Wrath (Dirty Soul MC: Long Beach #2)

Chapter 33

“ F uck, yeah!” Ruck leaps onto my back when I get announced as the winner.

“One down, three to go, and if you go into all of ‘em like that, Freddie don’t stand a fuckin’ chance.”

“You heard anythin’ from Raze?” I wipe the sweat off my forehead and take back some water.

“Nothin’.” The smile drops from his face, and we both flinch when we hear the crunch my opponent's shoulder makes when his trainer slips it back into its socket. “You can’t worry about that, ya gotta be here right now. Take a breath, regain your strength,” he tells me, placing both his hands on my shoulders and trying to keep me focused.

“You got Darius Mancini next, and he’s gonna come at ya hard. He’s got a lot to prove, especially with Raoul Burlusconi here. He won’t want his father’s biggest rival to see him get beat.”

I do my best to listen, but I can’t stop thinking about Cliff, I need Raze to get answers out of him. We need to find Willow.

That thought ain’t gonna be going anywhere. All I can do is take all the anger and frustration at the fact that it ain’t me prising the answers from him, and put it into my next performance. Another man down is one step closer to that prize money.

“VP.” Raoul's younger brother, Rhett, is waiting for me when I step outta the cage.

“Raoul wants the next one destroyed. Let’s send him back to his father unrecognizable, hey?” He takes my hand like he’s shaking it and when I feel him try to pass something sharp between us, I shake my head and refuse to accept it.

“I don’t cheat.” I lean closer so no one else hears me. “That shit’s for people who know they can’t win.” I make sure he keeps whatever he tried handing over, in his possession. “Tell your brother I’ll get the job done.”

I’m about to turn back and face Ruckus when I catch the flash of a blue light in the corner of my eye.

“Shit.” He looks startled as he grabs my arm and starts backing up.

“Fuck, it’s the cops!” I hear someone yell, as the whole room lights up blue and red and the crowd around us disperses in different directions.

“We gotta bail.” Ruckus tugs me harder, dragging me back toward the curtain where I got ready, earlier. Everyone else seems to be heading the opposite way but I trust my best friend as he grabs both our cuts from the hook and slams mine into my chest. I keep watch over my shoulder while he rushes to drag one of the benches into the center of the room, then lifting up another one he lifts it on top. Using them as a step ladder he pushes through one of the vent panels above us.

“What the fuck?” I watch him pull himself up.

“Don't just stand there gawkin’, get the fuck up here.” He reaches his arm down for me.

“How d’ya know these were here?” I ask as I drag myself up and join him in the roof. “Did ya forget one of the first rules Raze taught us when we were younger?” He laughs to himself as he starts crawling through the vent. “Always have more than one route planned out of a buildin’,” he reminds me as I lift myself up and follow.

“Took ya time.” Ruck climbs in the back of the cage when Dev finally pulls up beside us. We must have been waiting down the back alley a little way from all the action for over half an hour. Everywhere close to the fight is still swarming with cops.

“Did ya get him?” I ask, taking the front seat. I’m still drenched in sweat, my hands are still wrapped and I’m only wearing the sweatpants I fought in with my cut.

“We got him,” Dev confirms.

“And did he say where Willow is?” I hold the handle above the door as he screeches around the corner.

“Nah, not yet. But he will.” He’s got that look in his eyes, a satisfaction that I know only comes from causing pain, and when he takes a right and starts in the opposite direction from the club, I know exactly where we’re going.

“Did Raze take him to the warehouse?” I check, feeling the blood under my skin start to tingle.

“Ya didn’t think we’d let you miss out on all the fun did ya?” Dev sniggers, before concentrating on the road so he can get us to our destination.

I storm into the room where Cliff forced me to take Eden’s virginity before she was ready. The same room where all our fuckin’ troubles started. Raze is sitting in a chair staring down at the body that’s tied up in front of him.

“He had much to say?” I ask, stepping up to my father and slamming my knee straight into his face.

“Not yet, I didn’t wanna start without ya.” Raze looks up at me and smiles and when both our attention falls back to the piece of shit tied up in the corner, I crack my knuckles and stare him directly in his evil fuckin’ eyes.

He looks a little roughed up, but nowhere near as bad as he’s gonna be when I’m finished.

“Get him fuckin’ talkin’, Wrath.” Tawk’s nostrils flare as he looks down on him. His eyes are wild and savage. I can see how badly he wants to get things moving but I need to bide my time. I’ve waited for this moment for too long. All those times, when the guilt of what happened got too much, playing how this would go out in my head is what’s gotten me through.

Crouching down in front of the man who calls himself my father, I hook my finger into the gag he’s got around his mouth and pull it down.

“Hey, son.” The first words he croaks out make me wanna knock his teeth into the back of his skull. I can see he’s already lost a few and when I glance back at Tawk, and see the blood on his knuckles, I figure that it was courtesy of him.

“You don’t get to call me that.” I shake my head and laugh at him.

“You can’t change DNA, kid.” He manages a smile at me, and although one of his eyes can barely open, I can see he’s taking a sick thrill outta reminding me of that fact.

“You’re right, but you get to decide what kinda man you wanna grow up to be, and there was never a time in my life when I wanted to be you.”

