Twenty-Three
Brennan
With a yawn,I strode into the back office at the warehouse in The Hole, and stared at the three guys who were strung up on hooks.
It was too early for this shit, but I couldn’t fault my crew. They’d found the fuckers, and I had to make them regret the day they were born. I just wished they’d found them a couple hours later, when I’d had a chance to get some more sleep.
I’d gotten in late last night and had found my place as quiet as a graveyard. So quiet, in fact, that I wasn’t even sure if I was alone or not.
I was used to the silence—liked it, in fact. But I’d expected there to be a TV on, or some signs of life now that I was sharing my space.
When I’d found her in my bedroom, my wife, by Christ, I’d been satisfied. When I’d climbed into bed, her clean scent perfuming the covers, and my shirt the only thing between us, I’d been hard pressed not to drag her into me, to wake her up and to start something. The only reason I didn’t was because Bagpipes and Forrest had kept me in the loop.
With the living room empty, I knew she’d unpacked all her things, and I also knew that she’d done as I asked—gone to the doctor’s office, had something to eat, and had a manicure at the nail salon. Pleased she’d obeyed, relief settled inside me. Letting her sleep was a kindness that both of us would reap, and when I’d awoken to the buzzing of my cellphone, taking note of the fact she was still asleep, I knew I’d been right to let her rest.
After showering, shaving, and dressing, she’d remained sleeping, and I knew when someone was playing pretend. The dark shadows under her eyes said it all, as did her thin frame, and that general air she had around her—like she was too exhausted to live.
My brain couldn’t seem to process that she was a stranger who was now married to me, whereas my body found it too easy to accept that she was mine.
All mine.
Which made it even more annoying that I had to wake up and head on out before I could do anything about that.
I wanted to ask her if she touched herself before she fell asleep.
Wanted to know if she’d been tempted.
If that dry little pussy of hers had been hungry for her fingers or my dick.
Those thoughts did exactly what I needed them to do—switched my brain into ‘on’ mode, because I wanted to get back to my apartment as soon as possible so I could fuck my wife.
If that made me a little more aggressive, then that would ramp things up nicely.
The back office was loaded up with old hooks we’d found in an abattoir in Tribeca that we’d bought to flip. Now, in its place, was a trendy apartment complex where each unit sold for over four million dollars a piece, making my perennially displeased father a very rich man. Especially as that was just one of the buildings on his portfolio.
Swinging from those hooks were three shivering whelps. They’d been stripped down to their boxers because Da might be willing to cut off another dude’s dick, but I wasn’t that cruel, and one of the men had doused them in water. It was cold back here anyway, but I knew they’d also turned on the AC because I felt the chill in the air too.
Grateful for my woolen overcoat, I took the three bastards in.
One was the brains, and probably the in, one was the heavy, and one was the driver. At least, that was how things tended to work in my experience.
The driver and heavy were of no importance to me, but the brains—he’d be the one who’d have come up with the job, and he’d be the one with the contacts. I needed the fence they were using to sell their stolen goods so I could go and torture his purchases out of them.
The heavy was easy to pick out. Chrissakes, the bastard’s neck was thicker than my thigh. But for all his biceps were as thick as tree branches, it hadn’t stopped my guys from being able to incapacitate the bastard. Which meant I had to pick between the two scrawny cunts, one of whom was already sniveling for his ma.
Picking up the cattle prod, I set it to stun, prompting their attention to shift to me as I moved deeper into the room.
“I have better things to be doing today than shocking you motherfuckers. Tell me who’s fencing your haul and I’ll only beat the shit out of you.”
The guy who wasn’t sniveling growled, “Like you’re going to let us walk out of here alive. Why the fuck should we tell you anything?”
I smiled at him. “Ever thought about how you were going to die? Would you like it to be quick? A knife to the throat? Or a cattle prod shoved up your ass until you fry from the inside out?”
He gulped. “That’s impossible.”
“You do anything long enough and it’ll work out just fine. You might want to be a human fry but trust me, I have no desire for this place to stink of bacon. You can choose how you want to die. Cleanly.” I turned on the cattle prod, and the electric snapped into the air, making the three of them jump like I’d already hit them with its charge. “Or gnarly.”
The heavy raised his head to stare at me. “I don’t know shit, man. I was just paid to make sure we didn’t get roughed up during a gig.”