“Never, brother. It’s no hardship for me to be out here.” In fact I liked the sound of it. Queenie’s face flashed in my mind, but that was foolishness because she’d end up an old lady in Barden. And if she did, then that was the last place I wanted to be.
Thorn nodded. “We need to scorch the earth. But in a careful way. DeLuca has to vanish, his organization dismantled, but not even a whisper can attach itself to our club. You get me? We will do this, and no one can know we ever did it.”
“Black op, all the way.” I nodded. While I had investigated some covert shit, I had never really been part of the hidden world of black operations while in the army. Thorn as a Marine and then some kind of unmentionable secret soldier had lived the life for years.
“We get caught, it’s on us alone.”
I understood what that meant. “This is one woman, do we need to really go there for her?”
Thorn raised a single eyebrow. “This is about what we did to the heir—it’s us or them. You know DeLuca has put a hit on both of us.”
I whipped my head around. “What the fuck?”
“Eagle called me earlier, so I got the go-ahead from Jericho for this plan. He’ll send us more brothers if we need them but I said less was more. Although apparently Bear has an issue with DeLuca from years ago, but so far he’s staying home.”
The world we lived in—the edge of evil—was small and so many of us were connected to those who lived fully in the dark. The Brotherhood as a club walked a thin line of legality—we stayed on the upright side of that line, but we weren’t afraid to descend to the dark. Like now. We’d take care of business and be done. However we’d found ourselves immersed in the murky depths of illegal too often lately. But each choice had been the right one and this one might not be right but it was the only one left to us now.
I had fucked up yet again. Now the club was in peril if I didn’t fix my mess.
“I got no issue with fixing shit here and keeping watch after.” There were brothers who would have a problem with what needed done, but Thorn and I weren’t among them.
Chapter 15: Delta
Thorn gave a grunt, and silence descended as we took an exit off the highway and onto a blacktop road in the middle of the scrubby land that made up most of Nevada. Thorn didn’t have his phone out but the man had a scary accurate memory for locations. We turned off on a dirt road and ended up in some low hills with no sign of civilization around.
“We bring them all out, let them watch. Leave the guy who attacked the apartment to last,” Thorn said as we got out of the SUV.
“Got it.” I opened up the back and dragged out the first one, and rolled him out into the desert scrub. Thorn grabbed the chair with the guy who’d been sent to get us today and basically threw it out of the truck, and the guy landed with a thud and muffled yell.
Thorn lifted up the original guy we’d captured and carried him over next to the other guy, then dropped the fucker and the chair flipped over. Blood oozed from a cut on his temple.
I set up the two who were on their backs. We had three prisoners lined up in a row, bound to chairs, trying to appear tough. It wasn’t working.
“So this is the way this works.” Thorn waited until all three looked up at him. “We will know all you know, and it’s just a matter of how much pain you want to endure in that process. There is a bare minimum required for fucking with us, but there can be a whole nightmare world you could avoid by telling us what you know.”
Thorn stripped off his cut and handed it to me before stripping off his black tee. His torso was a maze of scars from his service. Whip marks, knife scars, burns and things I couldn’t identify crisscrossed his chest, stomach and back.
I had almost nothing in comparison—a knife cut and a single gunshot wound scarred my body. I grabbed Thorn’s duffel because it had the tools he would want in it. I’d worked with him enough to know he’d come prepared.
“We’ll start with you.” He rustled in his bag and brought out a Glock. He shot one of the guys in the knee.
The man howled. “What did I do?” He whimpered and moaned. “I’ll tell you anything.”
And he did. He told us about DeLuca’s organization, his second in command, his compound and all he knew—low-level stuff. However my job was to watch the other two, especially the original guy, to see what he didn’t want shared. My ability to read people was something I used with ruthless precision.
When the kid mentioned the number two man, the other guy looked at the man we’d captured the first night. The exchange had been quick but it told me something truly amazing—DeLuca’s second in charge was taped to a chair. Apparently, he’d led the assault at the apartment and Thorn had chosen him as the one to take. Bad luck for him and great luck for us.
But the kid didn’t realize it because he never looked over to the second in charge, so number two couldn’t even warn the kid off.
“They’ll come for us.” Number two spat the words. “We’re all tagged.”
I held up my old cut. “Yeah, I suspect they will.”
Confusion lit up the other two guys’ faces since they couldn’t figure out why I’d bring it with me knowing it was compromised.
“Your turn.” Thorn turned to the guy who’d arrived with the kid.
I thought of him as Stooge. Stooge was sweating and glancing at the kid, who was writhing in pain.
“He needs a doctor.” Stooge frowned up at us. “You know we’ll kill you, wipe you the fuck out.”
Thorn didn’t even look, just fired and hit the kid in the thigh. “What else you wanna say?”
“Shit, man, you’re fucking crazy.”
“Yes, I am, but Delta is crazier.” Thorn stepped back and I took center stage. Everyone expected crazy from Thorn—the dude had it tattooed in his features—but I appeared so very normal in comparison. So my brutality shook them even more.
