Page 10 of Vengeance (Ruthless MC 4)
No police….I scroll to the only biker in my contact list. Hyena insisted on putting his number in my phone the third time I turned him down.
“Just in case you change your mind,” he explained.
I never changed my mind, but I never deleted the number either. Or used it. Until now.
“Hey, Doc, what’s up?” Hyena sounds happy but confused to hear from me.
And I’m relieved to hear his voice.
But then the door splinters, and suddenly the guy whose face I kicked is inside my room. His nose is splotched over with an angry dark purple and blue bruise, and his nasal bone is jutted out at an unnatural angle.
But he didn’t use the hours I was sleeping to find a doctor. He’s clearly high on something else. Something that made him stronger than he was when I kicked him away from me.
He’s feeling no pain. His eyes only gleam with drugged-out madness and ugly outrage.
Right before he lunges at me.
CHAPTER 5
VAMPIRE
Something doesn’t feel right.
And it has nothing to do with the Savages’ sergeant at arms screaming as Hyena takes off a second finger with a pair of wire cutters. Or the six Savages nervously eyeing the AK-47 Des-E has trained on them.
I’ll admit, the assault weapon is overly dramatic. More for show than practical matters. If any of the Savages try to make a move, Des-E will most likely pull out both of the Desert Eagles he keeps tucked beneath his cut. The AK will be left to simply hang around his neck as he shoots them dead with two guns he can more easily aim. You can take the sniper out of the Middle Eastern desert, but you can never take away his preference to point and shoot.
But as the David Banner track that Hyena likes to blast at the top of his workout playlist states, stunting is a habit. And besides, we all know they won’t make a move.
If they did, they’d die quickly—at best. The worst version of possible outcomes would be Des-E purposefully shooting them somewhere that will take them down with the pain but won’t necessarily kill them.
No, death would be something they’d beg for hours later after Hyena had tried out several brands of torture on them.
Sometimes we have to introduce ourselves in that manner to new gangs who don’t know us. But lucky for everybody but the sergeant at arms, the Savages aren’t a baby gang.
They know our reputation. So they dutifully stand with their hands raised in the air while their SAA takes the punishment for trying to sell their shitty meth in one of our territories.
“We didn’t know Latham County belonged to you,” the SAA is blubbering. “We thought you guys were only operating out of Louisiana and Iowa these days.”
“See, that’s why we had to come through and teach you this lesson,” Hyena explains like a helpful teacher—with wire cutters he uses exclusively to take off fingers. “Us Reapers got territories all over this country. Delaware, Texas, Iowa, North Carolina. And Latham County is where we started out.”
The Savages' president has been pretty quiet up until now—probably just grateful that we prefer to torture our fellow SAA than an MC’s prez. But now he decides to speak up.
“I thought that was white supremacist country before the Feds cleared them out.” He eyes Des-E, who’s definitely not white with confusion.
“And that’s why not fully educating yourself can be dangerous.” Hyena cuts off a third finger and yells over the biker’s screams. “You stop your research in the beginning, and that’s how you end up with an SAA who can’t shoot for shit because he ain’t got no fingers. But let’s check with Vampire to see if we’re feeling merciful tonight. What do you say, V? Considering their ignorance, should we stop or take off all ten fingers?”
He glances at me, and after a moment of thought, I hold up one hand.
Hyena grins even broader.
“Well, guess who’s having a lucky day!” he says, grinning at the SAA. “Vampire’s decided to be merciful.”
And the Savages let out audible sighs of relief.
“Thank God,” the SAA says.
But then he screams when Hyena grabs his hand and cuts off the third finger without warning.
“What are you doing?” the Savages’ prez hollers. “He told you to stop!”
Hyena gives him a quizzical look. “No, that wasn’t the sign to stop. That was the sign for only taking five. Your sarge got lucky.”
The SAA doesn’t scream like he’s lucky when Hyena cuts off his thumb before finally throwing him a towel to staunch the blood.
I’m pretty sure the Savages get the message. Especially when we make them and their maimed SAA watch us douse their little clubhouse in gasoline and set it on fire.
I doubt they’ll be coming back to the roadhouse to sell—or anywhere near Latham County ever again. Mission accomplished, and Hades told me this morning that he’d be in contact about Persy.
