Wild Rider (Bad Boy Bikers Book 2) (11 page)

On top of the dresser, she had set up a stand with her bag on it. Beretta noticed the bag was exactly inside Damage’s eye line—right at the corner of it. He had to strain to see it, but it
was
there for him to see.

Helen pulled out a hammer first, testing its weight in her hand. She made a few careful swats with it. Then a box cutter. She took a moment to slide the blade all the way out and then back in again, letting it glint in the dim light. Then she pulled out a pair of pliers, snapping them heavily.

“Hey,” said Damage. “Hey, lady. Whatever you think you’re doing, you got a bad idea. I know people, all right? Serious people, and they’re not going to—”

“Can you feel your legs, Mr. Damage?”

“Feel my...what?”

“You can’t feel your legs, Mr. Damage. Try moving them.”

“I...I...the fuck? The
fuck did you do to my legs?
”

He tried again to move his head up to look at himself, but his forehead was strapped down tight. All his muscles tensed, flexed, but he was tied down tight.

“Try not to worry about it too much, Mr. Damage. The damage, if you’ll pardon the pun, isn’t permanent.” She picked up the utility knife. “Or at least, it doesn’t have to be.”

She leaned down out of his eye line to the small table where she kept all her accouterments. Making a lot of noise, she cut off a long strip of chicken breast, lathering it in the pool of barbecue sauce she had made on the small table. Then she held up the strip of—for all intents and purposes—bloody flesh, briefly in Damage’s face.

“You have more where this came from,” she said. “A whole lot more.”

She laid the strip down across his bare stomach. The chicken was warm and no doubt felt like honest-to-goodness human flesh on his belly.

“F-fuck. What the fuck? Who the fuck a-are you?”

“I want to ask you some questions, Mr. Damage. And you’re going to tell me what I want to know.”

“
Fuck
you.”

She held up the knife again, letting it gleam in the light. It was bloody now from the warm chicken breast. Then she slid it down through the meat again, making a long slicing sound.

“Mm,” she said. “Whoops.”

“Whoops? The fuck do you mean, whoops?”

A heavy plopping sound filled the air as she slapped a thick piece of meat on his torso. “I think I hit the bone. You’re starting to bleed very badly, Mr. Damage. You’re going to need assistance soon. I hope you don’t get too drowsy.”

As if on command, Damage’s eyes blinked rapidly—like he was trying to fight off drowsiness himself.

“The...the hell...”

“I want to know about the stashes, Mr. Damage.”

“Stop fucking calling me Mr. Damage!” he shouted. “My name is Damage!”

“Your name,” she said, “is whatever I require it to be, Mr. Damage. Stop swearing.”

He turned his eyes to one side. “Whatever. I can’t even
feel
what you’re doing, so—”

“Then you want to wake up tomorrow with no flesh left on your legs? That’s only the short version of what I’m prepared to do to you, Mr. Damage.”

He gulped. “What do you mean?”

“I suppose you’re one of those fellows who doesn’t believe his hand will burn until he touches the stove himself, hmm?”

She took her pliers out. She made a big production of it. Holding them up to the light, turning them this way and that. Letting them clack. Then she stuck them between his legs. She tugged and pushed, putting her hand on his belly to show how she was exerting herself.

“N-no,” said Damage. “No, no no no no. Okay? I’ll cooperate. I’ll do what you want. I j-just, hold on, hold on, wait. W-wait—!”

Then there were two distinct soft, wet plunks as his “testicles” hit the bottom of a metal bucket beneath the ironing board. They were walnuts, landed in mass of mashed grapes. She held the bucket up and rattled it around.

Damage began to scream. Beretta came forward and held his mouth closed with the rag, keeping him quiet. When Damage finally stopped screaming, Beretta let go.

“They can still be re-attached, Mr. Damage. But we’ll have to work very fast.”

“You bitch!” he shouted. “You fucking b-bitch! I’ll fucking kill you, Nurse! I swear to god! I’ll tear your head off! I’ll—!”

Helen raised an eyebrow and pulled a walnut out from the bucket. Damage only caught a glimpse of it—a shiny, gooey, round object. She placed it on the table behind  her and, raising the hammer high so Damage could see her work, smashed it to bits. The grape mass collected around it made the sound especially wet.

