Scarred (Branded Book 2)

by Scarlett Finn

  “Our friendship was short,” she said.

  “Far as I’m concerned, you delivered. I came in here and told you I wanted Tag on my doorstep, now a day later, he’s my bitch. That was you and Arch that made that happen. You’re a helluva team.”

  Nya didn’t want praise from this guy. “So you want both of us on the books now,” she asked.

  “You’ve got something, boo. Some way of convincing guys to do what the fuck you want them to do. And that’s interesting to a guy like me.”

  Nya didn’t want to interest Hexam. The idea that he might have his eye on her, now or in the future, in a professional way or otherwise, made her uncomfortable. “I think you should leave now,” she said.

  “I could.” But he didn’t move, he just watched her rise to her feet. “But these clubbers of yours, they’ll be fucking off soon, and then it will just be you and me back here, and all those young, sexy servers who’ll line up for me and my boys.”

  This guy didn’t know the meaning of friendship. But Nya didn’t know what to do, she needed Archer and he was half the world away. “I get in the car with you and then what?” she asked.

  “I told you. I’m not gonna hurt you. I wanna do you a favor to show you, we can be allies. I can be useful to you. I can give you what you want.”

  This guy believed he knew so much about her, but as far as she was concerned, he was still bluffing and she wasn’t falling for it. “What do you know about what I want?” she sneered.

  “Plenty.”

  She didn’t believe him and began to tidy her desk around the conspicuous weapons that were making her uneasy. Hexam might think he’d put them there to make her feel better. But she was too aware of the fact that he was stronger and quicker, so if he got hold of one of these, she wasn’t sure she’d be quick enough with the other to even the odds.

  “Tulio.” The name made her stop straightening papers. “That’s right, boo. See, like I said, it takes a guy a few days to get back in the loop, but now I am. And I know what you want.” Hexam clasped his hands. “I know fucking everything, boo, and I can give you it. I can give you the revenge that you want. You don’t have to do it bit by bit, I can help you rain down hellfire because the same guys who wronged you, wronged me. We have something in common.”

  Back to that. And he was right. He knew everything. All of the problems her and Archer had discussed were becoming reality. Hexam knew about Tag and Farrah, and he knew about her plan to get revenge. Archer had said Hexam wouldn’t care what happened to these guys as long as they weren’t in his inner sanctum. This had to be the evidence that they weren’t.

  “How did you…? What did you do to Tulio?”

  “You marked him,” Hexam said. “It wasn’t Archer’s trademark, but the work was pristine, there’s only one guy with the skills to do that.”

  “And Tulio… he told you what…”

  Hexam smirked. “Made us promise to protect his women.”

  Nya had seen how Tulio cared for his women. “And that’s when he told you—”

  Hexam shook his head. “But after putting two bullets in his whore’s head, he got chatty.”

  Tatiana. That was the name of his mistress, she remembered Archer saying it. Pain clenched her heart. “Why would you hurt your own men?”

  “He wasn’t a serious player. He’s expendable. Just like the fuckers who hit Sizzle for me and fucked up your friend. They did sloppy work under my name. Whether you come to watch or not, I’m taking them out tonight.”

  “You have them?” she asked, dropping into her seat, Nya almost didn’t notice that her hands folded over the top of the gun.

  Proud of himself, he stretched out in the chair. “I do. Four of ‘em lined up and ready to go.”

  “Does that include Tulio?”

  He shook his head again. “We let him live, ‘cause he gave us useful info.”

  So four, plus Tulio, plus Jonno, that left only one unknown. “Who are they?” she asked.

  “Come and see for yourself. I’ve got them all for you, boo. Not even Archer did that for you. I’ve got the little guy who shot your bouncers, and the three who screwed… what was her name?”

  Dazed, she felt she was slipping out of reality. “Jamie. If you have them, why didn’t you tell Archer?”

  “He knows. I guess you guys never got time to talk about it.”

