“Fuck you,” Battle bit out.
“Let’s be honest, he was a pussy even before her,” Butch chuckled.
“Fuck you too!” Battle threw his cigarette to one side and scowled at us.
“Pretty sure his dick has shriveled up now though,” I agreed.
Battle stepped forward, his hand on his crotch. “I can assure you two motherfuckers that my dick is happy and healthy and being well fuckin’ serviced by my woman, unlike you two shrimp-dicked losers.”
“When you assholes have finished,” Hardy said from the doorway, “you wanna get your sorry asses up the stairs and into church? We got shit to deal with.” He gave a cold, hard look to Solomon. “And deal with that.”
He turned and left without another word. Gauge gave a mock salute and left too and Battle, Butch, and I turned back to our little friend tied to the chair. I cracked my knuckles as he looked up at me, his bloodshot eyes barely able to focus on my face.
“She still dream of me?” he asked with a dark laugh that turned into a coughing fit.
I grabbed one of my tools from the bench next to me and held it up to the light. Crouching down so that we were face to face, I held the screwdriver up for him to see, turning it in my hand as I glared at him.
“Yeah, she does,” he said, his tongue darting out to swipe along his split lips. “Still dream of her too. Always wanted a woman who’d fight back, and that bitch was everything I ever wanted.”
The motherfucker still wasn’t backing down. Instead he grinned at me, like my face wasn’t the last thing that he was going to see.
“Does she scream for you like she screamed for me?” he asked, his voice thick with hunger—a hunger which would never be sated no matter who he hurt. It wasn’t about Penny, or me, this was about him being a sick fuck.
I smiled then.
He might not ever back down. Men like him rarely did.
But I was looking forward to destroying him all the same.
This sort of job was what I was born to do.
After all, they didn’t call me Fighter for nothing.
*
Back upstairs I washed and headed into church with the rest of my brothers. The room was full to bursting and I frowned at the crowded room. Something important must have been going down, but I had no clue what because for the last five months I’d spent my time working out a way to set up Solomon so that Razuuk would want him as dead as I did. I’d finally found the right piece of string to pull on and open up a gaping hole in Solomon’s life last week and I’d been breaking him apart ever since.
Other than searching for vengeance for Penny, I’d been setting up my woman in her own apartment. I hadn’t actually spent any time with her though. I’d let Charlie arrange everything from helping to pick her apartment to going with her to buy shit to furnish it with. I had more than enough money in the bank, even after paying Razuuk the 40k for fucking me up; I’d been saving it for years. As I watched my funds rapidly depleting, being spent by a woman I barely knew on couches and refrigerators and college courses in nursing, I’d become more and more fulfilled.
My whole life I’d spent searching for something. Who knew that in setting Penny free I’d finally find it?
I took a seat and Hardy brought the meeting to order with a slam of the gavel on the table. Rider sat to his right and Gauge to his left and all faces were aimed on me.
“As you all know, we’ve had problems with the Vipers MC in recent months, not to mention the heat we’ve been getting from the Reverend’s men. It all came to a head last night when I took a meeting with Razuuk Benite and the Rev.” Hardy looked across at me, his fierce expression growing darker. “You claimed Penny, Razuuk’s daughter, for your own.”
“Paid the fucking price for it too,” Gauge said.
“And I’d do it again,” I interjected.
“That may be, but Razuuk’s beginning to wonder why Penny ain’t been seen,” Hardy said. He reached into his cut and pulled out his cigars and lit one. “He’s beginning to question if you really took her as your old lady.”
Rider glared across at Hardy. “Penny’s got nothing to do with Razuuk anymore. Motherfucker needs to learn his place.”
A couple of the men stamped their feet on the ground in agreement, but Hardy wasn’t appeased by that response. I glanced across at Battle, who was leaning back in his chair looking pissed off. He still hadn’t forgiven Hardy for taking so long to get the shit sorted out with the Burning Eights, and I didn’t blame him. A lot of the men were beginning to question Hardy’s leadership, including me.
“Rider’s right,” Gauge said with a scowl. “What a man does with his old lady isn’t anyone else’s business. Fighter paid his dues. Penny is his and there’s nothing Razuuk can do about it.”
Hardy stared hard at me, ignoring both Gauge and Rider. “Is she yours?”
