“You’ll talk one way or another,” Torch promises as his knuckles crunch into the man tied before us. His skull flies back with the impact, and an unpleasant groan escapes his lips yet again. He put up a good fight in the beginning, remaining silent, but Torch obviously got his death dealer patch for a reason.
“I could hit him a few times,” I offer with a shrug.
“I don’t want him knocked out, which seems to be your MO if we go by the scene in Chevelle’s office. I need him to flip and tell me anything that has worth.”
“Well, your easy hits over the past hour have barely gotten a groan out of him.”
“I have other methods.” He smirks with an evil glint in his eyes. “Watch them for a sec.”
I nod as he leaves the club basement. It’s just me and these two dipshits that attempted to rough Chevelle up. I can’t believe they lunged at her. What the fuck were they planning on doing? Beat her up? Rape her? She’s a woman for fuck’s sake. She’d have given them hell, no doubt, but just the thought of them harming her has me biting down hard in an angry snarl.
I’m up and out of my chair in no time, sending a swift kick to the gut of the man tied up on the floor. He immediately wretches off to the side, spilling the little bile he has left in his gut. “Piece of shit, I can’t wait to take your life for trying to hurt her.” I kick him in his nuts next to drive my point across.
Torch returns shaking his head at me. “Hey brother, calm down. I need him alive right now. You can beat him to death soon enough if that’s what you want. I don’t mind sharing when it comes to killing filth.”
With a huff, I take my seat again and watch as he pulls a lighter free from his jeans pocket and lights a small torch. He must’ve gone and retrieved it from his room. The torch flares to life, the yellow and blue flames hot and ready to do some damage. I’m beginning to understand exactly how he got his road name.
“Can you see the flame, Fist?” Torch hisses, holding the colorful flame up eye level with the biker tied to the chair.
He remains quiet. His eyes are nearly swollen closed, and you’d think if he had any type of self-preservation he’d start giving information up.
Torch’s gaze briefly lands on me. “Roll his shirt sleeve up.”
I do as he asks, an Iron Fist tattoo coming into view on the exposed skin.
“They all have them,” he mutters to me and scoots in closer. “Speak Fist or burn.”
The guy grunts but says nothing.
“Have it your way.” Torch scowls and brings the flame to flesh. The skin sizzles black and smokes, it fades away to angry meat underneath as the man wails in pain. This is not your back road, high school car lighter burn dare that a ton of us experienced when we were growing up. This is just plain torture, and it smells horrendous.
My brother pulls it away as the man begins to sweat profusely, gibberish pouring from his mouth. None of it makes any sense though; it’s the pleas of a man being severely burned and nothing else.
“You will tell us what we want to know, or I’ll continue to burn this shitty tat off your arm. You can’t ever be an Iron Fist again if there’s no skin here to tat their mark where it belongs.”
With a cry, the man shakes his head.
Glancing at Torch, my brow hikes. “Repercussions must be worse than this if he refuses to speak up.”
“Probably.” He nods and leans in, continuing to burn the entire tattoo completely off. The smell reminds me of burnt hair, the thick air making my stomach grow nauseous.
“Okay!” The injured biker finally gasps as the pain finally grows to a high enough level to get him to talk.
“It’s too late for this tat,” Torch responds. “But I’m sure you have a bigger one someplace else we can move on to next if needed.”
He wheezes and then gags with his mutilated arm full of twisted crimson flesh. It’s a burn too, so you know that shit hurts worse than a simple slice from a knife.
“Pull it the fuck together and talk or I keep going. Let’s begin with your road name. Your patch says T and homeboy over there says Shaggy.”
“Y-yes that’s us.”
“What were you doing at The Pit?”
He breathes heavily for a moment, a nasally sound coming from his busted nose. “W-went for money.”
“No shit. Now, tell me why.”
“’Cause we knew it was a bitch running it and we could make her pay up easily.”