Page 14

Bullet

I wouldn’t say I’m enjoying myself, but I think that Raven is. He’s Crow’s other personality, and he’s quite… effective when it comes to fear, pain, and violence. Crow has been a member of the MC for years and none of us knew he shared his body with another mind—we just thought he was a moody bastard. Turns out he was just trying to keep Raven under control. It was Raven all along who wanted to take the enforcer position in the club. Now his secret is out, and he’s made peace with his other side, Raven can come out and play whenever he wants to. Reaper, who also shares the role of club enforcer, is also down here.

“You have one minute until I make you sorry you haven’t answered our questions,” Raven threatens ominously. He turns so Donny can’t see his face and winks at Reaper and the rest of us gathered in a crowd around the strung-up man.

The most untouched part of our clubhouse is the basement. Honestly, it’s creepy. Gross. It smells like mold and mildew and one spring, it even flooded. It was a hell of a cleanup. We had to install a new sump pump, and we were all on sewage cleanup for days. The whole place reeked like bleach for a good month.

We don’t store anything down here, and no one ever wants to venture into this place. The fluorescent lights overhead are attached to the exposed beams that support the main floor above. Half of them are burnt out and the other half flicker and gutter.

The concrete has some dubious stains, dark spots that could be blood. We know it’s not, but that doesn’t mean Donny Jacobs does.

He’s hanging from a hook we screwed into a thick beam, tested to make sure it would hold at least two hundred pounds. Donny’s tall, and being that the ceilings are low, he can touch the floor if he stands on his tiptoes. Just .

Raven turns back and runs one gloved finger down Donny’s cheek.

So confident and cocky out on the street, assured of his elite position in the world and his own infallibility, Donny gets the message that he holds no power here. He stammers, blubbering out something incoherent.

“What was that?” Raven coos, like he’s talking to a baby. In his all-black clothing and his jet-black hair, his eyes blown out from the very real pleasure of getting to do this, he’s intimidating as fuck. “We know your dad just wants money. We already know what he has on the club, so the question is why.” Raven grasps Donny’s chin between two fingers and jerks his face violently. “Since we can’t get ahold of daddy dearest—it’s very rude not to return phone calls, you know—you’re going to have to give us the answers we need.”

After the conversation I had with Lynette, I went straight to the club with it. After another meeting, it was decided that pursuing the Donny option was valid if Harold was going to continue to stonewall us and remain MIA.

Wizard gave it his best shot for almost a week, but when he couldn’t find a single thing on Donny, we came up with a plan.

Raven, Reaper, and Smoke went to Seattle and kidnapped Donny as he was leaving his penthouse suite on his way to class this morning. The building had security everywhere, including cameras in the parking garage, but Wizard was able to hack those, and that’s where Raven and Reaper hid. Smoke was outside, keeping an eye on the place, and positioned as a last ditch stop if Raven and Reaper failed to nab Donny down there.

He was easy pickings. They reported that he cried and sniveled all the way back to Hart. Granted, they did tie him up and force him into the trunk of a seven-series bimmer the club owns. Of course, the plates have reflective tape over the letters, so the traffic cameras couldn’t pick them out.

While the hunting party was out, the rest of us set up the basement. We have no real plans of torture, or at least, it’s not our main aim. We’re more about the implied threat.

A metal cart set up with all the scariest looking tools is our primary fear tactic. Picks, chisels, screwdrivers, hammer, saws, a drill, and pliers. We picked a spot at the back of the basement where the drain happens to flow and set the hook up above, like we wanted it to be as mess free as possible.

In short, we went for atmospheric torture, with the real stuff to happen only if Donny refuses to break. Tyrant didn’t feel right about it, but Raven promised he’d just lay some fists into some meaty spots, and Donny would probably crack wide open.

He’s only been down here for five minutes, but so far, all Donny has done is cry.

We’re all dressed entirely in black, with black gloves. It makes quick work of laundry, but we truly look the part of thugs.

Raven shakes Donny’s chin again. His face flaps all over the place and he moans low, a trickle of blood spilling between his lips. He must have bitten his own tongue or his cheek to keep from screaming.

When Raven lets go, Donny’s head slumps forward as though he’s just spent days being tortured, not lovingly caressed for five minutes.

“What did you do, Donny boy?” Raven coaxes. He steps over to the table and goes for the logical first implement. The pliers.

Donny eyes the rusty tool—I don’t even think they’ll open, they’re so old and rusted—and howls. “Nothing! Nothing. You have to believe me! I’ve done nothing. I don’t know anything!”

