Page 27 of Morgue
“You bastard!” Maria tried to strike out at Deacon, but not only was her aim shit, but Deacon snagged her arm and pulled it behind her back at a painful angle. “Ow! You’re hurting me!”
“Oh, you know what you did to deserve this. You’re gonna hurt a lot worse before you die.” Apparently Ace had reached the end of his rope.
“What? I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Right.” Ace snorted. “’Course you don’t.”
He snagged a zip tie from his vest and looped it around her wrists, pulling it tight. Maria screamed again. “I said you’re hurting me! What the fuck?”
“Hurting you? What about the woman you hurt? You think she begged?” I asked the question in a deadly growl. “You think they listened? Maybe if you beg long enough and loud enough, I’ll listen. Or not.” The smile I gave her through the mirror was pure evil. “Either way, we’re gettin’ ready to find out.”
At that, Maria’s eyes grew wide. She opened her mouth to scream, but Ace stuffed a rag inside her mouth and taped it shut. Now, the two women who were awake looked terrified. But not terrified enough.
Everything went as planned. Deke got us back to Evansville where Brick waited with the SUV ready to take us to the barn. Wylde covered our tracks so we weren’t busted for an unlogged flight path.
We got the women into the barn and into the basement where they were tied with their hands above their heads. They were still gagged. The third one was slowly waking up but was still out of it.
“Give it a couple more hours and she should be awake,” Stitches said, nodding to the groggy one. “Then we can begin.”
I nodded, walking to Maria and reaching for the tape over her mouth. With one hard yank, I ripped the tape off.
Maria screamed, though the sound was muffled because of the cloth still in her mouth. Once she’d quieted down, I pulled out the cloth.
“Now,” I said with a small smile. It wasn’t a kind smile. “You’ve got a little bit to think about what you want to tell me.”
“Not tellin’ you shit, cabrón!”
“Yes. You will. But we’ll get to that in a bit. You can stand there and invent all the lies you can to convince me to believe, or you can just come clean and tell me everything I want to know.”
“Right,” she sneered. “Because I’m gonna do what you want.” She spat in my direction. “Go to hell!”
“I might see you there someday. Won’t deny it. But you’ll be in hell long before I will.”
The other woman looked from me to Maria and back with wide, terrified eyes. Tears tracked from her eyes and sweat beaded her brow. She was getting the idea things were about to get serious.
“¡Cuando salgamos de aquí te voy a matar, bastardo!” Maria screamed. Her fury would have been funny if I hadn’t been so furious. These women were responsible for everything Dorothy went through before I found her. Now, it only fueled my anger.
In a move as sudden as it was spontaneous, I backhanded Maria hard enough to knock her out. She went limp, her body hanging from her wrists. I never thought hitting a woman would ever give me satisfaction, but there was no denying I liked knowing I caused pain to Maria. I knew she’d sold Dorothy to men who would have hurt her, raped, and beaten all those women if we hadn’t rescued them.
It was about two more hours before Stitches was confident the worst of the effects of the Ecstasy had worn off all three women. Maria, the mouthy one, was yelling and threatening while the other two were still gagged. I’d singled out Maria because she was the one who’d pushed them to take Dorothy. The others had gone along with it but wouldn’t have on their own. Didn’t mean they got to live. Just meant they had a better chance of a quick death. Because I was about to scare the Holy Spirit out of them.
Sting and Brick, as well as all the officers of Iron Tzars, were witness to what was about to happen.
“You think you’re gonna fuck me, cabrón? You’re all going to die!” She sneered at me. “Go ahead. If you can get your pencil dick to work.” She gave me a maniacal smile and bit out, “I like it rough.”
“I’m sure you do,” I said. “But you’re not gettin’ fucked. First, we don’t do that. Even if you deserve a little tit for tat.”
“I didn’t do nothing to that perra!”
“Sure you did.” I pulled my knife from the sheath strapped to my thigh, examining the blade. It was a wicked, serrated knife with a thick hilt. “I already know this because we have your phone and text records. Even from the burner phones you thought were untraceable.” I leaned in to whisper to her. “They weren’t.” Wow. I hope Wylde was proud of himself. I’d been hanging around him so much I even sounded like him. But, hey. It was better than the one- and two-word sentences I’d been reduced to when I’d first met Dorothy. The mere thought of her put me in the frame of mind I needed to complete this task. “Torturing women isn’t really my thing. But I’m making an exception. Just for you. So, here’s your choices. You can continue to be a little cunt and last for days or even weeks, or you can tell me what I want to know and go quickly without suffering.” I shrugged. “Make your decision.”
She barked out a laugh. “You don’t scare me.”
“Really?” I grinned.
“Yeah. Crazy American. You think we’re stupid? You’re not gonna do anything to us.”
I lunged forward and stabbed Maria in the shoulder with my knife, burying it to the hilt. She screamed over and over with every breath. Then I pulled it out slowly, and she sobbed out her pain.