I cracked my knuckles. “You will tell me everything you know.” I looked at the second in charge. “But I don’t want you to know what I know.” A single right cross to his jaw and number two was out before his chair back hit the dirt. “Check him.” I nodded Thorn his way. While I was almost certain any guy would go down, I’d rather Thorn be sure.
“Tell me who he is.” I asked Stooge once Thorn confirmed the other guy was out.
“Just a guy who works for DeLuca.” Sweat beaded on Stooge’s brow and his gaze flicked between the guys on either side.
The sun was low on the horizon and soon it’d be dark and cold out here. The scavengers would be looking for a meal. And we’d provide them a feast.
I stepped forward and whipped out one of my throwing knives, letting it loose in a blur of motion. The knife came to rest in the fleshy part of Stooge’s left biceps.
He howled. “Dammit, that hurts.” He was hurting but not nearly as bad as he let on. The pain hadn’t made it to his eyes yet. I yanked the knife out and drove it through the back of his hand down into the armrest of the wheeled chair.
Genuine pain drove his yell way up the intensity scale. The stooge’s eyes were dilated and tight—finally had his attention.
“Try one more time.” I pulled out a new knife and flipped it in the air.
“Jimmy Ricci—he’s a nephew to DeLuca.” The guy’s voice was high and thready.
I pulled the knife from his hand. “And he is what number in the DeLuca organization.”
He flicked his eyes to both sides and considered lying to me. I held up the knife with his blood on the tip so he could see it clearly.
“Alright already, he’s number two.” The guy looked at Jimmy, who was still out cold. “You guys are digging your own graves—our guys will be here soon.”
I hoped so. Thorn had left me to question while he worked on something in the back of the truck. I hadn’t asked questions but I knew the way his mind worked. Whatever surprise he was wo
rking on would be nasty and lethal. We were operating in the black now.
“Tell me, how do I get into DeLuca’s compound.”
He shook his head and kept shaking it even after I quit talking. With a flick of my wrist, a knife dug into his thigh, inches from his manhood. He screamed, but that was nothing. I grabbed hold of the knife and pulled it toward me, slicing open the top of his thigh. I purposely missed the artery, but that didn’t do shit to stop the pain.
His eyes fluttered and I grabbed a handful of hair. “You don’t want to pass out.”
His head bent forward and he was out. I moved to my bag and grabbed the container of salt I always carried. It wouldn’t take much. I smacked his face lightly enough to annoy and rouse but not enough to put him under worse. When he began to come around, I sprinkled salt in the fresh slice on his thigh.
“Fuck.” He panted and shivered as the agony of salt in the wound spread through him.
He was almost done for—shock was setting in, so in quick order I sent questions his way.
“The access to DeLuca’s.”
“A code. It changes all the time—my code won’t work by the time you get there.”
“How many guys on guard?”
“What’s the day?” His eyes rolled but he didn’t go out again.
“Friday.”
“Four on the weekends. Six on the weeknights. He likes—” Stooge licked his lips “—privacy on the weekends, but that could change after this shit.”
“What scares him most?”
“Dying, having nothing to pass on—it’s why that shit with his son is so bad. You killed his heir—the future he had planned on.”
“Good.” I spat the word.
“Man, he’ll keep coming until you’re in a desert grave.” He tried to look tough but it was too hard.
“I know.”
I spent the next ten minutes quizzing him on DeLuca’s schedule and the details he might know. He sang with no more need for pain. He wasn’t ever going to be a holdout. Number two thought he could hold out but he wouldn’t. We’d barely scratched the surface of the pain we could give.
Our old boss had matched Thorn and me on several of this type of information-gathering missions because of Thorn’s knowledge of pain and my ability to read people. The truth was that most people were just not equipped to deal with pain. And the random application of gruesome kinds of damage unnerved event the baddest of badasses. These guys stood no chance.
Thorn strode over with a bag and my former cut. He draped the bare vest over the guy, then knocked him the fuck out. The kid had passed out from the pain of his two gunshots, so no one was awake to witness Thorn bring out an IED he’d fashioned from some plastique explosive, a simple timer and bolts. He attached the device to the back of his chair, then turned the guy to face number two—that way Jimmy couldn’t see the device either. By the time the sun set in another hour, no one would notice until it was too late.
“You take number two, I mean Jimmy?” I glanced down, wondering what else was in his backpack.
Thorn gave a single nod. “You don’t need to stay.”
“But I want to.” I slapped him on the back. “We’re in the black together.”
Thorn searched in his bag and brought out wood toothpicks. I took the left and he took the right. We began wedging them under his nails. He woke with a start as I finished the third finger.
“Fuck you doing?” he screeched.
“Morning, sunshine.” Thorn grinned at Jimmy.
I shoved in the next toothpick and he jerked back, tipping the chair over, and I let it fall to the ground. Eyes wild, he looked around taking in the state of his two compatriots. “You’re fucking dead.” He spit the words out and Thorn slowly brought his huge boot down on Jimmy’s chest and pressed until the man coughed.
Thorn eased the pressure until the man sucked in a rough breath. “Answer the questions.”
“You’ll just kill me—” The guy coughed as Thorn reapplied the crushing pressure.
