Forge tensed up as Dog grabbed a knife from the display of torture weapons and placed it against Hound’s stomach.
Silence filled the air.
Tension so tight.
He waited. If Dog disobeyed him, he’d have to be dealt with.
Dog laughed. “I like that you think you can get me to end your sorry existence. Not going to happen. I’m better than you. I thought you were a brother, but you fucked this club over.”
“Everything I did, I did for the club. You’re all fucked in the head, letting some girl get the better of you. Women make you weak. They’re good for two things, fucking and beating. That’s it.”
Forge couldn’t believe he’d never seen the true animal inside his enforcer. It made him sick to his stomach.
“You disgust me.” Dog spat at him and stepped back. “I would never take away the honor of destroying him.” He put the blade down. “Make him hurt, Prez. Make him scream.”
Dog didn’t stick around. He left the basement and Forge turned toward Hound. “So, you believe Beth makes me weak.”
“Look at the way you go chasing after her like a little puppy dog. It’s pathetic. You’re the president of this club. You shouldn’t run for anyone. It’s madness to even believe it.”
“I love her.”
“I know, which is why she had to go. She makes you weak and one day, you’ll see that all I was trying to do was make you strong.”
“You think this is strong?” he asked. “You’re chained up, Hound. You’re not getting out of here alive.”
“They know about her, Forge. They know she’s your weakness. She’ll never be safe.”
“I’ll handle it like I’ve handled everything else over the years.” He walked toward the display of weapons. He loved to torture, to hurt, to draw out every single little fucking detail of information he needed in the most excruciating way possible. He’d done it so many times, sometimes prolonging a person’s life just for fun. He enjoyed it.
Now, he wasn’t happy. He was pissed off. Hound was one of his men. Someone he was supposed to trust, but instead, he’d betrayed him.
Even though Beth was alive and she’d come to him, he knew she was still hurt by what he’d done. He didn’t blame her. He’d hurt her, threatened her, scared her, all in the hope of getting the truth out of her, and it had worked. Only now he felt like a monster because all along it had been one of his men.
Hound. One of his most trusted men, and that pissed him off.
Picking up the knife, he turned to Hound and without waiting, he thrust the blade in deep.
Hound’s screams filled the air.
He wasn’t done. After pulling the knife out, he thrust it into the second leg, twisting it. He made sure he was nowhere near any major artery. The last thing he wanted to do was to end this quickly. Beth had told him what Hound had tried to do. She was only for him. He didn’t share.
For the next few hours, he didn’t really know what the time was or how it had passed. Hound hung lifeless from the ceiling. Some of his flesh cut was away, burned. The blood soaked through his clothing and onto the floor.
Leaving the basement, he arranged for the cleaners to come and take care of the body. He wasn’t even sure when he’d died. Forge had gone into another state, that fucked-up state where all logic vanished away. Moving to the bar, he didn’t touch a single thing. His hands were covered in blood as were his chest and face. None of the brothers said anything as he threw back a shot of whiskey.
“Tomorrow we’ll go pay our enemies a visit. I want to burn their place to the ground and let everyone know that if they come trying to fuck with my woman, they’re going to end up dead and burned.”
The cleaners arrived soon after and helped him remove all trace of Hound’s blood and matter from him, and then he made his way upstairs to his bedroom. There was no sign
of Beth, but then he wasn’t expecting it. Sable was being treated within the clubhouse. Once he took a shower to completely wipe off all traces of what he’d just done, he found her in one of the spare bedrooms. The doc always tried to keep their care and medical procedures within the clubhouse so they didn’t have to go to a hospital.
The last thing they wanted was for cops to start investigating their business.
Beth sat in a chair beside Sable. The club whore was out cold. One of the machines beeped, letting them know she was alive.
He closed the door behind him. Beth whirled around and looked at him. He saw the bruises on her face from Hound. His hands clenched into fists. He wanted to kill him all over again.
Beth didn’t say anything as she turned back to Sable, giving the woman her full attention.