Call Me...Vengeance: Book 1 in the Vengeance MC Series (36 page)

“You’ve got a good guy there, darlin’. He loves you, maybe as much as I do and I’ve got the feeling there’s nothing he won’t do to make sure you’re happy and protected. That’s all I ever wanted for both my girls, Beth. I wanted you both happy, smiling, laughing, living your life like you should’ve from the second you took your first breath. Nothing more, nothing less, because that’s what important. Loving someone so much you’d do fucking anything to see to their happiness, even if that comes at the price of your own. Just saddens me, Becky didn’t get to experience that before she was lost to us.”

“But she did,” I rushed out. Clutching Kevin’s forearm, I gave him all I had to give. The only thing I had that might ease some of the sadness he spoke of. “She had all that, she just hadn’t realized it yet.”

“It’s beautiful you trying to give me that, Beth, but we both know she didn’t. Not like you have. Not like the man who’s standing at your back who vowed to me he’d make sure you didn’t cry one more tear that isn’t pure joy.”

As surreptitiously as I could, I tilted my head in Jonas’s direction.

“Do you see that man? The man standing by Bec’s headstone pretending his heart isn’t breaking with every shovel of Earth taking her further away from us,” I ask softly. At his acknowledgment, I forge on. “His name is Jonas Williams, and he loves Bec. He loves her the way you always dreamed a man would love her, I promise you that.”

“Who’s the girl standing at his side then, darlin’? She looks near on as crushed as that boy does?”

It takes everything I have not to giggle at Kevin referring to Jonas as a boy, but I manage, just. Sweeping my eyes over the figure beside him, close but far enough away to give him the space he needs to grieve, I note that she does indeed look distraught.

“Blaine,” I murmur. “Her name is Blaine. She is a friend, pretty much family actually. She’s been kind to Jonas, and he needs that right now. He needs someone to care for him when he can’t care for himself.”

“Well, I’m glad she’s a good woman with enough heart to do that when it’s clear it’s breaking her to see he’s got what he needs.” Jerking his head once, Kevin added, “That’s not a woman who doesn’t know love, sweetheart. She knows it all too well, and she’s lost it in no small way.” Then indicating to Jackson, he instructed, “You see to it that someone has her back when that boy takes the last of what she has to give. I know girls like that, and they give it all most of the time for nothing. And most of the time to someone undeserving. They don’t save anything for themselves, give it all freely, unconditionally.”

Jackson wasted no time assuring Kevin someone would be looking out for Blaine, something I hadn’t thought of but would have given time. Something I tasked myself with seeing as Avery was lost to us for now. In saying that, Avery had come to the funeral. She sat in the back row, hidden to everyone who wasn’t paying close attention to the lone figure who slipped through the doors at the very last moment.

Avery didn’t travel to the graveside gathering with us, I wouldn’t have known she had been there at all if it wasn’t for the solitary pink Calla Lily resting atop Bec’s rosewood coffin. But she had been there, and that spoke volumes.

Kevin took my hand in his, the one that wasn’t laced with Jackson’s at rest on my belly, squeezing twice before letting go.

“Can’t stay, darlin’. I’d love to watch you get your piece of happy, but I just don’t have that in me. I need the open road, need to put some highway between my Becky and me until I can live up to my promise that I won’t be sad when remembering her. I'm only a phone call away, though, sweetheart. You need me, you need anything, call and I’ll be here. It doesn’t matter where I am, what I’m doing, I’ll get my ass back here.” Winking at me, Kevin gestures to Jonas. “Think I might go have a word with your boy over there before I go, though. You good with that?”

“I’m good with that so long as you know he’s my brother and he’s hurting,” Jackson’s rumble vibrates against my back.

“I’ll have a care as to how he’s feeling seeing as I know a bit about what he’s going through myself. Might share a few stories about my girl that’ll give him peace knowing she lived large while she could.”

“I’d be obliged if you did,” Jackson nods.

“Right, then this old man is off,” he announces with a grin. “You’ve got my love, Beth. And if you ever forget that, then all you’ve gotta do is call and I’ll be sure to have a word and remind you of it.”