“Is that supposed to hurt my feelin’s?”

He rests his head back against the wall and chuckles to himself.

“I don’t care what it does, all that matters to me now is ensurin’ you never get to hurt another person I care about.” I see Raze’s holdall from the corner of my eye and reach over to drag it closer.

“Where's Willow?” I start off by asking nicely, taking a glance into the holdall to see what I have to work with. Vex always taught his students to be inventive, and Raze paid that forward when he mentored me.

There's plenty of things in here that I could get inventive with, but I take out the blow torch to start.

“What ya gonna do, son, scorch me?” He laughs a little more.

“I was thinkin’ more along the lines of meltin’ off ya face.” I set it going and the flame that comes off it makes his dark eyes glow.

“Tell me where Willow is and I’ll show ya some mercy. I’ll put a bullet in your brain and you can find your way to Hell without havin’ to endure all the sick fuckin’ things I wanna do to ya.”

“Come on, ya can do better than that. Is this what you taught him?” He turns his head toward Raze. “Your old man was the best of the best.” He shakes his head in disappointment before looking back at me. And I show him that I ain’t playin’ when I light the torch back up again and let the flame lick the side of his cheek. He only manages half a second before he cries out in agony and as the smell of his singeing skin fills the room, I watch it blister under the flames.

“You ready to tell me?” I take the flame away from his face and give him a chance to speak.

“You will never see her again.” He narrows his eyes and adds fuel to my aggression. So, I put the torch back against his face and take pleasure in the sound of his pain.

“Wrath.” I feel Raze pulling back on my arm. “C’mon, we don’t want him passing out yet.” I listen to my prez, and place the torch back down, admiring the mess I’ve made of the right side of his face. The flesh is hanging from his cheekbone and bubbling from the heat.

“Tell me where the fuck she is!” I grab a screwdriver from the holdall and use brute fuckin’ force to jab it between his ribs, twisting the handle but keeping it impaled.

I’d undeniably take pleasure in his howls of pain, and the way his body shakes from the shock if the answer to my question weren’t so important.

“I tol… told ya. You’ll ne…ver sss-ee her a…gain,” he manages, starting to lose consciousness. But it doesn’t panic me, I know from the injuries he’s sustained that he’ll come back around and when he does, I’ll be here waiting to give him a whole new version of fuckin’ Hell.

“Don’t underestimate me, whatever you did with her, I will find her.” The side of his face that's still functional manages to lift and still resembles that evil smile.

I don’t… think so.” He shows he’s resilient when he starts to laugh. “Willow’s dead.” His words come out soft and slow as if he wants them to last in my head forever, and they cause an instant stab of pain, that slams me in the chest. His eyes roll back in his head as the fucker passes out on me, and I quickly get shoved out the way when Tawk rushes over and picks him up off the floor by his shirt.

“Wake up!” He slams Cliff’s limp body against the wall as I stand back up on my feet and back away. I can’t have heard him right, Willow can’t be dead. I’d know if my sister was fuckin’ dead.

“Wake the fuck up!” Tawk keeps shaking him, he’s losing control rapidly and it takes both Raze and Dev to drag him away from my father’s unconscious body.

“She ain’t dead. He’s a liar! ” he screams. “She can’t be dead. Don’t believe it. Don’t you dare believe that, Wrath.” He looks over to me as Dev forces him into the corner to calm him down.

Raze kneels down to check Cliff’s vitals as I back further away and he must find a pulse because he looks up to give me a nod of approval.

“She’s not dead. She’s not dead,” Tawk keeps chanting in the corner, fighting against Dev to get free. When he eventually lets up, he drops to his knees like he’s praying and starts chanting in a language I can’t understand. I look down at my father and wanna kick his fuckin’ head off his shoulders. How could he have done that to his own child?

“Wrath, you need to calm yourself down.” Raze must know I’m a breath away from losing it because he steps up to me, grabbing my face and forcing me to look at him. “Look at me, focus on what I’m sayin’. When you take his life, you want him to feel every last bit of it drain out, don’t put him outta his misery too soon.”

“She can’t be dead,” I repeat what Tawk keeps saying as I look back over to him. He’s stopped chanting and is silent now, his hands gripping his long, black hair as he slides down the wall. I’ve never seen a man break like that before. He ain’t ashamed to show his tears, and as he looks up at the ceiling and yells out his native words with pure fury and anger, I swear I feel the floor shake beneath me.

“Get him outta here!” I shout out to Dev, seeing Tawk so wild with hurt is making me wonder why I’ve suddenly stopped feeling any of my own.

Maybe I’m blocking it out because I can’t deal with it. I learned from the ten years I spent trying to get over Eden, that emotions can be locked away. I switched out hurt for hate and I’ve carried that with me all this time. And all that hate was for one person, the man lying in front of me now.

Ruck moves from the door, giving me a sympathetic nod as he helps Dev lift Tawk up off the floor and drag him away. He’s not yelling anymore, and he puts up no fight as they remove him from the room. I see the dead in his eyes when he locks ‘em with mine, it’s the same kinda dead I’d been feeling until my girl stepped inside my clubhouse and punched me in the face.

“Come on.” Raze slaps me on the back. “I got smellin’ salts in the bag, let's bring this fucker back around and really make him suffer.