forward alongside my brothers.

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