Page 52 of Ravaged and Ruined
“More talking.” I growl dragging the blade down towards his chest and tapping it above his heart. “Where do you take them?”
“We were using an old warehouse but it got put on the market and we had to relocate fast. Now we use an old meatpacking plant off the Expressway. Looks legit from the front, but go around the back, you’ll see locked doors with badge access only.”
“You’ve been helpful kid, but you aren’t walking out of here,” I lean in, my blade pressing into him, slicing deep enough to make him bleed but not enough to kill him. “Anyone touches what’s mine, we gut them in this room.”
Then I straighten, wiping the blood-slick steel on the shredded fabric of his patch-less cut. “We’re coming for all of it. Your crew. Your bosses. And those women you thought no one would want.”
He shivers, his chest heaving, pumping the blood through his shirt faster.
I turn without another word. The brothers follow. We head upstairs, our boots heavy on the old steps, The plan already forming in my mind. The metal door slamming shut behind us with a heavy clang that rattles the concrete walls. He’ll stay down there. Broken. Bleeding. But alive. For now.
Chapter Twenty-One
Aero
We don’t wait.
I’m fucking done waiting. I’m itching to get my hands on more of these mother fuckers. Every second we sit on our hands, these fuckers spread their rot deeper into our city, making it filthier by the hour.
The second that prospect started talking, the rage sharpened. I don’t just see red, I become it. Cold. Calculated. Merciless.
There’s no vote. No debate. Just action.
We load up like hell’s cavalry. Grizzly and Surge take point, Crank and Rancor close behind, shotguns strapped and blades tucked with the same precision surgeons use. Only we’re not coming to save lives. We’re coming to end them.
I climb onto my bike, the engine snarling like it senses the bloodlust in me. The rest of the crew fans out behind me, silent, riding tight. No chatter. No jokes. We’re past words. There’s just the hum of engines and the sound of a club ready to wage war.
We’ve already been to the location once, dragging their prospect out of the shadows of that crumbling shithole they calla clubhouse. No cameras. No alarms. Just filth and arrogance. They didn’t even notice we took one of their own. That’s how fucking stupid they are.
We hit the parking lot fast with precision strikes. Bikes roll in quiet, engines cut. They don’t hear us until it’s too late. I’m through the front door with my shotgun up and my rage clenched tight like a damn bomb ready to blow.
The first guy to notice lifts his head off the couch, mid-sip of beer and too slow to register the chaos tearing through the room. My shot takes his kneecap clean off. He screams like a dying animal, flopping across the floor and painting it red. His pain’s a beacon. It draws the others.
Rancor’s next, dragging some half-dressed asshole out of a hallway by the hair, smashing his face into the wall until bone cracks and drywall blooms like dust from a demolition site. Surge takes the back, a shadow with a blade, and reappears seconds later with blood dripping from his hands.
One tries to pull a piece and gets a knife in the throat from Padre. The man twitches like a puppet cut from its strings before he folds to the floor in a heap.
I keep moving. Toward the heart of this godforsaken place where their patches drink and fuck and brag about the shit they’ve done.
The place reeks of sweat, cheap cologne, and even cheaper liquor. Beer cans and broken glass litter the floor. The walls are stained, dented, and covered in grime that won’t wash out. Just like them.
My boots land heavy leaving a trail from the blood already slicking the floor behind me.
A big guy lumbers toward me, tattoos of spiderwebs running down both arms, and a crude skull on his neck. He’s grinning like he thinks this is a fair fight. I don’t give him the chance to swing. The butt of my gun meets his teeth in a spray of blood andenamel. Blood sprays across my shirt like a badge of war. His knees give out, and I stomp him flat, my boot connecting with his ribs hard enough to cave the fuckers in.
Another tries to run but Crank tags him mid-turn with a bullet to the spine. He falls screaming, clawing the ground as if it’ll open up and swallow him.
Gunfire bursts outside. Grizzly returns fire with short, controlled bursts. Hashtag’s voice crackles through the radio. “Two more just bolted out the back, heading for the trees. One’s big, might be Cholla.”
I bare my teeth. “Then we didn’t hit hard enough.”
Backdraft torches their bikes out back. Every last one. Gasoline and oil hiss and ignite, flames licking chrome and paint until everything they love is ash.
The survivors get dragged into the lot. Laid out like trash.
One’s crying. One’s begging. Another tries to play stoic, but the piss soaking his pants says different. Padre crouches beside him, whispers something low and cruel in Spanish, then cuts him open like a letter. Ear to ear.
The rest watch it happen and still think there’s a way out of this.
