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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Eight, Maverick, Gunner, Duncan, and Gargoyle sat on musty hay bales, relaxed and shooting the breeze, sharing hits off a thermos as likely to hold whiskey as coffee. More likely: it held both.
As Dex entered the barn and closed the door, they all stood.
“Hey, brother,” Eight said. “You good?”
“I’m good,” he said, and meant it.
This work gave him no satisfaction, instead it fed his demons, but he valued his skill. He was good at this—and one thing about the Bulls: he trusted them not to look for him to use this skill unless the target truly deserved it or there truly was no other choice.
He couldn’t say the same for even most of the the work he’d done wearing a different uniform.
Three men lay on the dirt floor of the barn, gagged and hog-tied. Their kuttes had been removed and lay in a stack over an old sawhorse. Somebody, probably Gargoyle, had removed their shoes and socks as well; those sat beneath the sawhorse in a messy pile.
The Oklahoma rockers had been torn off the kuttes; not seeing them elsewhere, Dex knew those rockers had been shoved into the men’s mouths. They’d meant it when they’d said these poseur assholes would eat those rockers.
Dex recognized all three men: Marvin Grenell, former Bulls prospect, now so-called president of the so-called Hade’s Army MC; Huck Dormer, so-called VP of same and once a Bulls hangaround; and Steve Miller, another former Bulls hangaround now wearing a Hade’s Army patch.
He considered the struggling lumps of flesh on the dirt before him and turned to Eight. “I thought you were grabbing Allman.”
Don Allman had no association with the Bulls, but he was the name on the deed of the house they’d found the women in, and he was wearing SAA flash for their stupid MC.
There were only seven men wearing the Hade’s Army patch. Three were officers. The plan had been to cut off the head—all the officers.
Mav answered. “He’s off the grid. He’s got an old lady, and she’s gone, too. They have a fifth-wheel camper, and it’s gone. Apollo figures they went away for the holidays.”
“And we’re not waitin’,” Eight added. “This message is better, anyway. These fuckers were in our goddamn house. Now their little club is dirtying up our turf. These are the ones to make an example of.”
Dex agreed, but he also wondered about leaving an officer breathing. That seemed like pulling a weed but not getting the root. He considered saying as much, but Eight was right: they needed to move on this, and if Allman wasn’t around, these three were better.
And maybe leaving an officer alive had some merit: a target for their suppliers’ ire.
Gargo came up. “My read?” he muttered, “It’s Dormer who’s the weak link. He’ll spill first.”
Dex nodded and studied the targets himself for a moment. Grenell lay calmly, glaring at them. Miller squirmed and grunted, fighting his bonds. Dormer lay still but stiff. Sweat sheened his waxy-pale complexion. Yeah, he was terrified and trying not to show it.
“Good read,” Dex said, and Gargo nodded tersely.
Gargoyle had wanted to be SAA. It probably wouldn’t be a stretch to say he’d expected to get it. He probably would make a fine SAA. Their styles were significantly different, but Gargo had what the job required.
Dex didn’t know all the nuance of what had happened between Gargo and Rad, but at some point, Rad had subtly shifted allegiances and pulled Dex to his side, and they’d worked seamlessly together, filling in each other’s gaps. When he’d retired, Rad had named Dex as his preferred successor, and Becker had agreed.
Gargo and Dex worked fine together, but there wasn’t the same intuitive connection. And neither was the type to go looking to make a buddy. They did their work, Gargo did what he was told, and it was fine.
He looked around the barn, saw that they’d gotten ready for him while they’d waited. His tool kit was already here, and they’d put his workspace together.
“Let’s start with Grenell.” Raising his voice so everyone, including the targets, could hear him, he said, “Let’s get him on the rack. Gun, Dunc, hang Dormer and Miller up.” He wanted them to have a clear view of everything he was about to do to their ‘president.’
The rack was something Dex had designed, inspired by some of the tools he’d used and seen others use in the Middle East, some things he’d read about in history books, and some needs he’d had of his own. Sort of a cross between a medieval rack and an autopsy table, it put in play a variety of different ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques, maximized stress on the target and minimized the interrogator’s fatigue.
Overwhelmingly, setting aside the near constant turmoil of the Perro years, the Bulls’ work was fairly mundane, for what it was. They did their runs, made their exchanges, and came home. Otherwise, they ran a service station. They didn’t cruise around Oklahoma looking for people to torture and kill and bury in their field.
Dex had worn the Bull for a decade, give or take, and he’d had cause to really hurt someone—not a brawl, not a flash of anger, not putting a bullet in a girl’s abusive ex’s head, but something intentional and strategic—only a handful of times. They were bad days for everyone involved, and he preferred to avoid them.
So he made them count.
While the others got Grenell stripped to his briefs and bound to the rack, and Dormer and Miller strung up from a rafter to watch, Dex took off his riding suit, kutte, hoodie, and t-shirt. Sitting on his kutte, his phone buzzed, and a text from Kelsey brightened the lock screen:Let me know when you’re done today??
