“He wouldn’t have givenyouany mercy, Rue,” Drifter said, meeting my gaze.
A loud scream followed by harsh breathing made me look over and I saw that Relay was using a knife to make cuts on Rhino’s skin.
“You might have survived that parking garage,” Kilo added, shifting enough that he blocked my view of what was happening, “but only to be brought somewhere else where he could murder you.”
“Maybe he wouldn’t have,” I suggested, even though my instincts called me a fool. “Maybe he just wanted some answers.”
“You’d be sitting where he is right now,” Strike warned.
A crack and a scream and I watched as Relay began breaking Rhino’s fingers, one at a time, pausing only long enough for him to answer, or refuse, OD’s questions.
“I have no tangible proof,” I whispered. I was starting to shake. It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle blood and gore. It was the fact that instead of helping to fix what was wrong, I was standing by watching it happen to him.
“Come on,” Bolo said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. The guys knew I’d had enough.
Overdrive’s gaze met mine briefly as Bolo walked me toward the door with everyone else following. There was worry there, but it was soon drowned out by determination. He nodded at his brother, then turned back to Rhino.
I wasn’t sure what I’d done to deserve this kind of loyalty and help from these men, but I was grateful not to be dealing with this on my own. I would have failed. I’d probably be dead. Stalking around in the dark with needles filled with Ketamine, I was basically LARPing as a vigilante. Even if I got through that parking lot attack on my own, what next? I had nothing. In fact, I was so far over my head I wasn’t sure I would’ve been able to get out of this on my own.
Even knowing deep down that Rhino was somehow a part of this, I didn’t want to watch his torture, or death, anymore. Knowing what he might have done to me still wasn’t enough to keep me in that room.
I sat down at the table with the other bikers and accepted the second glass of whiskey that was shoved into my hand.
Kilo squatted in front of me, eyeing the look on my face. “I know this is a bit much,” he said. He used a finger to ease the glass of alcohol up to my mouth so I’d take a drink. “But we need to know everything you do. About your brother. About Rhino. Where you were following him. That way we can get some answers.”
I was completely numb as I relayed everything I knew. It wasn’t much to go on, other than knowing where Rhino lived and where he’d met the other guy. Kilo nodded, squeezed my knee, then stood up and went down the hallway to join his friends. The others started up a lively conversation, filled with jokes, and I wasn’t sure if they were trying to make me feel better, or if what was happening in the back of their clubhouse didn’t bother them. I eventually decided it was a little bit of both as someone refilled my drink. I took a hearty swallow, then I did my best to block out what was happening to Rhino and focused on the men around me.
CHAPTER 9
Overdrive
Kilo had given me all the information that Rue had told him. It didn’t help. Rhino was a stubborn motherfucker, that was for sure. Even with Relay going at him, he refused to give us much of anything.
That was as much an admission of guilt as him spilling his guts. An innocent man would’ve been blubbering every secret in his life as Relay had gone toward him with the hammer on the first hit. The fact that Rhino was taking this torture meant he knew something. And he was protecting somebody. Out of loyalty or out of fear—fear greater than the hammer smashing on his kneecap—I wasn’t sure. Either way Rue was right. He was involved in whatever was happening with those kids. Though, according to her it wasn’t only kids who were dying. There were adults as well. Men, women, and children. Whatever this was, no one was off limits, but it was mostly people down on their luck.
“He’s not going to talk.”
I looked over at Kilo and nodded in agreement.
“Guilty as fuck,” he continued as Relay grunted over his work.
“My thoughts, too.” That was the thing about Kilo. He and I thought a lot alike. Ruck had told us more than once that he was sure we shared a brain. Not in a complimentary way though.
“What’s the plan if he doesn’t give us anything to go on?”
“We find it for ourselves,” I told him, arms crossed over my chest as I watched Relay do one of the things he did best. The fact that Ruck had made him our chapter’s chaplain really was a slap in the face to any man who took that role seriously. Not because Ruck didn’t respect religion, he had as much respect as any of us. But he’d done it because a man who’d seen and done the things that Relay had done, he knew could counsel anyone about anything.
Not that our chaplain did a lot of counseling, but I was pretty sure Ruck was hoping that one day he would. There was nothing the rest of us could get up to that he wouldn’t have advice on. Except maybe getting married. That might be beyond his scope, but the guys knew better than to ask him about things like that.
“You going to let him keep going at him?” Kilo asked after a few more minutes filled with agonized screams.
Cocking my head, I studied our brother and the look on his face as he tortured the man in the chair. He almost looked serene. Relay had a lot of fucking demons. It wasn’t a surprise considering all he’d been through. “We’ll give him a few more minutes,” I replied. “He doesn’t get this chance very often.”
Kilo snorted in amusement. “Not lately anyway. We going to check out this fucker’s apartment?”
“Yeah. But not tonight. We’ll have the others dump his body out in the desert and then hit it hard tomorrow.” Kilo was studying me. I could feel his stare all but penetrating the side of my face. Eventually, I couldn’t ignore him anymore. “What?”
“You like her.”
