He nodded toward the side of the building, and I followed him around, more curious now than anything else. We went around the side and the back, and there sat a…
A Bandit.
It had to be.
But the Bandit was tied up by ropes, pinned to a pipe. He had duct tape over his face.
“We decided we got tired of trying to attack an unknown,” Brock said. “So we decided to just kidnap one of these assholes and get some information out of them.”
He leaned forward, grabbed the tape off the man’s face, and ripped it, drawing a pained cry as some of his facial hair ripped off.
“The fuck, man?”
“You don’t get to be the one asking questions right now, punk,” Brock said. “I suggest you shut the hell up on the shit-talking and answer everything we want if you want to get out of this alive.”
The Bandit looked at us with a mixture of unbridled hatred and genuine fear. We may have positioned ourselves as the more ethical option between the Bandits and us, but everyone knew we weren’t afraid to kill.
“What’s your connection to the Fallen Saints?”
“The Fallen what?”
Connor kicked him hard in the sternum, sending the Bandit doubling over in his ropes and gasping for air.
“I’m serious man. I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”
“Then tell us about King,” Steele said. “Who is he? What connection does he have to you?”
“Who the fuck is King? Is this some kind of sick jo—”
The Bandit didn’t finish his words. Connor decked him in the jaw. A tooth flew loose and blood splattered on the ground.
“You’re on strike two now, buddy,” Brock said. “I’ll ask you one more time. Who is King? Or, at a minimum, what is your involvement with the Fallen Saints?”
“I don’t know! I swear I don’t fucking know!”
Mason pulled out a gun. The man’s eyes went wide. And still, he screamed I don’t know.
“Mason.”
Everyone looked at me.
“He doesn’t know anything,” I said. “Probably a prospect, or whatever the hell they have. He would’ve blabbed by now if he knew anything about King or the Saints.”
“You’re saving a fucking Bandit’s life right now,” Connor sneered. “You think you’re smart enough to know that he’s telling the truth?”
“You think this asshole has enough loyalty to the Bandits to die for them?” I said. “You know they’re all fucking cowards at heart. There’s no loyalty amongst them. If this guy knew something, he would have said it.”
Resentful faces glared at me. This was, to an extent, just the reality of my role in the club. Too smart to not be judged in moments like this, but not so smart that I would have stayed away from such a lifestyle in the first place.
Not that I regretted being in the club, not at all. But it was readily apparent most other people in my spot would have gotten out as soon as they fucking could have, and that was not my choice.
“You must know something about the bombing at the bar,” I said. “Surely, that was a plan passed around at the Bandit meetings.”
“We were just told if we did it, the feds would come, you guys would disappear, and after some time, we’d get bailed out and protected.”
Oh, shit.
They’re not trying to avoid the feds.
