Blade (RBMC: Dallas, TX #4)

Chapter One

“Suitebergamasque,L.75:III.ClairdeLune”—AliceSaraOtt

A s the man hanging from the rafters sniveled like a baby, I made quite the production of sharpening my blade. I was especially proud of this one. I’d spent countless hours ensuring every minute detail was perfect. The handle was carved to specifically fit my hand. The Damascus blade was razor sharp and precision forged. In my opinion, it was a masterpiece.

“Honestly, I would’ve rather turned all the dogs you were fighting loose on you,” I pleasantly announced. The scrape of the blade on the sharpening stone was the only sound in the old shack at the back of the property. “But that wouldn’t be fair to the dogs.”

“Fuck you,” the older man spat in a moment of bravery. The vehemence with which he said it caused him to lose his footing, and for a little while, he swung from the rafter. He was finally able to regain his balance and stood on the tips of his toes again. His calves had to be killing him by then. I chuckled softly at the perverse pleasure I received from his pain and discomfort.

Suite No. 3 in D played softly in the background from my Bluetooth speaker. There were times when I listened to some hard shit when I was working. This time, I was in the mood for something soothing. My emotions were already too intense with this one. I needed to keep myself from turning into the animal that lurked under the surface of my skin.

I chuckled. Sweat trickled down my back, making me question my decision to move to Texas for the five-thousandth time. The heat in the summer was no joke, but this was one of the hottest summers on record for North Texas. Walking outside to catch a breeze didn’t help. The “breeze” was like a hairdryer on high blowing in your face.

Not that I would bother, because what was inside that rundown-looking structure was more important and worth every drop of sweat.

Though from the outside, the shack appeared to be an oversized shed, it was much more than that now. Since Raptor had bought the abandoned property from the RBMC four years ago, he had built a bunch of tiny homes on it for the members. The clubhouse had a few rooms that we had renovated for guests, but he wanted the members of our chapter to have the option to live onsite and have their own places.

We had essentially constructed another building within the older exterior. To an outside observer, it seemed to be an abandoned cabin or oversized shed. Inside, we had cinderblock walls and a concrete floor that sloped to a drain in the center. The entire inside was sealed to make hosing it down and bleaching it easier. There was still an existing well that provided water and suited our purposes.

The prospects would be on cleanup duty. Thank fuck, because he reeked of stale urine. I hated that smell.

“And though that in itself is repulsive, the fact that you were also luring young women in to be trafficked is unforgivable. Do you know the things they do to those women?”

His lips remained sealed. Whether it was because he sure as shit knew or because he didn’t was irrelevant. He did it not caring what happened to the women that he pretended to be in love with to get their guard down.

Piece of shit.

If I could, I would make his torture long and excruciating. I’d planned to do everything to him that had been done to the women he’d sacrificed for the almighty dollar. Unfortunately, I was on a tight schedule. Raptor approved me bringing this issue to the table, and the chapter voted on it. It had been allowed, but I didn’t have a lot of time, and any of my brothers that were helping did it voluntarily. This wasn’t a paid job. This was personal.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for three long years. Let’s play a game, shall we?” I lifted the blade, inspecting the edge before I ran it up my arm. The hairs on the ornate steel told me it was indeed sharp.

Satisfied, I grinned in a way that I knew was purely maniacal and stepped closer. “It’s going to be a guessing game.”

The once white T-shirt he wore was now grungy and stained with blood from where I busted his lip with my first punch. One eye was bloodshot to the point you could barely see his brown iris for the dark blood staining it. I’d been having fun with him for two days now. Slowly, I pressed the tip into his slightly protruding lower abdomen. Bright red began to stain the fabric as I pushed it harder.

He gritted his teeth and fought yelling. Despite the fact that he was trying to act like a badass, he was sure as shit feeling my handiwork.

“I love games. Don’t you? Especially guessing games. They’re so stimulating.”

Lifting the tip of the knife from his skin, I left it inside the T-shirt and lifted it. The blade slid through the dingy knit fabric like it was nothing. I intentionally nicked his chin when I reached the top and sliced through the neckband.

