Page 39 of Wrecker

15

WRECKER

The room didn’t look like much.

From the outside, it was all angles and shadows. Just a squat, windowless structure tucked into the thick tree line at the very back of the Iron Rogues compound. The kind of place even the brothers didn’t talk about unless they needed to. There was no sign. No path. If you didn’t know the building existed, you’d walk right past it.

If you did know, you damn well better be on the right side of the club before you crossed its threshold.

Inside, the air was always cool. Sterile. Like bleach and blood had seeped into the bones of the place and never left. The lighting was harsh by design. Nowhere to hide in the shadows of a room meant for tearing truths out of liars.

It had several rooms. Two cells with reinforced doors and shackles bolted to the walls. Two rooms built for interrogation—both soundproof, lined in steel and tile, with a drain in the center of the floor, making for easy cleanup.

That was where we were keeping Calder.

The small kitchenette mostly existed to hose shit off—knives, hands, boots. And a lounge of sorts with beaten leather chairs,battered lockers, and a scarred table with a few half-used decks of cards and a bottle of whiskey that no one ever touched unless something needed burning.

And then there was the tool “closet.”

Hidden behind a set of double doors was a grid of shelves and hooks packed with everything from bone saws to jumper cables. More surgical than sadistic, but that didn’t make it any prettier.

When I stepped into the interrogation room, Calder was zip-tied to the chair, ankles bound to the floor. The bastard had a split lip and a bloodied nose, but he was breathing just fine. The boys who brought him here knew better than to rough him up too much. We needed answers and getting them would be the best way for me to release all the pent-up fury before I went home to Peyton.

I shut the door behind me and let the latch click into place.

Calder looked up, and when he saw the expression on my face, I saw the flicker in his eyes. Panic. He knew what happened to men in rooms like these. But he tried to hide it.

“Come to finish the job, Owens?” he rasped, lips cracked and red.

“No,” I said, voice flat. “Not yet.”

I dragged a chair across the floor, the sound sharp and deliberate, then sat down in front of him, elbows on my knees.

“I have questions.”

“Go fuck yourself,” he spat, bloody saliva landing on my boot.

I smiled.

There was no rush, so I took my time with him. By the time I stepped back out into the hallway, the towel in my hand was half red. My knuckles were raw. My shirt was sticking to my chest, damp with a mix of sweat and someone else’s blood. Calder wasn’t dead—but he wasn’t feeling like much of a man anymore.

Maverick leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his broad chest like he’d been there for a while. His eyes flicked to the towel, then back to my face.

“You kill him?” he asked, voice dry.

“Not yet,” I muttered, heading straight for the sink in the kitchenette.

The water ran hot. I watched the blood swirl down the drain in rust-colored ribbons while I scrubbed my hands, the sting of soap biting into the splits in my skin.

“He talk?” Maverick asked.

I nodded once. “Gave it all up. Names, contacts. The rest of his crew. Every exec. connected to the developer and the insurance company. Gutted the whole fucking mess for me.”

He let out a breath, low and tight. “Good. That’ll help Fox and Stone build the case for exposure.”

I shut off the tap and dried my hands with a clean towel, tossing the bloody one into the bin beneath the counter.

Maverick pushed off the wall and walked over, handing me a folded bundle of clothes—black tee, clean jeans, and my cut. I’d taken it off so it wouldn't be stained with blood or any other substances.

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