I haven’t seen Kevin since Bec’s funeral, but what he told me that day will be forever etched into my memories.

After that, the days passed, but that’s all they did; passed. Avery and Blaine had settled in my old apartment, the one Jackson decreed there was no way I would be returning to, and the men of Devil’s Spawn MC, who had for all intents and purposes, set up camp in Vengeance’s clubhouse eventually went home. Adelyn, who I found out, was saved as I had been by the men I had come to call my family came and went as she pleased. More often than not staying overnight, occasionally several days at a time. She was still trying to break through Avery’s tough exterior but it was becoming more evident by the day that wasn’t going to happen. At least, not in the foreseeable future.

That left me officially moved in with Jackson despite my reoccurring protests that it was too much, too soon. Apparently, he did not see it that was, and I learned Jackson was not a man to be swayed when he made a decision. Not that I minded in this case, because I most certainly did not, I just wouldn’t tell him as much. The last thing I needed was his ego being fed by my surrendering to his demands. As far as he was concerned, I moved in under duress.

It took a month, daily blowjobs, and my eventual threat to withhold any and all access to my body for Jackson to tell me what had happened to Oliver and Laura. In hindsight, I should have trusted him when he said I didn’t want to know because now I wish what I learned could be permanently scrubbed from my memories.

Leaning on the wall beside the battered body at my feet, I sigh in disgust. Fucking pussy. I’ve never heard a man scream the way he did, beg either. Most of the asshole who make it down here have reconciled themselves to their fate. They’re accepting of the knowledge that the only way they’ll be leaving is in a body bag, or worse, pieces. But for some reason, this fucker just wouldn’t quit.

“You think he’s holding back anything he should’ve shared by now,” I ask Gage, who’s reclined in much the same position I am opposite me.

“Not likely,” he grunts. “A pansy-ass like him doesn’t hold onto shit when he thinks it can be used as a bargaining chip in return for his life.”

Isn’t that the truth, I muse wordlessly.

We, Gage, Cash, and I have been working Markham over for eighteen hours, and the little we’ve learned isn’t anything we didn’t already know. Fury joining us got us no more which when I knew there was next to no chance Markham was hiding shit. I knew Fury had some pent up rage to work out of his system, but the way he relentlessly, ruthlessly went at Markham until he could bare breathe without whimpering took what we knew he was capable of to a whole new level.

Part of me, a very fucking small part felt sorry for the piece of shit dragging in shallow, pained breaths at my feet. Fury had been methodical in his deliverance of retribution. Painstakingly so.

There wasn’t one inch of skin left on the man’s back. It had been sliced off, slowly, millimeter by millimeter until the flesh, muscle, and in some places bone beneath was revealed. Sly hadn’t been able to stomach the sight, and I have to say, through some of it even I had to turn away. If I didn’t know where Fury was coming from with it, if I hadn’t felt it myself, I would’ve taken him aside and told him to reel it in a bit. But I did. I was intimately aware of the feelings he was working out, and why he was at peace with using Markham to do it.

Fury was no stranger when it came to knowing the capacity the human body has for tolerating pain. Years spent in a sandbox doctoring his own wounds without painkillers, antibiotics, or basic first aid supplies had taught him, and done it well. Fury knew more than seventy ways to kill a man, but in doing so how to make him suffer immensely before he did. This shit did not fill me with joy, knowing that he could keep this bastard alive for days throughout whatever he had planned, but I gave him his head. For the first few hours at least.

When it was clear Fury had no intention of ending his game in the near to immediate future, I had Cash cautiously but firmly tell him his time was up and see he made his way back to the main clubhouse. He was done. Fury knew it. I knew it. We all knew it.

Jesus, just looking at Markham’s pathetic body fighting to keep going was reassurance enough that he was paid in full for what he’d done.

“Any chance we let Jay at him his position will change?” Sly questions tensely. If there were any doubt before now that Sly wasn’t cut out for wet work, he’d proved our original assumptions correct after witnessing Fury’s handiwork.

“None,” Gage answers for me.