  No, they hadn’t, and she glanced at her phone that still hadn’t rung. Maybe that was what he was going to tell her tonight that he was doing this job in exchange for time alone with the men who’d killed Jamie.

  Hexam smiled again. “You’ve got the bloodlust, I can see it. You want to see them suffer and you’ve got nothing to lose. You can come and watch with your own eyes and then I’ll take you home and leave you alone.”

  This wasn’t the time to be shocked. She had to keep it together. “How do I know you’ll let me go?”

  “What would happen if I held you? I can’t force Archer to stay away forever. It took me a whole fucking hour today to convince the guy to go. One of his conditions was that he wouldn’t stay down there for a breath longer than he had to. You must do mad things to his dick, ‘cause there’s ample pussy down there, and he doesn’t give a fuck about it. Told me to keep it the fuck away from him.”

  She did. But that wasn’t why he was so eager to come home. If she was in Archer’s position, she’d be eager to come home to him too. “I can’t trust you,” she said. “I’ll have to pass.”

  Archer would go postal if she went with Hexam, no matter how desperate she was to see these men taken down a peg. He’d told her that she should never put herself in danger for him because if she did, they’d be through. Nya had to guess the same rules would apply if she did something to endanger herself by choice.

  “Come on, Nya, you know I wanna be your friend and do you a favor—”

  “And then I owe you,” she said.

  He didn’t deny it, but wasn’t offended. “Way I see it, you owe me either way,” he said, with his elbows on the edge of the desk.

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Because you can come with me now and get exactly what you want, watching these men go down. Or you don’t come with me now and you miss your only chance to see it.”

  “Then I pick door number two.”

  “Fine,” he said, standing up to brush his hands down his jeans. “But you’re making a mistake. Don’t forget, Columbia’s a dangerous place. There’s lots of gangs down there who see Americans as a payday, grab one and they get a helluva ransom. Lots of stray bullets and machetes swinging too, accidents happen all the time. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to fuck people up down there, no one gives a shit.”

  Hexam had a way of doing this thing with his eyes where he could cool them and intensify them at the same time, conveying his threats while keeping his words implicit.

  “You’re telling me something might happen to Archer or Tag?”

  “I’m saying if I get upset, like I will be if you don’t come with me, I might forget to give the guys down there orders to protect the Americans’ asses or to put the safety on their guns. You might have heard that I can be unreasonable. When I’m in a bad mood, I make bad choices. You don’t want me to be in a bad mood… Do you, boo?”

  She stood, angry, confused, offended, she couldn’t reason with this guy and he was leaving her in an impossible position. There was no choice. He wasn’t asking. He was giving her an order. “You said Archer was your friend.”

  “And if he picks a girl who hates my guts, that’s a friendship that will sour fast. So what do you say, Nya, spend a couple of hours with me, or your boyfriend comes home in a box. What’s your pleasure?”

  Like she had any kind of choice.

  Archer would be hurt if she refused, Tag would never make it alive either, and she would’ve made an enemy out of a gangster just to complete the fucked-up trifecta.

  “Ok,” she said, bowing to grab her purse from under the desk, she slung it ac
ross her body and picked up both of the weapons. Putting the gun in her purse, she strapped the knife to her hip and hid it under her shirt. “But just you. Get rid of your understudies.”

  “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” he said, holding out his arm.

  As much as she didn’t want to, Nya went over to step under it. Just as they were about to walk out, her phone began to buzz and she glanced back to see it light up. His hold on her shoulders strengthened.

  “Leave it, Nya. You can tell him all about it in the morning.”

  If Hexam held to his word as Archer said he did, then she would see bad men being punished and then she’d be taken back to her apartment and left alone. But if Hexam didn’t keep to his word, she might still be with him when Archer came back. If Archer came back.

  fourteen

  Jada was wary, as were the security guys. Nya gave them quick instructions that she was leaving for the night and wouldn’t be back.

