“I’m gonna need you to be more specific,” Spence argues. “Did he hurt your puppy? Did he hurt your girl?” The scar in his brow stops the left from lifting as high as the right. “Did he hurt your mom? Because hurting someone’s mom crosses a fuckin’ line.”
“He hurt his girl,” Kane rumbles. “He hurt her really fuckin’ bad. She was with him.” He nods toward Graham. “But she was Riggs’ since forever, he just didn’t make his move yet. Clueless to his feelings, she went left for a little while, got with this dude, but then he started hurting her.”
Spence’s hard eyes turn murderous. “He hurts women?”
“Not just hurts. He fuckin’ dehumanizes.” Kane’s words slash at my chest and rob me of breath. “He rapes. He hits. He fucks with her head. He stalks. He’s obsessed. And when he had her, he sold her to any fucker with a fist full of cash. She was raped by more than just him. She was sold like a fuckin’ goat.”
“Enough!” I meet Kane’s eyes. “Stop. I don’t wanna hear it.”
“Say it, Riggs.Feelit.” His black eyes bore into mine. The man in this room is different to the guy in the car, and different again to the guy that Jess sees. She makes him softer. She makes him human. But in a utilitarian room full of tools and vengeance, he loses the emotion and turns into a fucking machine. “Let it fuel you. Let it anger you. I walked toward a wall of bullets to protect mine. What are you gonna do to protect yours?” He points at Graham. “This is your one chance to make him feel it, because you won’t get a second chance. When we walk away tonight, you better have used everything in the tank.”
I nod. He’s right.
I turn back. “Wake him up.”
Spence’s muscles bulge, stretching his shirt as his square jaw grinds. Those smiling eyes are gone and in their place is something that scares the shit out of me. There’s something in them that reaches out and recognizes its kin in mine.
These guys have a brotherhood already.
They know each other in this world.
And I’m about to become one of them.
I should be sad. I should be wary and a little nervous. But I’m ready to step into a new world and make this asshole pay.
Before waking Graham, Spence turns back to the table and selects a heavy wrench, easily ten pounds of steel, and turns back to circle our prey.
Graham’s a mouse with his leg stuck in a trap. He’s unconscious, but soon he’ll be awake, and he’ll understand what’s happening.
He’ll understandwhyit’s happening.
Crushing the vial in his strong hand, Spence whips the bag off Graham’s face and waves it beneath his nose. Instantly, the man with a swollen eye and a goose egg on the top of his cheekbone rears back from the stench. His eyes wheel around the room in terror.
No longer lax, he fights his restraints, rattling the buckles that hold him down. It takes only seconds for him to realize he’s stuck.
His eyes stop on Spence. Then Kane.
And when they stop on me, he loses whatever color he had.
“No.” His eyes shoot up to his rattling restraints. “No! Please, no more! Let me go. Let me down!”
“Who else got you?” Seeing what I see, Spence prowls in front of the terrified man. “Who else hurt you?”
“I don’t want more. Please let me go,” he blubbers. “They said they were done.”
“Who got you?” Spence tilts his head to the side. “I’m willing to bet someone else already went to bat for the girl you hurt. Why didn’t you go to the cops?”
“No cops.” His eyes water and spill over. “No cops. No more.”
Spence lifts his chin toward the cross. “You ever cuff that poor girl to one of these, Graham?” The wrench dangles from his hand like it’s no big deal. “I heard you like to dehumanize girls. Sell them. Beat them to shit.”
“No. I never hit her!”
“Oh, right. Because I’m inclined to believe you. But the rest…” Spence’s hand flexes. “The rest is true?” Without giving Graham a chance to defend himself, Spence swings the wrench up between his legs until the sound of crunching nuts forces Graham forward as rivers of vomit splash onto the concrete floor. “You hurt women, you lose your dick, motherfucker! You’re in my house now, and we don’t tolerate that around here.”
“Spence.” Kane steps forward. “No. This ain’t your show. You got the first shot, but now Riggs has some anger he’d like to work through. It’s been a long time coming, and he deserves his go.”
Graham heaves. Spitting up blood and stomach acid, he hangs limp on the frame as blood trickles along the inside of his thigh.