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I could hear in the tone of his voice that something had changed. I could sense him distancing himself from me, and I didn’t have a clue as to why. It couldn’t have been something that I’d said, we’d barely talked. I stared at him with worry as he carefully dried me off with a towel and then tenderly saw to my wounds, while his expression remained closed off and he avoided meeting my eyes. Something was very wrong.
I wanted to ask him what, but I was afraid of what his answer might be.
Chapter 29
Doc
I wanted Bronx. I wanted to make him fucking suffer for taking Harlow. For putting his filthy hands on her. I wanted to cut his hands off and then his dick, because I had no doubt about what he had intended to do to her. His reputation for rape and torture were widely known. When I was done with him, I’d make sure that he had a slow and painful death.
I’d just received a text from Cole saying that Trip had arrived, and I knew Vegas Watchdogs had just as much right to make Bronx and Monk suffer as I did. Trip was pissed that Monk was already dead. A traitor to the club should always be punished by his club brothers. Hell, Trip had every right to demand a favor in exchange for us taking that pleasure from him. If he wouldn’t consider it an insult, we could offer him Tamara, but I had a feeling that Cole and Demon would want to see to her punishment themselves. Club whores weren’t stupid. They were explained the rules when they signed up, and they knew the consequences of breaking them. Tamara had to know what was coming to her now.
I pushed my plate away and sat back in my chair, content to watch my woman on the other side of me as she interacted with Raven, Bobbie, and Kelly. Even with bruises covering her face she was beautiful. My gaze lowered to the neckline of her collared blouse, following the line of cloth-covered buttons lining the front, and visualizing every fucking cut Bronx had made with his knife. The one at her nipple literally made me sick to my stomach. There’d been rumors that he enjoyed cutting off a woman’s nipples when he was done with her. The man was a sick fuck.
The material was thin enough that I could make out where I’d bandaged her bruised ribs. She was going to ache for a while, and that subconjunctival hemorrhage could take a couple weeks until it fully went away. I should have been there to protect her. I should have demanded that she remain at the club until lockdown was lifted. Her independence and my desire to make her happy had cost her, and I was having a hard time dealing with that.
As soon as Harlow and I had joined the others for dinner she’d made a phone call to Kelly’s mother, and after explaining the situation she’d passed the phone to the young girl. The smile that lit up her young face as tears of happiness filled her eyes had been a balm to my soul, and with it the promise that, in time, she would be okay.
Harlow’s tears, however, had gutted me, because I hadn’t been able to keep her away from the shit that came with being part of the club. The tearful words that she’d uttered in the shower had started a train wreck in my brain, and had ripped my fucking heart from my chest. She never wanted to go through something like this again—innocent words to her to express her feelings, but I’d heard the deeper meaning in them.
And I knew what I had to do.
Fuck.If I sat here much longer, I’d be the one crying like a fucking baby. I scooted my chair back, gaining everyone’s attention. My smile was for Harlow. “Gotta meet with Demon and the others out back. Already arranged for Loco to drive you when you take Kelly home.” I could tell that this news confused her, that it maybe even disappointed her. It was there in the widening of her eyes. “I’ll see you when you get back.” I paused to give her a brief kiss on my way by.
All the way to the warehouse I clenched my jaw to keep my emotions in check. Giving Harlow up was going to be the hardest thing I’d ever done, but after what had happened today it was necessary. Once our ties were cut, she would be safe again. I thought about her friendship with the old ladies. I wouldn’t take that away from her. She would need their support in the coming months. She would drop from being an old lady to a friend of the club, and hopefully that change would be enough to keep her safe.
Shit.I’d thought of her as my old lady, but I hadn’t made it official.
Thank fuck for small miracles.
I stepped into the warehouse and headed for the back. Voices were carried to me before I reached the area where we dealt out punishment to enemies of the club. We had a secret room that you could only gain access to through a soundproof door with a code. You had to know where the door was located to find it, as a wall panel kept it hidden from outsiders. Inside that room was a cage and a vat of sulfuric acid that was kept buried in the floor. It was nasty stuff, but it did the job. We used it to dissolve the scum who we interrogated on site and knew wouldn’t be leaving alive. Dissolving bodies saved time and eliminated the possibility of getting caught while disposing of them.
I rounded the corner, not surprised to find the door to the kill room open. We usually kept it closed, but with the number of brothers in there it would have been a tight fit. The concrete section of flooring that hid the vat had been opened, too. I guessed that Monk had already been given a toxic bath, because I didn’t see his body. The floor was covered in plastic, and there was a vent in the floor where any bodily fluids would be washed down. Bronx was hanging from the ceiling over a puddle of blood and piss, naked and cut to hell. I grimaced at the sight of flesh beneath his feet until I reminded myself that he deserved everything he got.
A weeping Tamara was confined to a chair. That bitch’s time was coming.
Trip glanced up when he saw me. We exchanged chin lifts.