Before entering the crypt, a purpose built single story building with a basement dug into the ground below for times like this when we need privacy to work, I left strict instructions as to who was permitted through the doors. Aside from Gage, Cash, Sly, Fury, and myself, the only other man granted access was Deke.

My brothers know not to question why an open invitation wasn’t offered, and they also know that if they want the details all they have to do is ask. I don’t hide shit from them, never have and never will, but this job was personal. Personal enough for me to want minimal involvement.

“Fuck me,” Deke hisses. “He’s barely fucking conscious, Boss. It’s time to end this. He doesn’t have anything left to give us, and just looking at him is turning my stomach.” When no one responds, he drawls, “Seriously, I’m concerned I won’t be able to get my cock to come out and play if I have to keep looking at the dickless wonder here,” he ends on a kick to Markham’s side which has him expelling a puff of air.

I can’t say I blame Deke for worrying because I’m not far behind him.

One of the first things Fury did was roll him to his back, unsheathe the ten-inch blade Fury has permanently strapped to his thigh and hack the fuckers cock off with one downward flick of his wrist. Commence Markham’s screaming, and simultaneous flinches from everyone watching. But Fury didn’t stop there. No, that was just the beginning.

By the time I sent Cash to talk him down, Markham was unrecognizable. I’d be surprised if there is a single bone left in his face unbroken. Nothing more than a mass of swollen, bruised, the massacred tissue scarcely resembles a male head. His hands are bloodied stumps that look to have gone a few rounds with a mincer, fingers pulverized and blackened where there still are some. Most of them are gone to the last knuckle with only a hint he’d ever had any to begin with.

Dried blood, fresh, and congealed is mixed, pooling under his limp form. If he doesn’t bleed out within the next hour or so it would be another surprise, but again, not a shock. Like I said, Fury knows his craft.

Aside from the Markham’s limp cock that had been lopped off, something Fury took great pleasure in shoving in his mouth effectively gagging him with it, Markham’s balls remain attached but not untouched. Circular burns similar to the ones that were inflicted on Beth cover almost every inch of them. That, however, was my handiwork.

Feet reminiscent of his hands, Markham would have had no chance of walking out of here, even if we had decided to show him mercy. Not that we had considered it, but if we had it wouldn’t be happening. Useless lumps of flesh severed almost at the ankle, he doesn’t
have
feet. None worth mentioning anyhow.

Uncrossing my arms, I give Deke and Gage the order.

“Parson’s old cabin on the ridge. Dump this asshole there and burn it to the ground. The old man’s been on my ass to torch the place for years. Call him and tell him we finally took care of it. The last thing I need is for him to get a wild hair and pay the joint a visit while you’re in the midst of disposing of our friend here. And we definitely don’t need him calling it into the cops or fire department in the process of committing a felony.”

“If he asks why now?” Gage challenges.

“Tell him we’ve been meaning to get out there, but we’ve been snowed under on the lead up to rally. He won’t push it seeing as we’re doing him a favor. Honestly, I’d be surprised if he asked at all.”

“No chance the old coot has changed his mind and wants to keep the place?” Deke presses.

“Not a one,” I reply shaking my head. “Used to be, he went up there with his wife and son every few months on a weekend getaway. That shit stopped nearly twelve years back when they were killed in a car wreck on the highway half a mile from the Furnace turnoff. He hasn’t been back since. Not to clean the place out. Not to lock it down. And not to say goodbye. He isn’t interested, and he hasn’t wavered on his request since asking me to take care of it the first time six months after they were laid to rest.”

Discussion had, questions answered, I turn to leave but not before crouching down, grabbing a handful of Markham’s hair and shaking him until he’s lucid enough to listen to me speak last words he’ll ever hear.