Beretta had to gag Damage again. He was screaming, hyperventilating almost, his eyes wide.

“You,” said Helen, “are going to stop fucking swearing, Mr. Damage.”

“Y-you’re fucking swearing, aren’t you?”

She raised the hammer again. “Swearing is for people who aren’t tied up. Am I tied up, Mr. Damage?”

“Ah, Jesus! Okay. Okay. Whatever you want to know.” He was crying now. “Whatever you want to know. J-just leave my last one to me. Just leave it alone.”

“Tell us about the stashes,” she said. “Where are they hidden?”

“Oh god,” he said, shaking his head. “I knew someone was gonna fucking put the screws to me on this. I
knew
they were. I never even wanted to know about it. Goddammit. I can't tell you. Rattler...he'll kill me.”

There was real fear in his eyes—fear that was all-encompassing. But it was in a wrestling match with his fear of Helen and what she would do.

“Mr. Damage, do you think that I'm bluffing?”

“No. N-no, Jesus, it's just...he'll rip me to shreds.”

“And so will I,” said Helen, raising the hammer again. “Tell me about the stashes.”

His eyes went to one side and he let out an exasperated breath. “Shit, I mean, you already know most of it, don’t you?”

“Know most of what?” asked Helen.

“The deal!” His voice grated on the stones of his throat. “The fucking deal. It’s been in the works for weeks now. They only let me in on it a week ago, and that was ‘cause they needed my cousin to make the connection. Who told you mooks about it?”

Beretta could see that she was tempted to tell him that Damage just did. But she held back.

“What do you know about it?” she asked. “Tell us everything.”

“Rattler’s getting anxious. All his money in too many places. Anxious about you guys. Anxious about the Furnace moving in. He doesn’t want you cocksuckers—ahh, sorry, sorry.” Helen lowered the hammer. “Doesn’t want you
people
, any people, just popping in on some understaffed stash house. So he’s pulling it all in. And then, in a week, he’s moving it off, up North somewhere.”

“North?”

“Yeah. He’s got somebody he knows up there in Wyoming. Gonna launder it all for him, put it in a bank account. Take care of him, the whole deal.”

“Where’s he holding it all now?”

“I don’t know.”

She raised the hammer again.

“J-J-J-Jesus Christ, I don’t know! I-I-I don’t know! I swear to God, I don’t know where. All I know is that it’s somewhere he feels safe. Probably the steelworks. Place is like a fortress. He never leaves there himself. I figure he'd want it close at hand.”

Helen stepped back out from the light and looked over at Ace. He nodded.

“I think we have everything we need, Mr. Damage,” she said. She turned up the morphine drip. He’d be out in seconds. “Thank you for cooperating. We’ll put you back together now.”

––––––––

M
inutes passed, and Damage’s delirium faded into unconsciousness. Helen's mood was rather buoyed by the satisfaction of a job well done and no one hurt.

“All right,” said Locke. “You want me to do him, boss?”

He had a knife in his hand.

Why does he have a knife in his hand?

“Wait, what?” Helen’s voice was pained. “Don’t kill him.”

She began to move around the bed, placing herself between Locke and Damage.

“You think there’s something else he knows?” asked Ace.

“No. No, he told us everything. So that means...”

“That means he’s got no more use to us anymore,” said Ace. “So we get rid of him.”

“But he
cooperated
,” said Helen. “I mean he told us what we wanted to know. We can’t just kill him when he’s doing what we want him to do.”

“You tortured him, Helen,” said Beretta. “That’s the only reason he told us what we wanted to know.”

“I didn’t harm a hair on his head.”

Beretta thumbed at Damage. “He don’t know that, does he?”

“He’s helpless,” said Helen. “He can’t fight back.”

They all looked at each other and shrugged. “Good,” said Locke. “We already fought him.”

“You don’t like it, honey, step outside.” There was actual sympathy in Ace's eyes. “But this is the way it’s gotta be.”

Beretta took her by the shoulder.

“Come on,” he said, pulling her outside.

It surprised her that Beretta and Ace actually agreed on something. They were always butting heads over the smallest of things—who left the room first, who rode their bike in what position. Their quibbling was beneath them, she felt. The problem was they were too much alike—stubborn, smart, and tough—and both of them thrived on action.