“Worse things than death.” Thorn’s cold, detached tone spooked me.
“Yeah, okay, okay.” Jimmy looked at the other guy. “Charlie, hey, Charlie.” When his friend didn’t answer, he glared at me. “You kill him?”
“Nope, not for me to do. But I suppose it’s up to you if he lives.” A lie that served me well.
“How’s that?” Jimmy was calculating odds as he spoke. I could see his wheels turning as he tried to figure out the winning move in this no-win situation.
“I need you to answer me straight. Charlie already gave it all up, but I need confirmation, and every lie you tell me is longer these two have to bleed out, longer you will suffer in pain.”
“What you going to do to me?” He gave solid attitude despite the pain that coursed through him.
“Nothing.” I smiled. “My job is answers, but his job—” I pointed to Thorn “—is to mete out the pain, and he loves his job.”
“Keep fucking around, please.” Thorn’s menace carried through the words.
The guy gulped and his eyes met mine.
“How do I get into DeLuca’s compound?”
“Fuck you.” He tried to spit at me but lying back on the ground, that didn’t work out for him.
Thorn grinned wide and knelt down to yank off his left boot. “The feet have so many nerves in them and so many tiny bones that a surgeon can never properly repair.”
The man tried to pull his foot away but that wasn’t happening.
I waited for the pop of the first dislocated toe and the scream to subside. That hurt like a bitch. “Compound code.” I went right for the good information.
He gave it up without any attitude and the next three questions.
“Who else besides DeLuca, the bastard son, and you are in position to take over if DeLuca falls.”
“No one, we’re all he trusts.”
That was a partial lie. I nodded to Thorn who dislocated, then broke each of the toes on his left foot. Jimmy’s screams echoed in the night. Coyotes howled back. “Jimmy, maybe the scavengers will come for you before your friends arrive.”
“Fuck, just kill me—I told you everything.”
“Not even close.” I walked past him, brushing those broken toes. “Still have a foot and two hands left.”
“And his junk, we can break that too,” Thorn added.
Jimmy pissed himself. “Okay, there are four other guys who could step in.” He licked his lips. “Two are my sons but let me send a message and they will walk away.” Tears streamed down his cheeks.
I nodded. “We can do that.”
“The other two are Lucky Barnes and Jerry Mancini from the Remington.”
Well, Jerry was much better connected than I had thought. It made me unreasonably excited to know I could visit serious hell on that particular pissant. He was the one who put Queenie in the situation to begin with.
We spent another twenty minutes with Jimmy double-checking and digging deeper, but he didn’t offer any resistance—we’d broken him.
Thorn pulled out his phone to record the message. “Say what you got to say.”
“Boys—two bikers, one too pretty and one a giant will be coming your way—”
“Thorn and Delta,” I interjected.
“They mean business and I want you to go to your uncle in Jersey, stay there. No retribution, no power plays in Vegas—that’s my final wish. Nothing but a clean start. You obey me, boys. I love you two.”
Thorn turned it off with a nod. “They’ll see it. For what it’s worth, I hope they listen to you.”
“They will, they’re good boys.” Jimmy licked his lips. “Finish it.”
“Oh, how did you find me that first night?” I’d almost forgotten about that. I needed to know who to pay back for the loss of my cut.
“Frankie
tagged you—only smart thing he did.” The guy gave a hacking laugh. “Or maybe the fucking dumbest.”
It was the dumbest, maybe second dumbest. His worst mistake was touching Glory. I met Thorn’s gaze and we both cursed. We’d totally missed it. “Did he tag my friend?”
“Nah.” He coughed again. “Only had the one.”
As soon as we were back to the SUV, I’d wand Thorn—no way we were leaving here with any trackers. The next forty-eight hours were critical and the plans only worked if they didn’t know what was coming or where we were. I grabbed the wand and flicked it on before running it over Thorn from top to bottom in a slow, steady sweep. No lights or beeps—he was clean.
“We wouldn’t have needed that explosive if that bastard had marked me.” Thorn’s low rumble was almost inaudible, but I’d heard him.
“So we’re good with this outcome?” Leaving these guys to draw in the others was a ballsy play because it required us to stay right here until we saw headlights closing in. Then we’d set the timer and drive out through the brush.
“Yeah, even if we only take out a couple of them, it will set the tone.” Thorn grinned at me. “Scare the fuck out of them.”
And frightened enemies were weak ones, so I couldn’t argue with his logic, although I wanted to. I wasn’t into blowing shit up or torturing my prey—a clear victory and clean kill when absolutely necessary—it was just how I had been trained.
We shot the shit as night descended. The scrabble and yips of scavengers grew closer, and the guys outside became more restive, hollering for us to help them and maybe crying.
I considered getting out and knocking the pussies out again just so I wouldn’t have to listen to their bullshit.
“I see the lights.” Thorn jumped out of the vehicle and ran over to the three men. He knocked each out with a tap before he did something to the back of the one chair, then jogged back to the SUV. He started the vehicle and moved away, navigating without any lights and without running into any of the stubby bushes or small boulders. He had to have cat eyes to see without any light.
Get Away Page 13
