“Explain yourself,” the presidentroared.
“Bitch disrespected me,” he mumbled. He hocked, then spat a gob of blood onto thefloor.
“You put this whole club in jeopardy, do you understand that?” Marini paced like a hungry lion. “I’ve got plans for her. Big plans. Plans that will benefit the entire club. You almost fucked it up,Harley.”
I glanced at Gasket. What plans? What was Marini getting at? If anyone knew, it would be Gasket. He was second-in-command.
The big biker narrowed his eyes, signaling he didn’t know what the hell Marini was talking about. Shit, shit,shit.
“Lock him up,” Marini said, curling his lip. “Kick him around a little before you go,too.”
“What are you going to do with him?” Rick asked, eyeing the beaten upbiker.
“You’ll have to wait andsee.”
I raised my eyebrows, giving Rick a look that said he was a dumbass. What did he think was going to happen to the guy? Harley’s story only had one ending, and it wasn’t a happy one. If, by some miracle, Marini allowed him to live, it wouldn’t be much of alife.
We locked Harley in a disused storage closet that had been converted into a cell. It sat on the lower floor of the compound right above the basement and had all the mod cons. Slate gray feature wall, white cornices, a rendered concrete bench to sleep on, and a heavy duty lock on the unbreakable metal door. Conveniently, there was a drain in the middle of thefloor.
Gasket dumped Harley on the bench, and I stood back as Rick got a few kicks in as per Marini’s orders, then locked the door behind us. I had to know what Marini was planning, and if anyone knew, it was that little piece ofshit.
Glancing at the biker next to me, the man who said he cared about Sloane like a father, I didn’t need to explain to him what I was about to do. All he did was nod to let me know we were on the samepage.
I waited until Rick was walking down the hall with his back to us before I sprang into action. It was past time to shake this little assholedown.
Striding up behind him, I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck as Gasket opened the door to the basement. The kid yelped as I hauled his ass down the stairs and pushed him against the side of the boiler. Overhead, the door slammed closed, and Gasket appeared besideme.
“Fuck!” Rick exclaimed, scurrying across the floor like the rat hewas.
He was on his feet in a flash, looking for an exit, but I shoved him up against the wall and held my forearm on his chest. Leveling my gaze, I sneered. “You’ve got a smart mouth on you. You like pretending your little dick is huge,huh?”
“Get offme!”
“What is Marini planning?” I asked, jamming my arm harder against him. “Talk.”
“He doesn’t tell me anything,” he said, sniveling like a little pig. “I just follow orders. Same asyou.”
“See, here’s the thing. I know all about little shits like you, Rick. You like licking the assholes of more powerful men, believing you’ll rise to the top by eating their shit. It doesn’t work like that. Weak men lick, Rick. Weak men like you. When the blood stops running, all you’ll find out is that it was just shit all along.You ate shit.” I inched closer, triumph coursing through my veins as his pupils dilated in fear. “You’re a shit liar, too. You wanna know how I know? Weak shits like you love to press their ears up to doors and listen to conversations that aren’t for them. Like a rat scurrying through a crack. Now…are you going to piss your pants, or are you going to tell me what youknow?”
“D-don’t kill me,” Rick stuttered, showing off what a big man he was. A child barely out of diapers way in over hishead.
Gasket shifted behind me. “Start talking, kid, or this won’t end pretty. You know what Chaseris.”
Rick was shaking, unable to control his fear. Soon, he would becatatonic.
“What is Marini going to do to Sloane?” I shookhim.
“Last time he was going to sell her to the Venturas,” he spat out. “As a whore. The Venturas like to share, youknow.”
“Get on with it,” Gasket snapped. “We know thisshit.”
“He’s going to sell her off again,” Rick exclaimed. “To make things goaway.”
“Sell her to who?” I asked, knowing full well who the deal was going downwith.
“Them.”
“The Hollow Men?” I growled, my anger turning into something more like rage. After all we’d been through to get here, Marini was just going to give her to them? All that talk about saving face was alie.