  Hexam sent his men away, though she knew they wouldn’t go far and were probably just travelling in another vehicle. Whether it was those men or others, she didn’t know where they were going, or how many people would be there, but Hexam didn’t travel alone, he’d already confessed that.

  The last thing she expected was to be driven to an office block in a decent part of town. Hexam went to an underground parking garage that was open for them. He’d tried to make small talk in the car, she didn’t understand why, he wasn’t actually trying to be her friend. Maybe he was just trying to confuse her and keep her on edge.

  There were two guys flanking the elevator, she hadn’t really seen the guys in Sizzle, so she didn’t know if these were the same ones, but it didn’t really matter. Nya had been right. Sending away the original three men meant nothing, because he had plenty of backups.

  They got into the elevator alone and traveled to the fourth floor of ten, then exited. It was so weird. They were in an empty bullpen filled with desks and chairs and low partitions between them. Clearly this was an office that was in use, there were knickknacks on desks and pictures stuck to computer monitors. There were highlighted schedules on the walls and colored writing on the whiteboards. But there was no one here. The lights were off and the shadows around the room made this benign space seem sinister.

  He took them in a U-turn down a corridor and that was when she heard the music, loud enough to muffle the sounds of whatever was coming from the room ahead. But it wasn’t loud enough to carry to the street below and cause concern or annoyance. It got louder. It was some kind of heavy metal, but nothing she recognized.

  Hexam opened a door. She expected a secret knock or a lock, there was neither. He went in and what she saw made her gasp. Plastic sheeting covered the floor, and most of the walls, but there was some sort of metal sheeting beneath it, making the floor hard and unyielding.

  There were two guys, one in each of the back corners, who said nothing, they just watched the four men who were facing forward, kneeling in a line in the middle of the floor.

  All of them were crying. All of them were bloody. And she wondered how long they’d been at Hexam’s mercy. All of them were naked, all of them had their hands bound in front of them. They also each had a different colored ball gag in their mouths, preventing them from closing their lips or talking.

  “And here’s tonight’s entertainment,” Hexam said. Drawing her into the room with his arm around her shoulders, he closed the door at her back. “You might not know these guys, boo, ‘cause they were all wearing masks, right? They’ll all tell you. You recognize who this is, don’t you, boys?”

  Hexam stood behind her to give her shoulders a squeeze. The shortest one on the end was so battered she didn’t see tears. His eyes were so purple and swollen, he wouldn’t be able to see out of them. When Hexam didn’t get the answer he wanted, he clapped his hands once.

  “I didn’t hear you!” he called out. The trouble was, all they could do was nod and give muffled responses. “You two, out. Stay on the door.”

  The two men from the corner went out, leaving her and Hexam alone with these four men. “Archer’s probably given you a crash course, but let me help your education. We’ve been dragging these guys around for weeks. I was sort of impressed when I heard you and Arch were going for them too,” he said, sauntering away from her to wander around to the back of the men.

  He clapped twice in close succession and all four rose higher on their knees like they’d been trained to react to the noise.

  Hexam said more, “See, I don’t hurt guys quick, I hurt guys slow. Any way you can think of to hurt these guys, me and my men have done it.” He kept circling the men. “They’ve been on their knees for weeks.” Nya noticed the bloody bruises and welts on the kneecaps of each man in the row, the wounds radiated up their thighs where they’d been cut. “We drag them from place to place, let them dig their own graves a couple of times. Tossed them in the lake and watched them fight not to drown. It’s fun, especially when you tie them together, you see the primal instincts come out. The little one’s been struggling.”

  Hexam grabbed a handful of his hair and gave him a shake. Piss spurted from his dick and she stepped back, but it was Hexam who called out in disgust. “Oh, man, not in front of the lady,” he said. “You see, boys, this is why we don’t feed you or let you drink, ‘cause you just embarrass me. See they’ve lost all shame, they know they’re close to the end.”

