“What’s your name?” I asked, removing the boot from his right foot.
“Gary Barnes.”
“Okay, Gary Barnes. Here’s the situation. Your days as a hitman are over. If I had it my way, your days as a living, breathing human being would be over, but my partner wants to let you walk. What do you think?”
“I swear to God if you let me walk, you’ll never hear from me again,” he pleaded.
“So, that’s two votes for walking and one opposed,” I said, removing his sock. “So, here’s the compromise, Gary. I’m gonna let you walk, but you’re never gonna walk quite the same again.” I grabbed ahold of his foot and severed his Achilles tendon with the broken kitchen knife.
He screamed out in agony before passing out again. He’d already lost a good amount of blood from the cut on his thigh, and the pain from the Achilles tendon put him out cold.
“Grab my phone. I need to make some calls to get this all cleaned up and taken care of. Until then, I’m gonna have a couple of brothers take you to one of the club’s safe houses.”
“What about him?”
“Needles will make sure he doesn’t die, and I’m gonna make sure no one else like him ever comes after you again.”
“You’re leaving me here withhim?”
“Believe me, he’s not going anywhere. Besides, I’m gonna zip tie him to the tub and my brothers will be here within minutes,” I reassured her.
“But you’re bleeding,” she said. “You’ve reopened that cut on your head.”
“Shit,” I said, my hand going to the freshly reopened wound.
The last thing I needed was a trail of my blood leading to where I was headed.
“Sit on the edge of the tub and keep an eye on him while I grab my medical supplies,” Rowan said.
“I’ll just glue it,” I growled.
“Scooby, you’ve already glued it once. And you’ve ripped it open again—”
“I promise I’ll have Needles take care of it as soon as I’m back at the clubhouse. But for now, you can clean it up, and I’ll close it with the help of Dr. Elmer.”
“You’re gonna have a bad scar,” she said.
I gave her a smile. “Chicks dig scars.”
“Well, you’re racking them up like Frankenstein’s monster at this rate.”
“I can bleed later. Right now, I need to go,” I said.
“Promise me you won’t do anything that leads to more scars, will ya, Frankie?” Rowan was putting on a brave face, but I knew how terrified she must be by all of this. That’s why I had to go. To put an end to her terror.
“I promise I’ll come back to you in exactly the same way I’m leaving, only better.”
“Why better?”
“Because you’ll be safe.”
After securing Gary’s near lifeless body to the feet of the heavy cast iron tub, I got dressed quickly then grabbed a few things from my makeshift workbench, throwing them into a duffel bag. As soon as I was out of Rowan’s place, I called Sierra.
“Hey, Scooby. How’s my favorite Scorpio?” she asked, answering on the first ring.
“Ready to sting the shit outta someone,” I replied. “But first I’ve got to get to him.”
“What can I do?”