Page 60 of Protector

“I didn’t? Well, you see, I was in a real bad place after I saw what you did to my girl, Manny. Strung out and fucked up don’t even begin to cover it. When I was tryin’ to get clean, someone suggested meditation.”

I took another drag with a low chuckle. “It’s hard to imagine, yeah? So, I go down to the record store, and I’m fuckin’ lookin’ everywhere for somethin’ to help me center myself or some bullshit, and the clerk recommends Tibetan chants. Really thought I’d listen and find my inner peace, but Jesus Christ, it is creepy as fuck! Who am I kidding? You know; you listen to it every night.”

“K-k-kill m-m-me,” he whispered through cracked lips.

I stubbed my cigarette out on his forearm with a shake of my head and immediately lit up another. “No can do,amigo. Who would I spend my days with? Tell you what though, you tell me where your buddies are, and I’ll consider your request.”

In the early days, he’d bragged about the things they’d done to Celia, about the things he wanted to do to my girls. Maybe he thought that I’d lose my temper and give him a quick death. The old me would’ve put a bullet in his head and been done with it, but the clean and sober version had all the patience in the world.

I was in control.

The cigarette dangled from my lips as I pulled the knife from my pocket and opened it up, letting the back of the blade trail over his chest. “Tick tock,amigo. Time is runnin’ out.”

The door beside me opened, and Wolverine stepped inside, eying Manny with a look of disgust. “You ain’t cracked yet? How much longer you wanna drag this out?”

“He ain’t gonna give up his brothers,” I said, before poking the tip into the center of a tattoo on his abdomen. “I like this one. A tiger with a snake in its mouth. That’s somethin’ you don’t see every day.”

Wolverine moved in to inspect it. “I’ll be damned. That reminds me of someone else’s. What was that prick’s name? Chris? No, that ain’t it. Shit, Grey, you remember?”

“Yeah. Carlos. It’s funny that you joinedLos Dictadoresand got your gang ink, but you still got no fuckin’ clue what it means.”

“It doesn’t mean shit,” Manny croaked.

Wolverine held out his hand, and I placed the knife in it. There was nothing I loved more than watching him carve someone up. I’d seen him retrieve colors on more than one occasion, with a precision that couldn’t be matched.

“See,” he noted casually, as he slipped the blade under the skin. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

Manny’s nostrils flared, and he groaned as Wolverine lifted the edge of his tattooed flesh before continuing. “Back when I ran the club,Los Dictadoresworked hand in hand with the Serpents. There was an incident involvin’ payment, and suddenly,Los Dictadoreswas out.

“Turned out, another MC had issues with them too. Knew to strike when the iron was hot, though, and they approached the gang to form a partnership. The Outlaws andLos Dictadoreseven redesigned their club ink to reflect the change.”

The skin was peeled away from his body, rolling up like a sheet of paper as Wolverine moved the blade.

I stepped forward and gripped Manny’s face in my hands. “How fuckin’ stupid do you have to be to join up with your gang’s number one enemy? And not only that, but to protect them? If you don’t think they would’ve rolled over on you the first chance they got, then you need to look long and hard at what it was they had you doin’.”

Wolverine made his final cut, and the tattoo fell away from the skin. I caught it in my palm and held it up for Manny to inspect. “You forgot what it was your gang used to stand for, so we relieved you of your colors. Tell me where to send it.”

I loosened the rope and lowered him back down to the concrete floor. He forced his head back and looked up at me, blinking slowly.

It was the same every time.

Wolverine nodded toward the hall, and I followed him out, but not before cranking the music up. After wiping the blade on his jeans, he handed it back to me and crossed his arms over his chest. “He ain’t gonna last through much more, Grey.”

I nodded. “I know. I was hopin’ we’d be able to get somethin’ out of him. I’m sick of chasin’ these guys.”

“I hear ya, but if he was gonna break, it would’ve happened long before now. Best we can do is find a place to drop his body that would send a message loud and clear.” He tilted his head to the side. “How are you holdin’ up?”

“Me? I’m fine. I could do this all day. Fuck, if we needed to keep him alive for years, I’d do it—”

He grinned. “Ain’t questionin’ your abilities when it comes to torture, son. I wanna know how you are—you seen Celia?”

“I see her every night. You know that.”

“Campin’ out in the backyard ain’t the same as seein’ her. I’m worried about her.” He tapped the side of his head. “She ain’t been herself in years, but ain’t a doubt in my mind that if anyone could reach her, it’d be you.”

I’d planned on waiting to approach her until all the threats were eliminated but still hadn’t worked out what exactly I’d say after she’d made it clear she never wanted to see me again the last time. In hindsight, locking her in the motel room until Molly arrived to pick her up hadn’t been my best idea.

At the sound of a wail, I tore my eyes away from Wolverine and looked back toward the door with a shake of my head. I hadn’t seen Celia cry in years, yet Manny seemed to do it almost every day.

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