He grunted but remained silent. His defiant glare only fueled my need to inflict pain. The fabric fell open, and I cut the bottom open.

“I’m going to give you one letter at a time, and you’re going to guess the word. Kind of like Hangman.” Using my finger to his chest and giving him a little push so he swung again, I laughed. “Fitting, huh?”

His face was mottled red as he struggled to find purchase with his toes. With the full weight of his body dragging him down, his hands were practically purple in the handcuffs attached to the meathook at the end of the chain.

“First letter,” I whispered, then I proceeded to carve a capital E on his right pectoral. The second I began working, he screamed, and I grinned wider. The sight of the blood running down his chest was beautiful.

“Don’t look. That’s cheating,” I warned with an unhinged stare just to fuck with him a little more.

Sweat was running down his temples and dropping to his exposed chest. I watched as it mingled with the crimson trails. There was the sound of running water, and I looked down to see a small puddle beneath him.

“What’s the letter?”

“I don’t know,” he replied with a sneer.

“Think, Zeke,” I encouraged as I tapped his temple with the flat side of the knife. “Or do I need to go over the letter again?”

“No!” he shouted, then his brow furrowed, and he appeared to be thinking. “E.”

“Very good!” I replied with exaggerated enthusiasm. Gator chuckled softly from the corner of the room. “Okay, next letter.”

“Oh, come on,” Zeke whined. What had she seen in this guy?

My smile immediately dropped, and I stepped closer, pressing the sharp tip into his chest enough that it broke the skin. “You don’t want to play with me anymore?” I asked with deadly calm before pushing it deeper until he hissed.

“There will be people looking for me. You think you’re bad? They will make your pathetic attempts at torture look like child’s play.” The corners of his mouth tipped up, and he peeled back his lips, showing teeth that were coated in blood.

I had to hand it to him—he was taking things better than I’d expected. He was a lot ballsier than I anticipated. That, or he was simply plain stupid. Eh, maybe both.

“I’m sure I’ve dealt with worse,” I replied with a careless shrug.

“Why do you care anyway? You think I don’t know about you guys and the shit you do? You can’t pretend you’re the good guy,” he scoffed.

It was my turn to smile. “Oh, I’m definitely not the good guy.”

“Then what the fuck is it to you?”

My nostrils flared slightly, and my teeth clenched through my grin. No, I was definitely not a good person, but I hated pieces of shit like him. I didn’t believe in harming women and children. The thought made my stomach churn as little flashes of memories popped into my head like shitty movie clips I didn’t want to watch.

“Next letter,” I brightly announced, and he groaned.

I slowly carved the letter L.

“L!” he cried out.

“You’re catching on! Very good,” I praised before I moved on to the I. “Do you have any idea what the word is going to be?”

“No,” he bit out.

“Hmm, you’re a little slow, huh? That’s okay… I’m very patient.”

“I!”

“That is correct!” I half-assed clapped my hands. It was a little hard to do with the knife in my grip. “Next letter.”

“S!” he shouted through clenched teeth.

Pausing, I stepped back and cocked my head as I narrowed my gaze on him. “Have you played this before?”

He glared at me as he panted. I’d already moved on to the next letter.

“K,” he bit out.

“Are you cheating?” I asked as I propped my fisted hands on my hips.

“No! I swear. No,” he babbled.

I pretended to ponder the truth of his words. “Hmm, okay, I believe you.”

As I carved the last letter, I did so with more force. He screamed, and it took everything in me not to simply thrust the knife between his ribs.

“A,” he sobbed out as snot ran down his lip and into his mouth. It was all rather disgusting, and I was glad it was him and not me.

“What’s that spell?” I stared at him with every ounce of my twisted soul clamoring to rip him to shreds with my bare hands.

“Eliska?” he mumbled with a sniffle.

“Do you remember Eliska?” I asked him in a tone that was deceptively casual and calm.

“Who?” he asked, generally confused. That infuriated me more because it meant he either didn’t bother to remember her name or had exploited innumerable women. From the things I’d found out through digging, I was pretty sure it was the latter.

