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I break the finger anyway.
Reggie sobs, and it sounds like it hurts. He tries to curl his fingers into a fist, but then screams when the broken ones don’t seem to like that very much.
“You’re so close, Reg. Just tell me what I wanna know.”
I don’t say ‘and then it’ll be over’ because that would be a lie. There’s no point in lying. It won’t be over, and we both know that, probably. The thing he did has already been done. This is as much about punishing him for getting uppity and thinking he can do whatever he wants with what’s ours as it is about getting more information from him.
It’s not going to end easy.
“T-the Diamond Devils!” he blurts out, shaking against the wall. His eyes are wild and wet, red rimmed from his crying. Blood pours down both arms, and his chest heaves with trying to breathe through the pain. “I… I’m a member. We were—oh, fuck. We were getting tired of waiting for you to make a decision.”
“Oh, about the weapons.” I remember Gage debating that the other night. Before we got wrapped up in the mess with River and all.
Reggie nods, still trembling. “I wanted to… to get some things moving, so I—”
“So you decided to just make things happen yourself.” I shake my head, smiling. “Oh, Reggie. You’re so fucking stupid. Did you really think that was gonna work? That you could get around having to talk to us. That you could scam me and my brothers and fuck with our girls?”
“It wasn’t a scam!” he chokes out. “You were gonna get your cut.”
“You never got our permission, you fucking idiot.” I drop the smile and bash his ring finger, hitting it a couple times for good measure. That hand is fucked at this point, but I want to make sure I drive the message home. “And you fucked with our dancers. You tried to bribe them, and when that didn’t work, you moved on to threats. You thought we wouldn’t find out?”
“Money is money,” Reggie sobs. “I thought—”
“You didn’t think shit,” I snap, going for the thumb. His howls of pain are like music to my ears. “You just wanted to be the hero. You wanted to do a deal without doing the deal, and that’s amateur shit. Even I know better than that.”
“Please!” he screams.
“Please what?” I shoot back cheerfully. “Please stop? Please no more? Please have mercy?” I jam the hammer under his chin, making him look up at me. “Is that what the dancer you fucked said when she was trying to get away from you? Is that how she begged when you grabbed her and did whatever the fuck you wanted with her? Doesn’t feel so nice, now does it?”
He flinches hard when I draw the hammer back, like he’s afraid I’m about to smash him in the face with it.
I do think about it for a second, but that would be too easy. I’m not going to let him get off like that. Not when there’s so much more pain I can make him feel for what he did.
I step away from him, taking the hammer with me.
Reggie slumps in his chains, sobbing and taking deep, rattling breaths. I watch him try to move his fingers and then cry out when none of them bend the right way.
That’s his own fault for being an idiot.
All of this is his fault for being an idiot.
I pick up the hot stick.
It’s probably for something like burning designs into wood or some artsy shit like that, but I use it to burn warnings into people who should have already known better. Like Reggie.
Humming under my breath, I walk over and plug it in, letting it heat up.
Reggie just keeps crying.
“You know,” I say conversationally. “I woulda thought someone like you would have a higher pain tolerance. You’re out there fucking people over, grabbing up girls who don’t want you and generally being a piece of shit. I thought you’d be able to take a little pain without folding like a wet piece of paper.”
If he has anything to say to my taunts, he can’t get it out for the crying, so I shrug one shoulder and approach him with the hot stick.
The tip of it glows red, and I smirk at the sight. There’s already a dark part at the very tip, the remnants of other times I’ve had to use this.
When I come close to Reggie with it, he suddenly snaps his head up, eyes wide with terror.
“No. No! Please, don’t.” He tries to cringe away from me, but there’s nowhere for him to go. Every time he moves he ends up agitating his wounds more, until he’s a bleeding mess.
