Page 42 of Empire of Carnage

She was always dressed for murder. I wanted to give her my protection but the reality was, my girl looked good dripping in the blood of her enemies, she looked even better when she was the one bleeding them out.

I got the code right on the third try and the room opened up, bright fluorescent lights shone down a concrete wall covered with chains and just next to it was a table full of torture devices. I yanked Dez’s ankle dragging him into the room behind me, he groaned, still delirious from the beating he received outside the nightclub from us.

I stretched my fingers out, feeling the burn on the torn skin of my knuckles and smiling and recollecting the satisfying crunching sound of his cheek against my fist.

“Get him hooked up to the wall,” I commanded Santos and Fletcher before doubling back with the realization I wasn’t anyone’s leader anymore.

“Never mind, I got it.”

“It’s all good boss,” Fletcher said, shaking his head like he understood.

The two of them worked quickly, getting Dezmond chained to the wall while he was still wavering back and forth out of consciousness from the multiple head injuries he was now suffering.

“Where’s Ethan?” I asked.

“He went with Isaac and Smith to debrief the rest of our men, draw the line in the sand, and figure out who’s going where,” Fletcher explained.

“I didn't want it to come to this.” I scratched the back of my head with a sigh.

“It’s a good thing, you’ll see that,” Santos said, turning towards me. “Our people were already divided, if it was this easy to split off.”

“They’re split because… they weren’t yours to begin with,” Dezmond slurred, his head lifting up as he fought his way back to lucidity.

I swung my fist against his face, and it smacked against the concrete wall before ricocheting back down.

“Lights out!” Fletcher whooped.

Santos pulled the smelling salts from his pocket and stuck them in front of his face to wake him back up. Blood was pouring out of his nose violently and there was barely any light left in his eyes.

It wasn’t fun when they’d already mentally checked out.

“What’s the matter Dez? Is this not how Daddy’s plan was supposed to go?” I tilted my chin and hardened my eyes at him waiting for the light of recognition to hit his face.

It didn’t.

He was too out of it.

“My father knew you were all unraveling over the Mexican whore—” He didn’t get a chance to finish.

I threw my fist again. The impact from the collision of his head against the concrete wall behind him made a deafening sound. Santos rolled his eyes at me and pulled out the smelling salts again to wake the bastard up.

“Good thing we don’t need intel from him. You’ve practically beat him stupid.”

I gave him a fraction of a smile. He nodded, and it tore through my heart. I missed our friendship. I spent a lot of time wondering how we’d ever get back to how things were, and it made me wonder if he did too.

She was right, she wasn’t supposed to choose. Choosing would have been something she did to us, and this right here, this was the product of my own issues, my insecurities. She loved all three of us… and my problem was that he had loved her back the entire time?

Fuck. Was I the asshole here?

Was it up to me to repair the damage?

We bonded best through violence, maybe this was the closest thing to an olive branch we could get between us.

Dezmond woke up again, moaning a pained sound.

“I’m sorry, you were saying something?” I chuckled, cracking my neck on both sides.

Our captive spit a bloody wad onto the ground.