  He came back around and laid his arm across her shoulders. “This is a gift to you,” he said. “You can do anything you want to them. Anything, Nya. What is it you wanna do?”

  It was funny, when Archer was at her side, she felt confident and empowered, now she felt weak and incapable. “I… I don’t know.”

  “That’s ok,” he said. “You’re new to this. We can start small. You wanna humiliate them? We can do that? You want to give them back what your friend got? We can do that too. We got guys on staff who’ll fuck anything, and we’ve turned them on each other a few times. Believe me, these guys have felt it. Each one of them’s taken it up the ass ten different times, twenty maybe.”

  The biggest one began to sob, Hexam went over to slap him. “I’m surprised you didn’t like it,” Hexam said. “Since you enjoyed bashing in that little girl’s skull so bad. I say we give my boo here a shot.” Hexam turned to her. “You want to cut him? You want to force your blade down his throat the way he forced her to take his cock? You can do it. No one judges here. You want something to shove up his ass yourself, we can do that too. How hands-on you wanna get? We’ll have the boys dig you up a strap-on and you can take them all.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Ok. Well what about their junk?” Hexam kicked the second in the line in the groin. He doubled and Hexam kneed him in the face. “I didn’t tell you to crouch.” He spat in the guy’s face. “They’re all disgusting. They’re all weak and none of them deserve to work under me and they sure don’t deserve any pussy. Where’s your knife? Cut off their balls, make them eat each other’s dicks, anything you want, boo. It’s yours.”

  Nya was speechless.

  “Maybe you’d prefer to get it over with,” he said and went to the door to open it a couple of inches. He said something to the men outside, but she was still fixated on the four kneeling in a line, just five feet away from her.

  The biggest one blinked and tried to talk, but the gag prevented him. They were pathetic. They’d been tortured and their bodies were a mess. But their bloodshed and bruises were deserved. The shoulder of the third in the line was bent at the wrong angle, she’d guess it was broken, ‘cause his collarbone pressed on his flesh from the inside.

  Maybe they’d been drugged or maybe the pain was the least of their problems.

  The silenced shot made her jump and she darted to the corner of the room as the smallest one fell to the floor with blood oozing from his skull. Her eyes jumped to Hexam who was just inside the door, holding a gun, bearing a silencer, in an outstretched ha
nd.

  The middle two began to shake and cry again. The biggest one tried to shout and object. But there was the little guy, lying on the floor on his side in a puddle of his own urine and blood. It was the end for him and she wasn’t sorry.

  “That’s the guy who killed your bouncers,” Hexam said. “Now, how do you want the next one to die?”

  Hexam was enlivened by this, aroused, he was playing with life and death and she understood how intoxicating that was, because she’d felt it when she was standing with Archer. This didn’t feel the same.

  “Where’s your gun?” Hexam asked her. “The weapon I gave you, where is it?” It was in her bag. Sliding her hand inside, she curled her fingers around the butt and pulled it out. “Good.” Hexam wore a smile as he waved his gun around. “We’re like Bonnie and Clyde, you and me. Natural Born Killers.”

  Nya didn’t appreciate the comparison, but wouldn’t argue with him while he was brandishing a weapon he’d proved he would use.

  “Now, they know how their night’s gonna end,” Hexam said. “Do you want to hear them beg? Does that get you off, boo?” She shook her head. “Then what do you want?”

  She wanted Archer and the minute his name popped into her head again, tears stung her eyes. She wanted her man here and it wasn’t that she felt compassion for these scum suckers, she didn’t. They were in a sorry state, stripped, skinned, and scarred, exactly as they deserved to be. Each one of them had to pay for what Jamie had gone through.

  If the positions had been switched and she had died, then witnessing this from the Great Beyond, would vindicate her. Jamie would be cheering her on. Telling her to beat the shit out of each of them and force them to swallow each other’s cocks, as Hexam had suggested.

  Nya couldn’t get over the niggling feeling that there was nothing stopping Hexam from putting a bullet in her when he was through with the guys.