“Yeah.”
“Okay, brother,” Consaid.
I opened the door, which creaked exactly like you’d expect it to. Really, in the daylight, the land around the shed was a rolling meadow. Even had some flowers. Kings had had family picnics here. But at night, the shed felt like someplace they shot one of those horror movies with the gnarly-ass torturescenes.
There were a couple of battery-powered lamps hung up on hooks on the wall. Otherwise the place was dark. The floor was a bunch of rotten boards with weeds growing right through. There was a single rusted chair and a couple of random buckets in the corners. One big wooden post stood in the middle, from floor to ceiling, about a footthick.
Taze sat on the floor, facing the door, his back against the post and legs splayed out in front of him. His hands were bound behind his back and he’d been tied securely to thepost.
There was a piece of duct tape over hismouth.
Some blood had dried around his left nostril and he was looking a little roughed up, but nothing serious. Lucky for him, I’d told the boys to use no more force thannecessary.
Also lucky for him, I’d already seen enough violence in my life to last me several fucking lifetimes. And like all the ugliest shit in my life, at thirty years old, I was already beyond fucking weary ofit.
My other friends, outside the MC, liked to joke about it.You need someone taken care of, just tell Jude to bring his gun.Har har. Those were the jokes made by people who had the luxury of joking about violence and darkness because it had never really touched theirlives.
But violence was not an interest of mine, and to me, it wasn’t ajoke.
Taze’s eyes met mine, and I could see his chest move with his breaths. His nostrils flared; that bloody nostril and the duct tape were probably making breathing a bitch. He was rattled, for sure. Pissedoff.
Scared,obviously.
He definitely had no idea where the fuck he was, but even though none of my brothers had worn any Kings patches when they nabbed him, he sure as shit knew who’d brought himhere.
Andwhy.
I shrugged off my cut, slowly. I took hold of the chair, dragged it a few feet in front of him and turned it around. Draped my cut carefully over the back of the chair, so the back patches were facinghim.
Then I watched him as he looked at it. Watched his chest working. My brothers hadn’t been gentle pulling his arms behind him and tying him there. He did not look the least bitcomfortable.
And I took my time, fucking studyinghim.
It wasn’t like I couldn’t see what Roni saw in him. It was pretty fucking obvious. Women liked the cocky blond thing, right? Definitely seemed to work for Piper and Zane. I’d never known any man to attract women like those two did. And Taze was definitely a blond pretty boy with cocky written all overhim.
That shit Roni said about his piece, his colors, his affiliation with the Sinners, making her feel safe? Maybe that was true,too.
Maybe he was even doing something right in bed, to hold her interest as long as hedid.
But that was about as far as I could take it in my mind. The kid had fuck all other redeemable qualities that I could find, and I’d been watching him for the better part of ayear.
“The other night,” I said slowly, “when you and your brothers forced me off my bike with a tire iron in my back, and you mouthed off to me and threatened one of my brothers… did you have any idea what I wasthinking?”
He looked at me as I moved slowly closer. Just a few steps and I was right in front of him, so he had to tilt his head back to look up atme.
“I was asking myself, ‘Is he really this fuckin’stupid?’”
He stared at me, and I could read the fear in hiseyes.
I stared right back until he lookedaway.
“But then I remembered the shitbag MC you belong to, realized maybe it’s not your fault. Maybe none of your degenerate brothers ever took the time to properly educate you on how things work in thelife.”
I pointed at the back of mycut.
“Or maybe you saw that ‘Nomad’ rocker I wear and misinterpreted my importance, my position in myMC.”
I let that sinkin.
