Page 69 of Torch
Has-Been cursed then, and stood up.
“I’ll fucking do it. After what he did to Elise, I have some fucking right to be the one.”
Reacher jabbed a finger at his seat.
“Sit. The. Fuck. Down. I’m not asking anyone to kill him right now. As Stitch said, we need to work out what else we need to know before we end this, but as to who does it, it doesn’t need to be anyone who isn’t comfortable doing it. You’ve all got varying levels of closeness with various people in this club. We’re not all as tight as we should be. This means we have options. It comes down to what else we need from him, and what we decide to do to him.”
“I wanna know how the fuck he could turn on all of us. We’re family,” Rocket hissed, and a few others started piping up in agreement.
“We deserve a right to fucking talk to him, because this affects all of us.”
Reacher groaned, and nodded. “I expected this. Stitch?” He was already getting up, nodded at Ryder, and they both left the room. Wait, what’s going on now?
“He’s coming in here?” Rocket asked, sitting up taller in his seat, as his fists clenched.
“Yes, and you’ll all get a turn, so just, for fuck’s sake, try not to all yell at once. I don’t want this taking all day.”
They brought the fucker in, tied to a fucking wheelchair, which means they always planned to bring him in, and clearly Doc had been in on it. Micro had this smug ass look on his face, like he wasn’t in a room full of guys who wanted a piece of him.
“Hey, brothers, sorry I’m late. I know how being late for Church is a sin or something.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Stitch muttered as he smacked the back of his head, positioning the wheelchair so he was in the corner nearest the head of the table. He shouldn’t be anywhere near the fucking head of the table, but I got why they did it. If it descended into anarchy, they’d have themselves between him and the rest of us, but still, it didn’t feel right.
“Hey, Pres, how’s the old lady?” Micro asked snarkily, and Ryder punched him, having stayed beside him as a fucking sentry. I saw how his words cut into Reacher, even though he kept facing away from him.
“Hit him with any questions you’ve got, one at a time, then we can put him down, like the fucking stray dog he is.”
“That’s ironic, coming from the fucking usurper in the room,” Micro spat, groaning a second later, when Ryder hit him again.
“Questions, brothers? You must have shit you want to ask me,” Micro said next, egging us on, like he wanted it to turn to shit. In the presence of him, most of the mouthy ones had suddenly zipped it, choosing to glare at him instead, or snub him completely.
“It should have been me in that fucking chair at the head of the table, did these fuckers tell you that?” A few heads turned or tilted, and Stag looked at the Pres.
“That true?”
Reacher groaned. “We joined the Godless Warriors almost eleven years ago, me and Stitch, when we were tired of nomad life, and wanted a home. What we found was a club so deeply entrenched in violent crime, and perversion, that it was on so many watch lists, and so frequently raided by the police, that it wasn’t tenable. A club like that doesn’t last, and members don’t survive. After witnessing the ‘president’ Leif, brutalising a club girl, for daring to pass out while giving him head, we realised it was time to shut it down.”
“Fuck you! My dad was a fucking God!”
“Yet the club was called GodlessWarriors, work that one out, dipshit!” Ice yelled at him, before Reacher waved a hand again.
“We had to take out Leif, and the other big players in the club, so we could turn things around. It wasn’t a decision we made lightly, because moving on and looking for another club would have been easier, but we couldn’t leave them doing what they were doing. Not once we’d witnessed the depravity they were willingly indulging in. It’s taken us ten years, lost us a lot of the old members, and nearly killed us both several times over, but the club, as it is now, is a fucking family we built-”
“Upon the corpses of the old club, you fucking asshole!” Micro yelled, before another thud of fist against face was heard.
“Ryder, I’m starting to think you’ve got a crush on me,” he muttered, and I snorted. When all eyes fell on me, I realised I shouldn’t be finding him funny anymore, but I’d always enjoyed his brand of humour.
“So Micro infiltrated this club, to try and bring it down to punish the two of us.”
“And everyone else paid the price,” Tommy hissed. Yeah, Tommy the prospect, who was about to be patched in, was in attendance, along with the two other prospects we had left, simply because this situation was too serious to hide it from them.
Ice’s phone started making a sound like a Klaxon, and he leapt up from his seat, digging it out of his pocket, his eyes widening as he stared at the screen.
“FUCK!My systems just flagged an incoming threat! The police are on their way, in force, and they’re coming forhim.” He pointed at Micro, and we all stood, shoving our seats back.
“What the fuck do you mean they’re coming for him?”
He was scrolling through something on his screen.