“You need to die knowing that everything you got, every blow that was delivered you earned. Nothing will erase the vision burned into my brain seeing my woman scared, brutalized, and violated at your hands. Fucking nothing. I’ll die with that seared behind my eyes when I fall asleep. But you know what’ll make me breathe easier, make life sweeter?” He doesn’t answer me, but I don’t suspect he can, so I push on. “The knowledge that every night and every morning, I’ll wake up with the kind of sweetness laying in my arms that men can only dream of. Knowing that I get that while what’s left of your pathetic corpse rots away will get me through the times what you did to my woman haunts me. Markham, you don’t have the first clue how huge you fucked up, or what you didn’t lose because it was never yours to begin with. Not the first fucking clue.”

Releasing his hair, Markham’s head hits the floor with a satisfying thud.

“It eases something inside me to know that you’ll never know sweetness the likes of which I have in my bed. All you’ve ever had is venomous pussy, toxic pussy, pussy with an ulterior motive,”

That gets the little attention he has left to give. Turning his head until his eye meet mine through the slits of his eyelids, Markham blinks once and once only.

“Yeah, an ulterior motive motherfucker, but you didn’t know that did you,” I spit.

The last eighteen hours hadn’t been spent solely with Markham. I am an equal opportunity torturer after all. Part of my time, and when I say part, I mean less than an hour total was spent in the cell next door; the cell Laura was being held in. Is still being held in.

Laura was in no way as strong as her partner in crime, however. But we knew that to begin with. She caved within minutes of being tied down to the chair in the center of the room. No threats were made. None were necessary seeing as she gave up the goods without us providing motivation for her to do so.

According to her, not that I believed a word she said without corroborating evidence, the Vasquez Cartel, namely Oscar had nothing to do with Beth, Bec, and Avery’s kidnapping. That was all Nix, Hells Riders, Oliver, and in a small part her doing. The only involvement Oscar had was extending the delivery date of a shipment that was due the day after our women were taken. Laura’s understanding is the Cartel had no idea why the extension was required but granted their request based on good faith that Hells Riders would deliver two days from now.

None of that information had been openly or willingly shared with Laura. The way she tells it – she accidentally overheard them when she was skulking around the warehouse – which led to her learning where our women were being held.

Sly made the call to Vasquez to confirm, and once Oscar verified he had no knowledge of what had gone down, Sly helpfully, because we are concerned with the Vasquez’s continued capacity to increase their yearly revenue of course, what he wasn’t aware of when it comes to dealing with Nix. A lot of it came as a surprise to our local and international drug lord, but it wasn’t shocking. He knew men like Nix, dealt with them daily, but that didn’t mean Oscar was happy he hadn’t been apprised of Nix’s character in its entirety before entering into business with him.

One problem down, what Oscar chose to do about his continued association wasn’t Vengeance’s priority nor did we give the first fuck as long as we were kept clear of it, Laura spilled the rest. Again, most of what she had to say we knew. Her motivation, what drove her to get mixed up with Markham and the shit show that ensued, we, however, did not.

Shifting restlessly to take the pressure off her bound wrist, Laura looks at me imploringly.

“Jackson, you have to understand. You have to believe me when I say that I didn’t know this was what Olly was planning. I thought he was just going to talk to Bethany, right some past wrongs, and we would leave and she would be let go.”

“Bullshit, cunt,” Deke spits menacingly. “You knew. You fucking knew they weren’t gonna set her free unharmed. And if in the beginning you didn’t, you sure as shit would’ve realized it the second you set eyes on your man with her.”

“What was I supposed to do? It was too late when I realized nothing was happening like he had assured me it would. He promised. Olly promised that he would talk to her and then we would drive to the airport, board the plane, and get the hell out of Colorado,” she ends weakly.

“What do you do?” Deke questions rhetorically. “What you do is get the fuck out of the room a good woman, a sweet, beautiful, innocent woman is being tortured in, and you fucking call someone who can extract said woman from a situation like that. You fucking call, Boss. You call every goddamned person in your contact list until someone answers then you tell them where you are, who to call next, and what they’re facing when they get there. What you do not do, is sit on the knowledge that a good, sweet, innocent woman or three of them, in this case, are being raped, beaten, their bodies marked and abused because you’re a gutless cunt.”

Laura’s eyes are wide, her mouth gaping, and for once in her life she’s silent. Taking that as my opportunity to say the only words to describe a woman like her, I force out,