Page 18 of Cocked Hammer

One common thing most people didn’t know about me was the size of my dick wasn’t the only reason my brothers called me Sledgehammer. Like Ghoul, I enjoyed hurting people a little too much. In fact, I loved the shit! I mutilated a guy with a sledgehammer until he was unrecognizable when I was probating. I planned to do much worse to Dimitri.

Today was shipment day, so Alek and Dimitri were busy unloading supplies and, no doubt, drugs. My eyes zeroed in on Dimitri as soon as he stepped into sight.

“A two for one deal on fucksticks today.” Wily’s head nodded as Alek followed Dimitri out of the back of the shop. Alek flipped his pocketknife open, jammed it into the top of the enormous box in front of them, and ripped it open. The two of them flung the contents onto the ground and stopped when they reached what I assumed to be the bottom.

“What the fuck are they doing?” I spat out. My eyes flickered to Ghoul for answers, even though he didn’t know any more about what was going on than the rest of us at this point. His head shook in response, and then he motioned for us to move in. With our guns drawn, we edged closer as a group and disbursed around the building as quietly as we could. The element of surprise was on our side, and we wanted to keep it that way if possible.

“Wait!” I whisper-yelled, recognizing Lina’s curves at the far back of the dock. “It’s Lina!” Something was off about the way she was walking, and her hands weren’t swaying in front of her body like they usually did when she walked. The woman was not physically able to talk or walk without moving her hands.

Viktor stepped into the light after her, and it took my mind a second or two to catch up with the scene unfolding before me. When the sunlight beamed across her normally flawless ivory skin, blood glistened from the right side of her face, and nausea hit me hard in the stomach. Her wrists and knees were bound together, and Viktor had a gun against her temple. Blind rage forced itself through every pore in my body, and my feet were moving before I had a chance to think about the consequences.

“Here the fuck we go,” I barely heard Ghoul’s voice call over the deafening pounding of my heart.

From the moment I saw what Dimitri did to Lina, I was a cocked hammer waiting to strike. Viktor wasn’t who I planned to kill today, but the fucker was pointing a gun at the woman I loved. My finger curled, and my eyes connected with Lina’s. She winked, and confusion rose within me.

“I love you,” she silently mouthed, and her head flew backward before jetting forward as spit flew out of her beautiful mouth onto Viktor’s face.You stupid, stupid woman. I wanted to scream at her for being so incredibly careless, but there was no time to waste.

Viktor’s hand swung back, and before his fist touched her face, I sneered, “You sure are a stupid fucker aren’t you?” I seethed, squeezing the trigger, and his pathetic body thudded against the cement dock.

Red specks and fragments of the spineless shit flew onto Lina’s left side, and her blood-curdling scream tore through the air. Dimitri and Alek were quick to draw their guns, but they weren’t fast enough. Wily and Ghoul were faster, and their bodies fell only a few moments after Viktor’s.

I ran as fast as I could to Lina and rammed my knife through the tape to free her. Cupping her bloody face with my palm gutted me because I knew the blood was hers. Killing them quickly wasn’t the fate they deserved. They should have been tortured for days…no weeks. I pointed my gun at their bodies and shot all of the sons of bitches again for good measure.

“Sledgehammer!” she cried, her arms wrapping around my neck, and I pulled her defensively against my body.

My lips lightly pressed against her forehead as I searched my brain for words of comfort. “Shh. I’ve got you, Sugar.”

“The whole thing was a sham. They were running heroin out of my shop,” she spat out the words, and they ran together with how quickly she was talking.

“I know,” I simply answered her, finally able to tell her the truth.

“You do?”

I nodded. “Came here to confront them, and well, this happened.” I waved my hand toward the dead bodies at our feet.

“They’re dead.” Her hands released me, and I let her go. Her eyes roamed over her family’s bodies, and I gritted my teeth. I had no way of knowing how she was going to react to any of this. My arms shot out to steady her in case she collapsed to the ground—that was how normal people reacted to murder. She never fell, though. A sinister smile of pleasure spread across her face. “They. Are. Gone,” she enunciated each word.

“Thank you.” She ran into my arms again and kissed my cheek.

“You might have a concussion,” I stated, as I had several times over the last hour, my boots thumping as I paced the floor of my bedroom. Lina huffed, clearly annoyed with me. I didn’t give a fuck. She was my ol’ lady, and I needed to make sure she was okay. Ezzy’s tail twitched back and forth as she watched me from her habitat. I was probably getting on her nerves, too.

“I will be fine!” Lina said, the annoyance unmistakable in her voice.

My eyes glanced at the alarm clock quickly and then darted back to her, praying she hadn’t noticed. We needed to deal with Dimitri, Alek, and Viktor. The sooner the better, but I didn’t want to leave her. Of course, my brothers would handle them, but I wasn’t done with them. It did not matter if they were alive or not, I was still going pound my aggression into their flesh with my sledgehammer.

“Go. I’ll be fine.” She nodded toward the door, stretching her arms and legs across my bed, and pulled the blanket over her.

“How did you know I had to go?”

“Ira, hospital curtains are not soundproof.” She yawned and I couldn’t argue that fact. Ghoul, Wily, Tin Man, and I had made the plan to meet back at the pet shop after dark to get rid of the bodies. “That and your eyes keep checking the time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s perfectly fine. Ezzy and I will be okay here together. Promise.” She reassured me and waved me off with her hand.

“If you need anything…”

“I’ll call.”

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