There’s a very good chance Lynette and I were on the wrong path and Donny truly has done nothing, but if that’s true, we can still hold him for leverage. Harold won’t be pleased, but we’re past the point of playing nice. We’re past the point of playing at all.

“Teeth or nails first?” Raven asks in his sinister low voice.

I have a black Henley on, but beneath the long sleeves, goosebumps form on my arms.

Lynette doesn’t know anything about this. It was agreed that we’d keep this strictly confidential. Tyrant hasn’t even told Lark, and none of the other old ladies know. We’ll have to tell them soon enough, but we’d like to have something first. It’s not that they don’t realize that sometimes we have to resort to doing unsavory things, but this could turn dangerous, and we want to know what we’re up against before we act further. Everyone is already careful. No one goes out alone. If this results in another lockdown, people will lose their minds. We don’t want to threaten it, if it’s not going to happen.

Raven runs those rusty pliers over Donny’s spittle-covered lips, letting him taste the metallic bite. “Teeth first, then.”

“No!” Donny jerks violently, spinning himself, twisting so the ropes cut into his wrists. We can all see the fresh red marks that form as they chafe away the skin. “No, please! I-I needed money. Money to keep them quiet.”

Raven jams the pliers through Donny’s lips. They clank against his teeth, and Donny screams. He also pisses his pants, the urine soaking through the trousers of a two- or three-thousand-dollar custom tailored suit.

The strong stench of urine fills the basement, an unpleasant reminder of the last time we were down here, mopping up sewage.

Raven pops the pliers out. They’re shiny with spittle. He wipes them on Donny’s pristine white shirt, leaving a trail that looks like old blood across the front.

“What did you have to keep quiet, Donny boy?”

Donny shakes his head in a rare show of bravery that lasts all of three seconds, which is about how long it takes Raven to trail those pliers straight down to Donny’s junk. “Alright!” Donny yelps. “Okay! Stop!”

He’s a pathetic mess, snot dripping from his nose, drool dribbling from the side of his mouth, face mottled red and coated with a sheen of tears.

“We needed the money to pay those four girls, so they’d keep quiet.”

Four? Jesus fucking Christ. I really hoped Lynette was wrong about this, but Donny has assault written all over him.

“It was this party,” Donny whimpers. “We were all drunk. We did some drugs. I don’t even know what the fuck we took, but it was at this guy’s cabin in the mountains. Suddenly, we were outside and there were naked women everywhere, running through the woods. There were some guys yelling about hunting them down. I thought it was a game, I swear. That it was all in fun. That those women wanted to be chased down. I-I thought that it was their kink, you know? That when they screamed to stop and cried, that they were just faking it.”

“You fucking pig!” Raven wrenches the rusted pliers apart, tears open Donny’s shirt, and clamps them onto his nipple, hard .

His screams fill the basement, over and over again, echoing off the concrete walls. It might look like Raven is going to tear his nipple clean off, but I doubt he’s even pinched harder than a regular nipple clamp. It’s the fear that Donny’s feeling more than anything. Raven has supreme control, although I can tell his rage is very real.

Fuck the nipple, I’d like to rip Donny’s entire face off.

“Someone recorded it!” Donny yells, snot, tears, and spittle spraying all over the place. “They blackmailed everyone they could. Most of them paid up, but we’ve only made a partial payment. My dad doesn’t have the cash at hand.”

“How much!” Raven pinches harder, breaking the skin. Blood trickles down Donny’s chest.

“Fifty million,” he cries. “Fifty fucking million, I swear.”

Raven sighs, pushes the other side of Donny’s shirt open, and clamps the pliers on his other nipple.

Donny’s bladder empties for a second time, urine dribbling out over his shiny leather shoes.

Did the guy drink four gallons of water before he came?

“You want to try again? That’s not an amount that anyone would have.” Raven echoes his words, uttered right into Donny’s face, with a pinch of the pliers that sends another trickle of blood down his chest.

“Oh god! Jesus, god! Please don’t! Please! It was eight million dollars. Two for each. We needed the rest of the money to start over again somewhere else, in case those videos ever came to light. They could have made copies. There was no guarantee we’d pay, and it wouldn’t still come out.”

“So your daddy dearest was going to shake down the club for fifty million.”

“Yes! Yes, that’s right.”

“Fifty fucking million.” Raven whistles. “What’s a human body worth, all parts and pieces considered? Maybe we should raise the money by donating each and every one of this piece of shit’s organs.” Raven grins wickedly. “And by donating, I mean selling them on the black market, of course.”

Donny shakes his head so madly he almost headbutts Raven, just like he did me.

