Bridges shook his head in horror. Steele had always been the steady one. Savage was unpredictable. And he liked to hurt people. Everyone knew that. He wasn’t kidding when he said he was high from it. He got off on that shit. Steele was bad enough with his dead eyes and ice-cold rage. Savage was a demon from hell.
Bridges’s entire body shuddered. “Just kill me, you bastard. Get it over with.”
“Where’s the fuckin’ fun in that?” Savage demanded.
Steele was standing over Junk again, watching him dispassionately as he tried to crawl away. He reached down fast, yanked Junk to his knees, arm a bar across his throat, nearly crushing it with his strength, hand once again over his mouth and nose to cut off his airway. Junk’s body thrashed wildly.
Savage walked over, leaned down and shoved his knife deep and then ran it up Junk’s belly like a zipper, opening him from groin to ribs. Intestines spilled out and slithered across the floor like snakes straight at Bridges.
The smirk disappeared from Savage’s face, leaving Bridges facing the devil. “Breezy is Torpedo Ink. She was always Torpedo Ink. She belongs to Steele. Zane is Torpedo Ink, and he belongs to all of us. You never should have messed with either of them.”
“Fuck you!” Bridges screamed. “Fuck you both!”
Steele dropped Junk right in the middle of what were formerly his insides and stalked to Bridges. He rolled him over and held out his hand. Savage tossed him the bloody knife. Steele tore the man’s jeans into strips, ripping them away, so that some of the rags hung from the cut waistband, but leaving Bridges’s bare skin and genitals exposed.
“That can be arranged, you sick pervert,” Steele said. “You think I don’t know about what you did to the kids the chapter kidnapped? Boys and girls? You’re a sick fuck. You always were.” There was an edge to Steele now, as if his thin veneer of civilization was beginning to crack. “Everyone knew what you did.” Code had uncovered quite a bit about Bridges Simmons.
“We don’t like your kind, Bridges,” Savage added. “You’re a pedophile. You like children. You know why? Because you’re so weak you can’t handle a real relationship. You have to rape children to get off.”
Bridges shook his head violently back and forth. He was helpless, lying on his back, his body exposed to both men. They looked at him with utter contempt. Not as though he was human, but as if he was the worst piece of dirt on the planet.
“You know those stories you told Donk and the others about the little boys and girls you raped? What you did to them? Got news for you, you fuck. You’re going to experience every detail,” Savage said.
Steele stood up, went back to Junk and cut his throat. Bridges howled his need of revenge and sorrow. Neither man so much as blinked. Savage was laying out their tools to make certain Bridges experienced the things he’d done to kids. He already had been beaten until he couldn’t move or stand.
They spent nearly two more hours with Bridges, making a point to the Swords, to every pedophile that might know Bridges. His screams and curses fell on deaf ears as did his pleas and sobs when they got down to work with knives, making him very aware he would never be able to harm another child or woman. He had to watch and feel, but neither showed mercy, their faces grim and purposeful.
As always, the Torpedo Ink members stripped after, down by the lake, the clothing and gloves going in a bag to burn. They washed off in the lake and then dressed again in the clothes Player provided before heading back to the vacation rental. The guns were broken down and would be disposed of on the way home, across several states. They had been careful in the house not to wear their own fingerprints. The key to the vacation rental had been mailed to them. The owner never saw Phil McBride, the man he’d rented to, and the key was to be left for the cleaning crew beneath the mat by the front door.
Steele walked into the house, shocked that his hands were shaking. Not just his hands, his entire body. He hadn’t been in the least affected by what he’d done to Bridges and Junk, or the others, but knowing he was going to be meeting his son for the first time threw