The basement door lets out a groaning sound when I open it, and we haul them down the concrete stairs. The air down here is cold and damp, smelling like rust, old blood, and motor oil. An MC man’s wet dream.
Chains hang from the ceiling beams with metal cuffs attached at the bottom. There’s a set of three. But today we only need two. We’ve used this room a lot. It’s always a bloody mess when we’re done, and the prospects are left to clean it up and haul the dead bodies to Cassie’s farm to dispose of.
“Hook them up there,” I tell the prospects, gesturing toward the chains.
They waste no time dragging them over and making sure their wrists are restrained in the cuffs. It takes both Rejects to chainone of them up, so the other lies on the floor, his body flopping around like a dead fish.
Once they’re both chained up, they thrash around as best they can with their feet still bound together. Their muffled screams grow louder through the hood covering their heads.
“Strip ’em,” Luca orders.
Knives appear in the prospects’ hands before I even have a chance to see where they came from. They each take a body and begin cutting through their jeans, not caring if they nick their flesh. It’s not like we’re concerned about an infection or them bleeding to death. The prospects don’t untie the ropes around their feet. Instead, they use the knives to cut through their jeans and shirts, leaving their underwear for last. All of their clothing is stripped from them, piece by piece, until they are naked, their pale skin goose-pimpled from the cold.
They’re dying after we take our revenge on them for daring to touch my girl. My girl? Where the fuck did that come from? She’s not my girl. She’s Luke’s and Doc’s woman. She’s not mine anymore.
I shake off the thought, and focus my attention back on the two men currently hanging from the ceiling.
Luca walks forward slowly, like a velociraptor moving toward its prey; each movement as if it were in slow motion until he’s standing before them. He doesn’t say anything at first. Just stands in front of them, his furious gaze locked on them.
He reaches up and yanks the first hood off the man to his left. The son.
The hood comes off the father next
Both of them look around wildly, eyes huge when they see the bikers watching them and the visual truth of their current predicament. It must click for them that this isn’t going to end well. Knowing who the older man is, he should’ve known his actions affect not one, but both of the MC’s in town, who are nolonger enemies, but allies, thanks to Luca taking over and his connection to Vee. I have no doubt if she wasn’t in the picture, there would be no unity between the two clubs.
“Let us fucking go!” the older man shouts, spit spewing from his mouth, as I raise both of them up.
Luca smirks.
“You wouldn’t dare do this to me if your father were still alive,” he shoots back.
“That’s an opinion. But it doesn’t matter ‘cause he ain’t.”
Luca pulls a lighter out of his pocket and flicks the flame on and off as he steps toward the father and holds it to his flesh. Letting the edge of the flame warm the skin before moving to another spot on his body. I watch the man grimace, but he doesn’t scream.
“You boys touched someone that wasn’t yours,” he says softly.
The old man rolls his eyes, as if responding to him is beneath him.
“Please…please, man. Let me go. My dad wanted her, not me.”
Luca turns around to face me and the two prospects.
“You hear that, boys? This prick doesn’t know what family loyalty is. He’s ready to sell his father out. Blame it all on him as if he had no part in it.” He gives a dark, soul-chilling laugh.
“I didn’t,” he whines.
“Shut the fuck up, son. You’re being a damn pussy. These boys think they’re tough ‘cause we can’t defend ourselves chained up.”
“You didn’t do much defending yourself when you could, if I recall,” Luca taunts them. “That one,” he gestures toward the son, “couldn’t even shoot straight. But at least he came charging toward the danger. You hid.”
“Fuck off. You don’t know shit,” the father snaps back as the son continues to cry and beg to be let go.
“I was merely giving you a chance to apologize for your actions,” Luca starts before the son speaks up again.
“I’m sorry, man. I promise I won’t touch her again.”
Luca turns slightly.