“The whole thing with Bullet was just a distraction. Something to keep the club busy in the short term until daddy could get everything arranged,” Raven hisses.

Donny nods, his head drooping pathetically. His face has gone bloodless. This piece of shit better not pass out.

Raven’s already on it. He uncaps a bottle of ice-cold water and splashes it right into Donny’s face. “Stay with us, bro. Your job isn’t nearly done yet. You’re going to call your daddy and let him know where you are. Let him know that the gig’s fucking up, and we are not impressed. Do you understand?”

“Yes!”

“You’re going to drop the charges against Bullet and you’re going to sign whatever it is that we need you to sign. Any and all paperwork that states you are both blackmailing, lying pieces of shit.”

“Yes. Yes, okay.”

“You’re a rapist , Donny. You’ll sign to that too, and your daddy will sign papers stating that he knew that and tried to extort money from us to cover it up and to help you flee the country. You or you pappy ever fuck with the club or any of ours again, and that paperwork sees the light of day. He releases documents about this club, and that paperwork goes viral. Do you think you’ll be able to hide anywhere in the world, let alone work or live a normal life after that?”

Donny has gone limp, but he’s awake. His eyes stare at the floor blankly, as if he can’t believe this is real. He’s probably going into shock, the bastard.

Raven grabs Donny’s chin and tilts his face up. “Are we in agreement?”

Donny whimpers, a plaintive, sad little sound, just like him. Sad. Twisted. Disgusting. Pathetic. A man who hunted down women and hurt them.

It takes everything I have in me to remain rooted to the floor and not grab something off that table and jam it right into this asshole’s throat. A slow glance at my club brothers tells me they’re having just as hard a time as I am. We’re all down here, except the prospects guarding the place above with Battle Axe and Odin, seasoned members of this club who know how to watch for a threat, and Wizard, who is monitoring all our security.

Tyrant looks like he wouldn’t be above cutting off a few of Donny’s fingers for good measure, while some of the other guys probably wouldn’t want to stop at just fingers.

As Raven cuts Donny down, I feel no satisfaction. The charges didn’t worry me. The club facing yet another unknown threat did. It isn’t just us here. There are women and children who could become collateral damage. There’s no relief over figuring this out and getting it dealt with, at least not yet. I’m sick with disgust and burning with rage.

It’s going to take a long fuck of a time before it settles.

“What were they doing with the blackmail money?” Raiden asks, stepping forward, cracking his knuckles menacingly.

“I don’t know,” Donny gasps out, and this time, he’s telling the truth.

“We’ll find out. They had better be paying it as restitution to those victims. If not, we’ll make damn sure that it gets redistributed.”

Tyrant claps a hand on Raven’s shoulder. “Take him upstairs. We’ll need him to start signing shit soon, and we don’t have cell reception down here. Harold will answer his calls, if anyone’s.” When Raven complies, he turns to Raiden. “We’ll find the victims and give them some money. Not that it will ever make what happened to them right, but having it might help them cover any medical costs, or pay for therapy for the years to come so they can get over this nightmare. It might help them relocate and start again somewhere else, where they don’t have to constantly be reminded of that night, if that’s what they need.”

Raiden nods. “I’ll get Wizard on it, figuring it out right away.”

There are no more words said. We clean up the basement in silence, each of us grabbing a few tools to put back in their places in the storage rooms upstairs, each of us sick at heart and lost in our thoughts.

***

Hours later, in the privacy of my room at the club, it hits me that I’m going to have to tell Lynette about this. I can leave out some details, but not many. She’ll put it together. I hate that it’s a burden she’ll have to bear. She’s strong because she’s had to be, but I know that underneath that facade, there’s a tender, good woman with a huge heart.

Can we lean on each other through this and heal together? Will she stay? Is what we have from Donny enough to keep our club and our families and loved ones safe? Will I ever be able to erase the images Donny’s words splashed across my brain like gore?

I wish I had answers for just one thing, but I don’t. I have no idea how long it will take to sort this out, but we will. We’ll do it as a club, because we have to. At least I have brothers to see me through this, my chosen family, but when I think about family, it’s not just the men here that I picture.

It’s Lynette and Willa too.

I don’t know if we’ll find happiness, or even get close. I don’t know if we’ll have another day together, let alone a future. I’ve lived most of my life that way, knowing full well that being a soldier means that any day might be your last, but I haven’t lived that life in years.

The pain up under my ribcage tells me I’m getting soft.

The air that rushes into my lungs, at last, says that a little softness is a good thing. It’s what makes us human, and when we lose that, we become like Donny and Harold Jacobs—men without souls.