Beretta especially. His ease of taking control made her heart race and she ached, even when she didn't want to ache at all, to know what it would be like to feel his control working on her again.

The night air was cool—much cooler than it was inside. She pushed her body into Beretta’s. There was, through the window, the sound of a series of soft rustlings. A chill went through her, and she knew the job had been done inside. It was silent and quick. There was that, at least.

More mercy than Damage had shown his children; more mercy than he had shown the women he had cut up. He was an awful man, and yet even so, killing him did not sit right with her.

“You don’t like it, do you?” said Beretta. “What we had to do.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You didn’t have to do it.”

The parking lot was empty. About thirty yards away, cars smoked by on the highway. The neon sign of the motel flickered and buzzed above them, and in the distance they could hear the hum of the motel's third-rate hot tub as it powered on close to the pool.

“Yes, we did,” said Beretta. “He would have talked. To everyone he could, he would have talked. And then we’d be right up shit creek. He would have told everyone he knew every last thing he remembered. They would have moved the stash. Maybe Rattler would have burned it all just to keep us from getting our hands on it. Crazy fuck.” He shook his head. “You’re not by yourself anymore, babe. You’re in a pack, and we gotta look out for each other.”

“A pack?” she laughed. “Am I a fucking wolf now?” She shook her head. “I barely know you. Everything I
did
know about you seems...wrong now. Everything I liked about you. It's all twisted up now, knowing that you're
this
kind of person.”

“You knew that all along. You knew what the Wrecking Crew was. You knew it, and you liked it.”

Her breath caught, and try as she might, she could not come up with a counter-argument to that.

“I don't know you,” she said again. “I don't know any of you. It's crazy to think I'm on your side.”

“But you are,” he said, taking her by the hips.

Her thighs, hips, were between his. Again, she could feel the raging hardness of his erection.

Jesus fuck, was he ever not hard?

She remembered, very clearly, that he usually was. Beretta could go for days; he had exhausted her physically and then only made her want more.

“You're with us, now. And you're my old lady. And you know me. You know how I am. You know what I want.”

He pulled her in tighter to his body. His warmth flowed through her. Every part of him felt so strong and sure, and it felt good to let him lead—to just follow his example.

His lips came down to her ear, strong fingers stroking her chin and cheek. “You kept up with me. Not a lot of women can do that. But you can. That means something.”

She looked up at him. Goddammit, why was he such a contradiction? Hot and cold with him. One moment he wanted nothing to do with her. The next, all he could think of was fucking her.

It was a lot like the way she felt about him. It was like there was just something the both of them weren't realizing, weren't owning up to, keeping them doubting and re-doubting forever.

She pushed away from his grip, her thoughts flying. She wanted to fall into him; she wanted to run away forever.

“I didn’t hurt him,” she said, pulling her head down with her hands. “Didn’t touch him for a second. I had it all figured out. He just thought he was being tortured. I had it...I had it all figured out.”

“This is the kind of men we are, girl,” said Beretta. “Don’t forget it. Not for a second. None of us will. If there's a threat, we have to remove it.”

Maybe that was so.

“You really would have done it, wouldn’t you?”

“Kill him? That’s done.”

“No.” She looked up at him now. “Kill me. You really would have.”

“Me? Personally?” Beretta shrugged and put his hands on her hips again. The touch was calming. “I would have opted out. I’ve put my time in for shit like that. But one of us would have, yeah.”

“I had thought...I knew you were serious, but there was a part of me that thought it was all talk.”

His hands dug into her hips more. Her flesh was receptive to everything he did, and though she hated herself for it, she could not stop how good he felt.

“When it comes to me, nothing is ever ‘just talk,’ babe.”

She turned and put her hands on his chest, looking up into his eyes. They burned down straight to the core of her. She could look at them for hours; she couldn’t bear to look into them for more than a few seconds.

“Come with me,” he said.

“What?”

But he didn’t answer, just tugging her along. In a few moments, they were alone in their room again. He pulled her against him and kissed her.

“I want you,” he said.

Before entering the room with him, she had been tired. Worn out, really, by the episode she’d just suffered through. It felt like time for a twenty-hour nap.