“You took her on a vacation from Tennessee to Florida, then sold her off? Ring a bell?”

“What the fuck does that bitch have to do with this?” he practically snarled.

My vision practically went red. I slid the tip of my knife over and rammed it between his ribs like I’d been dying to do. The painful shout that burst from him fed the beast within me. Without pause, I ripped it from his chest. The sucking sound from his punctured lung sent adrenaline rushing through my veins.

He coughed and blood spewed from between his lips and spattered my hand, forearm, and chest. His face was ashen as he struggled to breathe. Instinctively, he jerked at the cuffs that fastened him securely to the overhead beam. He had to know he wasn’t getting loose.

Satisfaction blossomed and unfurled in my chest as bright red now soaked the front of his torso. I could feel my pulse thrumming as the scent filled my nostrils.

Strategically placing the tip of my weapon between his ribs again, I slowly drove it in. His shrieks were music to my ears and the corners of my mouth kicked up. My phone rang, but I ignored it.

He was now desperately trying to breathe, but the holes in his right lung were making that extremely difficult. And he’d fucking pissed himself again. My lip curled in disgust.

“Blade,” Gator called out from where he had been observing in the corner.

I glanced over my shoulder.

“You need to wrap this up,” he calmly urged as he pointed at his phone screen.

“Pity,” I replied with a sigh as I moved to stand behind him.

Then, with a flick of my wrist, I sliced one of his carotid arteries. “You fucked up when you took Eliska,” I whispered as I stood back and out of the reach of the steady spurt of crimson.

His eyes widened and he thrashed. I assumed he was trying to free a hand to slap over the life-draining wound he was now sporting. It gave me immense satisfaction in knowing he wouldn’t be leaving that shack alive.

“See you in hell, Zeke,” I cheerily called out as I walked away and out the door.

The bright light of day was blinding as I exited the shack, Gator on my heels. I rinsed the splatter from my arms as he climbed on the quad he’d ridden.

“Raptor wants us in church pronto.”

My brow pinched in the center. “Did something happen?”

“Not sure. Let’s move,” he said as he started the engine.

I followed suit, and we made our way across the property and up to the clubhouse. We parked the quads under the awning that ran along the back of the building and headed inside. I followed Gator back to the chapel.

At first, my stomach sank when I saw everyone was already present at the table. Then I breathed a sigh of relief when I reminded myself this was an impromptu session. Raptor had carried the last-one-into-church-cleaned-the-shitters rule from Iowa, but that only applied to monthly scheduled church here.

I didn’t like the troubled expression on Raptor’s face.

Everyone sat quietly as we waited for our president to speak.

“Now that we’re all here,” he began and pointedly look my direction.

All I could do was give him a sheepish grin.

“Venom reached out to me and asked for a favor,” he announced. My brows drew down. Venom rarely asked for favors.

No one made a sound. Everyone waited quietly.

Eerily so.

“What kind of favor?” Gator finally asked.

“He asked us to store a collectible art piece they had acquired that they needed out of the area for a bit.” Raptor was rapidly tapping his fingertips on the table.

“Why would he send a piece of art to us? Surely, he has somewhere closer he could stash it until the heat blows over,” Torque muttered.

Raptor’s gaze lifted and locked on Torque. “It’s not a piece of art. That was our code years ago for a person.”

“He needs to send someone down for protection?” Gator cocked his head in question. “Why wouldn’t he just say that?”

“I’m not sure,” Raptor replied.

“Do we have any idea who it is?” Phoenix asked before I could.

“No. If he wasn’t comfortable telling me outright that it was a person, he wasn’t going to tell me who it was.” Raptor’s mouth pressed flat as he tapped restlessly on the table. I studied his every move to see if he was keeping the person’s identity from us for some reason. He didn’t sound like he was, nor did he look like he was.

“Why?” I asked, my brow raised.

Raptor stopped and looked me dead in the eye. “He thinks they have a rat.”

Since Raptor, Phoenix, and I had all come from the Ankeny chapter, that was a hard pill to swallow. Those brothers had been our family. We had been tight.

Things were obviously beginning to change.

And that just didn’t sit right with me.