Page 24 of Royal's Reign
With that, I steal one more kiss before I step back, turn and quickly exit the apartment.
Chapter
Nine
Royal
I’ve barely opened the steel door at the bottom of the stairs, that leads to the basement, before I know that Grinder has been unable to control his violent urges. The screams are high-pitched. It’s crazy how high they get, even when the victim of the torture is a six-foot seven muscle bound fucker.
Excruciating pain can destroy any man’s hard-man credibility in a nanosecond if administered in the correct manner.
I round the corner of the short passageway that leads to the large open, stone-floored room. Only a single light bulb hangs from the ceiling, but the room is illuminated further by the two standing lamps placed on opposite sides of the room.
Although we call this the storeroom, the onlything it stores is a steel chair that has metal ankle cuffs welded to the front legs, and the same to each armrest for the wrists. The table against the wall is metal too. It’s easier to clean than wood, especially when you’re trying to remove blood, skin and any extradited body parts. On the table lies a selection of tools, some of which are powered by the only other item in there, an old generator that has wheels and a big old bar handle so we can move it around the room if needed.
Grinder is wearing a pair of white disposable coverups, the zip is only halfway fastened, and he is about to remove what looks to be finger number four with a pair of bolt cutters, based on the three already in a pool of blood on the floor.
“Hold up,” I shout, picking up the cellophane packet that has a set of coverups for me too. “If he’s not talking by now, then you need to try a different approach.”
Grinder halts his movements but stays exactly where he is for a couple of beats before he releases his grip, letting the finger fall from between the cutters and steps back.
I zip up the jumpsuit, my clothes now fully protected, and step up to the victim. His face has already taken a beating. No doubt some of it acquired from Nytro and Hacksaw’s hands while overpowering the guy and bringing him in. Lip split, eyes barely open from the swelling around the socket. Shit, I would be surprised if the socket isn’t broken, or his nose. Notthat I saw it before, but it’s spread across his face now, with no definition.
I throw a punch, hitting him right where it looks the worst. All I get in return is a grunt, so I hit him again, but this time in the solar plexus, hard enough to re-regulate his ticker if he needed it. His arms strain against the bindings at his wrists as he tries to bring his hands to his chest, as he gasps to get air into his lungs. ‘Fucker,’ he spits back at me when he catches enough of his breath, but I laugh in return.
“I’ve gotta commend you for your loyalty to whoever it is that you deem as your boss.” I walk an invisible line back and forth, left to right, a foot or so in front of where he sits. “You see, this isn’t our first rodeo, which I’m sure you’re well aware of.” I stop right in front of him and face him. “We’re the Saint’s fucking Outlaws after all.” I throw my hands into the air. “And we’ve had men bigger, harder than you, cave after the first finger amputation. So don’t mind me, but slap my ass and call me Spanky. Three! Damn, we might just have to put you at the top of the leaderboard for being the stupidest fucker ever to grace our torture chamber.” I take a step forward and lean in. “Is this pain, your life, actually worth more than giving us what information we need about your boss?” I just managed to swerve in time when I saw the bloody phlegm leaving his battered mouth, so it hit below the collar of my coveralls. I hit him in the face again. If he had hit me in the face, then I would have torn him apart with my bare fucking hands, dirty bastard.
I walk over to the table, skimming the surface until I find what I need. My eyes fall on a climbing piton. The tool has a ring end which tapers down to a six-inch-long narrow spike. The end has been fashioned so its narrow, sharper than what is needed for rock climbing. Its lethal.
Now, if I wanted this over with, then I’d push the implement into his neck, right into the carotid, leave it in so he suffered a little, before pulling it and letting him bleed out. Takes about five minutes tops. In this case I still need that vital information, so I pick up the piton and a ball hammer that’s right beside it.
“Hold his hand still,” I inform Grinder as I step in front of the chair. Grinder stands to the side where the fingerless hand sits and pins it firmly in place. “Middle finger,” I add to my instruction. Grinder has only removed the first part of the finger, just after the first knuckle, before the second. I take the sharp end of the piton and line it up the center of the open wound.
“No, no…” He tries to fight but Grinder only increases his hold. “Please no… argh,” he screams when the hammer hits the round end of the piton, driving it into the bloody bone, the flesh splitting further from the force of it. “Stop, stop… Argh…”
I hold the hammer up, ready to slam it down again before asking. “Start talking or the next place I start driving this spike is your nut sack.”
“Daniel Caal,” he splutters out, red tainted saliva drip from his swollen chin onto his already bloody chest.
“Daniel Caal?” I snigger. “Bullshit. He’s a fucking nobody. Our fucking prospects have more clout in this town than that lowlife fuck.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. He’s been making his mark on this city for some years; you just didn’t look hard enough to see it.”
“Yeah, sure…” I toy with him because chances are, the more I show my disbelief, the more he’s going to try to convince me. I’m good when it comes to weighing people up, guessing how they tick, and it’s obvious to me that this guy likes to swing his dick, so to speak. He needs to prove that he’s a somebody. That he’s connected with the right people, ones that have standing in the city and should be feared. As far as I know of Daniel Caal, he’s a two-bit wannabe gangster, nothing but an overgrown schoolyard bully that only the weak would fear. “Caal is no threat to the Saint’s, but if a dead body turns up on our streets, a bullet right between the eyes, then we’re pissed. So, who’s the dead guy in the alleyway a few weeks ago and why shoot him?”
Caal and his handful of plastic gangsters have always been known to us, but we’ve never deemed them as a threat to the Saint’s businesses or control over the city. We’ve got wind of a few beatings, threats over money debts not been settled but otherwise, they’ve pretty much stayed under our radar. But if they’re stupid enough to start pissing on our doorstep, getting the cops crawling around, then we’ll be fucking them up soon enough.
“He tried to fuck Caal over, simple as.”
“So what, he owed him a couple of hundred bucks,” I shrug my shoulders. “Give him a beating, sure. But not sure a bullet to the head is fair game though. Not like he’s ever gonna see the cash now, is he? I call that bad business.”
“It was way more than that,” he clamps his mouth shut and lowers his gaze. I can almost hear the cogs turning in his head. I play catch with the hammer between my two hands right in front of his face. It’s enough to clarify me previous threat. “He was putting dirty money through his business, but then had been cooking the books, taking more than the agreed percentage. Caal found out and took the appropriate action.”
Shit! Caal has more balls than I gave him credit for. Money laundering on our patch and without us knowing about it or getting a cut, that’s gutsy, also fucking stupid. Must admit, the action he’s taken is in the same ballpark as we would do if double-crossed that way.
The question is, who’s money is he laundering but I’d bet the hairs on Grinder’s ass that it ain’t his.
“Who’s money is it?” I press.
