Page 73 of Dirty Salvation

T-bone had just made thesecondbiggest mistake of his miserable ugly life.

The hard planes of Rider's face changed.

Violence whipped through him, hot and hard. His angled jaw, the sharp bridge of his nose all morphed into something evil. His feet rooted to the floor, staring at what he was hearing from the mouth of a disgusting animal talking of his Zara. It would be the last fucking thing he said about her, ever again.

Rage rose up.

It swelled inside Rider's chest until his ribs ached from the hard inhale of breath. His face turned nasty, his hand outstretched for Hawk to slap the wrench pipe into his palm in a familiar move almost as if his VP had been ready to pass the baton of ineffable violence to his friend. He didn't go for any other body part, zeroed in on the most important one to feel the damage. Swinging the wrench so hard into T-bone's face his arm ricocheted like a boomerang from the force so he could do it again and again and again. Blood and bones burst all over the place, those tiny facial bones crumbling to dust, giving the most unimaginable pain.

Grinder swiped his iTunes to some loud decibel of Papa Roach's 'Between Angels and Insects' drowned out the excruciating harrowing screams as Rider beat the ever-loving fucking fuck out of the cunt that had damaged his old lady.

T-bone was left hanging, a dead weight from his ropey arms, sweat pouring out of him, soaking his already BO stained torso, blood from Lawless’ handwork oozing down his side, his body had given out from the pain and shock dropping him into unconsciousness.

Not yet, asshole.Death was coming, but not yet. He'd tell Hawk to make this one feel the most, to drag him back to consciousness and start all over again. His boys needed their torturous fun first before Rider would finish them off for good.

Beside the unconscious bastard, two other men looked terrified, one began to plead, that he'd tell Rider anything, just let him go.

This was another who had violated his woman, performed unimaginable things with her, not just for days and weeks, but months,years, treating her like she was less than nothing, something to be used until they’d ruined his sweet girl.

His gait was dangerous, two steps and he was in front of the man begging for his life. Rider took hold of his head in his palms, squeezed him like a melon, reared back and cracked his forehead to his nose, blood spurting like a fountain, covering the front of Rider's shirt.

The man howled his agony.

"Clean up this pile of shit. Get to work boys. And make it hurt a lot." And with that hiss, Rider turned his back, permitted Lawless and Hawk to advance forward to do what they did best. He’d give then an hour. They could do a lot with a man in that time, take him right to the edge of death, watch his blood ooze out of him, and still he wouldn’t die.

“Do your worst, you cocksucking pieces-a-shit!” spat one of them, fear in his eyes as piss ran down his legs stinking up the barn.

And whaddya know, Hawk grinned.

You don’t tell a man like him to do his worst and not expect it.

Rider stood back with tension dogging his shoulder blades, wanting this over for his Zara, and watched Hawk dig into the bag of tools coming out with a cordless drill, it whirred it as he advanced.

Tormenting screams were muffled by the soundproof room, thank god.

******

Down the mountainside, away from the corrugated barn with the loud music tempering out the sound of death, Zara walked aimlessly around inside the compound’s main room. Feet carrying her undirected along the bar, the length of the wall of windows and back again, gazing out in hopes of seeing Rider’s return.

Artificial lights blazed from almost every bulb on the ceiling, except for two that had flickered out last night and the hangaround's had yet to change them.

Zara stared at the broken lamps for a long time, making them her focus while she tried to rein in her emotions. The noise came from the tv, the few boys still here watching a game, throwing back beers and laughing together, placing bets. All normal shit. How could they be so normal when Rider was out there doing god knows what.

Murder. He was doingmurder. She knew that.

Her belly rolled over. Was he okay?

She paced some more, unable to keep still, catching curious glances from several eyes, for once she didn't care who was looking at her, she had no desire to hide out in Rider's room, not until she saw him, worrying her fingers together until her skin was pink and sore, she walked some more.

Maybe she should go out there, though he'd warned her to stay inside, not to go anywhere. He'd been gone nearly two hours.

Did it take that long to kill people? Having never done it herself she concerned something had gone wrong.

Perhaps T-bone had gotten loose somehow and had--- no, she warned herself of that route of thinking or she'd go mad with anxiety.

Rider was fine.

She repeated it several hundred times.