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His temples throbbed. A trickle at his lip meant his mouth was bleeding. He might even have a couple of cracked ribs.
He would definitely have more bruises than he’d be able to count.
Everything fucking hurt.
He wasn’t even sure a bottle of whiskey and a handful of Percocet would help. Not that it mattered, he could find the first but he didn’t have the second and doubted Aleve would be enough.
With another groan, he carefully rolled over to his belly because he couldn’t sit up. He wasn’t even sure if he could lift his hand enough to wipe away the blood on his mouth. Not yet. He still had to tell his own body to breathe.
Breathe through the fucking pain.
He’d been in plenty of fucking fights before.
He’d been jumped before.
He’d been sucker punched once or twice.
But he never remembered having to simply stand and take a beating until he fell to the ground and then take some more.
All without defending himself.
Not once.
To make things “fair,” the exec committee decided that Cage’s punishment for breaking the rule—the rule Sig also broke—would be the same price the VP paid.
All those months ago, when Sig had gotten caught with Rebecca, her two brothers had thrown a horse blanket over his head and beat the fuck out of him with a pipe or some kind of club.
So, Cage stood at the edge of the field just beyond The Barn while a heavy blanket had been thrown over him and someone—he assumed Judge—had beat the fuck out of him with something long and hard. Not a baseball bat and not a steel pipe. Maybe a wooden club of some sort.
Cage wasn’t sure because he’d been facing the open field away from where all his brothers gathered since he didn’t want to anticipate whatever he had coming to him.
Though, it was hard not to.
He pressed his palms into the dirt and lifted his head, making sure he still had feeling in all of his limbs. Making sure he wasn’t paralyzed or even had any broken arm or leg bones.
He didn’t. Thank fuck.
He watched as one drop of blood dripped, then two, making a tiny puddle in the dry dirt below his face. That blood came from his nose.
He turned his neck and shifted his jaw slightly to test it. Sore but functional.
This whole thing could’ve turned out a lot worse than it did.
He inhaled another painful breath.
Then another before slowly pushing himself to his knees.
He was covered in dirt. He was leaking blood.
But he still had his colors.
He still had his brotherhood.
He still had his family.
He’d heal from the beating. But he might not have recovered from losing everything that was important to him.
He didn’t realize how important they all were until Dyna showed up at the garage in a cardboard box.
Discarded and unwanted.
That was when he realized he needed everything he currently had and needed to make sure not to fuck that up.
So, when he was told what his punishment was, he only nodded and accepted it.
He didn’t argue.
He didn’t walk away.
Instead, he strode to the edge of the field, shrugged out of his cut and held it out until someone came—he didn’t see who—and snagged it from his fingers. Then he waited.
When he wobbled on his knees, Rook and Rev rushed up and grabbed him under the arms, helping him to his feet, but not letting go.
“You look like hell, brother,” Rook said under his breath.
“Feel like it, too.” He tried to smile but his mouth hurt too badly and he could taste the metallic tang of blood along with a little bit of grit.
“No Amish pussy’s worth that,” Rev muttered.
A-fucking-men.
“That was the point of havin’ everyone here to watch it,” Trip announced loudly.
With the help of Rook and Rev, Cage slowly turned around to face the rest of his brothers. He didn’t miss Whip wince when the younger brother saw all the damage.
He also didn’t miss the blank expression Dutch wore.
His gaze landed on Judge and he noticed what the enforcer held. Just what he suspected. A wooden billy club. Where the fuck that came from, Cage had no idea, but he could guess it belonged to the Originals because it didn’t look new.
No, it looked well used. It had a crack running through it and some of the wood was stained darker. Most likely from blood. The leather loop on the end was still circling Judge’s wrist.
The enforcer lifted the club so everyone could see it and a grumble came from deep within his chest. “Gonna hang this fucker in The Barn as a reminder. Ain’t gonna tolerate any of you breakin’ the fuckin’ rules. Trip has them for a reason. You don’t like those fuckin’ rules, you either pay the penalty or you lose your colors. We all get that?”
A bunch of “fuck yeahs” rose from the group. Not in a shout, but in more of a subdued murmur.
