Page 19 of Unveiled Wounds

“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Scrub went to stand next to Wreck.

I rolled my shoulders, eyeing the man hanging from the chains. Every instinct screamed to break him, but I needed answers first. “Look, I’m going to kill you for touching my wife, but this can go one of two ways. One: you tell us what we want to know, and I’ll slit your throat. Easy.”

“That’s generous. You should probably take the deal,” Sabre interjected, but the man said nothing.

“Two,” I continued, “I will break you until you feel the pain and the fear you caused my wife. Either way, one of you is going to talk.”

The soldier spit onto the floor. “Is her pussy as cold as her mouth?”

“Wrong answer.” Pretty was having too much fun opening another Popsicle.

I said nothing as I slid my gloves on, making sure the fingers lay flat against my knuckles. He’d chosen violence, and I was ready to unleash my fury. Meredith had shaken from fear andadrenaline as I had held in her on the floor in the banquet center, and I wanted him to feel ten times that.

“Brandon said she was a dead fish, and that’s saying something, considering he wasn’t too bright.”

I strolled right up to him and drove my fists into his stomach repeatedly. He tried to escape me, but there wasn’t any room for him to move. All he could do was suck his stomach in, trying to ease the pain. I didn’t stop, and no one bothered to intervene. His skin was red, and he tried to catch his breath as he wheezed.

“Is he going to die, Scrub?” I paused and took a step back from the man.

“Not yet. He’s still breathing.”

“How did you know they were there?” I waited for an answer from the soldier.

“Fuck you, and your dead bitch.” He spat on the floor, but it landed in a drain near him.

“Dude’s got a lot of wrong answers,” Pretty chimed in.

I was on autopilot, only seeing a few feet in front of me. If I had been thinking straight, I might not have grabbed his nipple, but I wanted to inflict pain and lots of it. Twisting the nub, I reveled in the soldier’s screams as they echoed off the walls of the Playroom. “Can you rip off a nipple?” I asked Scrub.

“I didn’t go to med school for the club to be obsessed with balls and boobs. What have we become?” A chuckle bounced off the insulated walls. “Not sure, but I don’t think so.”

“Thanks, Scrub.” I strengthened my grip and twisted some more. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t rip it off, but his screams satisfied me for now. “How did you know they were there?” I asked the soldier.

“You need to teach your bitches not to be so predictable.”

I released his nipple and hit him in the mouth. Blood spurted between his lips, but it wasn’t enough for me. I hit him again.“I won’t ask again,” I said through gritted teeth. “How did you know they were there?”

“Fuck off.”

That wasn’t acceptable to me, and I reached down and twisted both nipples at the same time. I lost track of time as the screams plugged some holes Meredith’s trauma had left. The louder he shrieked, the happier I was, but I didn’t analyze the sick pleasure I was getting. It wasn’t until I heard the other soldier make a noise that I stopped. I had honestly forgotten he was still in the room, but now he was about to join the party. “Are you going to tell me what I want to know?”

The enforcers had chained him to the wall and duct tapped his mouth, but he could still nod at my question. His eyes were wide with fear as he leaked piss down to the drain underneath him.

“Dude, you need to give up the soda,” Scrub commented dryly as the smell took over.

I stepped around the drain, not willing to get piss on my boots as I ripped the duct tape off of his mouth. “Start talking.”

Before he could say anything, the first soldier screamed at him in Spanish. None of us knew what was being said, but it was enough to scare the second soldier. Piss leaked down his leg into the drain again, and Berry duct-taped the first soldier’s mouth. All we heard was the muffled speech.

“I’ll tell you,” the man sobbed, tears running down his cheeks. “I’m a dead man walking.”

“You’ve got one shot at this. How did you know they were going to be there?” He wasn’t talking fast enough, so I clenched my fist. As I went to throw a punch, he flinched.

“Your women are collateral damage.”

My pulse pounded. The words slammed into my gut. “Keep talking.”

“Manny would let them go. They’re innocents, and everyone knows it, but Diego’s out for blood. You made a fool of himwith that banker, and now he wants to make you an example. Manny can’t control Diego and worries about business across the border, so he’s turning a blind eye.”

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