And the battle begins. While Malice and Jester beat the living shit out of each other, Havoc proceeds to drown himself in another beer. Discord and Jamie keep up a steady conversation, with her remaining glued to my side. It’s a surreal situation given how I thought I’d never see her again. What’s weirder is being home when I was sure I was going to die in that fucking dungeon. Yet here I am, listening to Jamie tell Discord stories of when she lived in Orlando and Ocala. Of the odd jobs she’s had, how she did everything from waitressing to dog grooming. He, in turn, fills her in on everything she missed while she was away. And I just sit back and enjoy a moment I never thought I’d live to see.
Hours later, as we pack up our shit to ride back to town, I hear Discord thank Jamie for getting me home, and tell her that he’s glad she’s staying in Mayhem.
But the monster damn near breaks out of its cage when I hear her fucking answer.
“I’m glad I came back, too, but I don’t know if I’m staying.”
Well, fuck me.
So that’s how it is, huh?
Good to know.
16
Wraith
Pissed off is a dangerous way to go into a job.
I hang back with Malice and stand in the doorway of an abandoned mill. This far out, on the edge of Mayhem, gives us the privacy we need to work. We have the Berserker duct-taped to a metal chair, and yeah, being here has me all sorts of fucked up, with visions of the dungeon’s torture room ricocheting around my brain. Can’t stop envisioning the long-ass table with all those instruments lined up in a neat row.
And the drain with its leaky hose.
Fuuuck.
But I didn’t earn my way into that goddamn room. This motherfucker here? From what they told me, Axel ran his stupid mouth all over Wayne County, and now he’s got a beating coming to him.
Sanctioned by his president.
Ain’t that ‘bout a bitch.
But I’m still suffocating, and the mill feels too dark, even with the afternoon sunlight filtering in through the windows. The air is heavy, a weight sitting on my chest that makes each breath a labor that leaves me lightheaded. Sweat beads on my brow and upper lip, but I calm my breathing and remind myself that Gomorrah is over a thousand miles away. I’ve got this. I spent six years as an enforcer, and I’m damn good at my fucking job. We all have our talents, and I make zero apologies for mine. I maintain order to prevent chaos—because this country has seen its fair share of anarchy and look at what happened. If fucking up a few assholes keeps the peace in our town, I’m okay with it because I’m an evil man who hurts terrible people, and there’s poetic justice there that gives me the warm and fuzzies.
Apparently, Axel caught a righteous beating for causing a ruckus in Devil’s Den—as one deserves when acting like a jerkoff on Unholy ground. Should’ve been the end of it.Wouldhave been the end of it. But he made the colossal mistake of talking shit afterward, and now he’ll be lucky if we let him walk away with his tongue.
Because he for damn sure isn’t walking away with all his teeth.
That’s how it is in our world.
You earn a beating. You take the beating. You don’t act like a bitch and cry about it afterward. If you do? We run over you like a fucking tank.
“Why’d you have to be a dick?” Jester bends at the waist and puts his face all up in Axel’s. He smacks the man upside his head. “Come on, dude. We don’t want to be here. We don’t want to have to hurt you again.”
“I do.” Malice doesn’t look up from picking at his nails with the tip of a stainless-steel tactical bowie knife. He’s got his hip braced against the doorframe, and he’s dressed head to foot in black, looking bored to death with the situation, and we haven’t even started yet.
I’m far from bored. I want to make someone bleed.Needto make someone bleed, and if Axel’s that someone, well, sorry motherfucker, but you pulled the short straw.
Jamie’s nonchalant bombshell about being undecided on whether or not she’s staying in Mayhem got me all kinds of riled. Haven’t talked with her about it yet because my temper’s running too hot, and I don’t trust I’ll be able to keep the monster caged if she tells me she’s leaving once Crane’s dead. But it’s a discussion that will happen once I get the words out without wanting punch my fists through things.
“No, we don’t,” Jester continues as if Malice said nothing. “But here we are, Axel. And now wehaveto hurt you because you couldn’t take a simple beating, you dumb shit.”
Axel, duct tape over his mouth, blue eyes wide and fearful, glances at me for help.
I roll my lips between my teeth and shake my head. “This is your mess. You have to own it. That’s how this goes.” Those eyes narrow, and he huffs out a breath of frustration from his nose because some assholes just refuse to learn. “Watch how you eyeball me, motherfucker.”
Axel wisely wipes the aggression off his face.
“This is what’s going to happen,” Jester begins. “I’m going to hit you a few times. You’re going to beg to me stop. I will, of course, ignore you.” He jabs a thumb at me. “Then this big bastard is going to fuck you up some more. When he’s done, that psychotic Roman giving himself a manicure over there will finish the job. When it’s over, there will be a lesson learned here today. Do you understand?”
