Page 8 of Reckoning

I slam my fist into his side, feeling his rib facture so perfectly beneath my hand. “That’s a fucking lie.” I growl. “You touched her. You put your hands all over her.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“No?” I muse.

“He told us that’s how she likes it.” He gasps.

I pause, gripping his throat so tightly he splutters. “What did you say?”

“Some bitches are into that.”

My anger flares more. He’s trying to pull that one? Trying to act like it was consensual?

“She enjoyed it.” He says.

Those words make me pause. I stare into his eyes, holding his gaze long enough that he starts physically shaking.

“She did. She…”

My fist breaks his jaw as it makes impact. The howl he lets out does nothing to appease the fury inside me. He knows that wasn’t the case and yet he thinks he can fool me?

He starts murmuring, his words no longer quite making sense because he clearly bit off part of his tongue when I punched him.

I tilt the knife, getting the angle just right and then I bury it deep into his eye socket, twisting it, turning it to mush.

“Know why I’m taking your sight, Danny?” I murmur as I pull the knife back out.

He’s whimpering, howling, his mouth drooling from how I’ve broken it.

“You saw her, you looked at her, when you had no right. Did you really expect to get away with it?”

I take his right eye next, letting the blood from both pour down his cheeks. Blinding a man always feels a strange move. On the one hand I like the psychological torment, I like that removing that sense not only heightens all the others but it also means I can’t see the fear in the eyes when I make my final move.

Blood streams down his cheeks, they look like tears. He’s blubbering, spluttering and then he starts repeating the same name over and over. “Christian, Christian, Christian,”

I know who he’s referring to. I know who the bastard is. He was there too, he also touched what wasn’t his.

“You need to see this…” Colt says getting my attention.

I force my gaze from Danny and see Colt’s holding a phone out. He must have used Danny’s face to unlock it before we beat him to a pulp.

He holds it up, right in front of my face. “I went through the videos.” He says but I’m not really listening.

I’m staring. Transfixed. On the screen I can see her, tied down, immobile. I can see the rope around her wrists, around her ankles – there’s slack for her to move and yet she’s not. She’s just lying there, like she’s not even alive. She’s wearing some dirty underwear but nothing else. Six, no, seven men are surrounding her, their faces all on view.

As someone rips her bra off she seems to wake up from whatever drug induced stupor they put her in.

And she’s screaming, jerking, trying to get free.

The men around her are laughing. One of them grabs her hair, yanking her violently to the side.

Above their jeers, above their insults, I can hear her pleas. She’s begging them to stop. Begging them to let her go.

Someone slams their fist into her face and that silences her. How they haven’t broken her jaw I don’t know.

“Boss?”

I look up, snatching the phone, needing that awful noise to stop.