Page 47 of Queen of Anarchy (Dirty Broken Savages 2)

16

Knox

When Gage sayswe’re going to go meet with Julian, he doesn’t mean in a few days. He means fucking now. He’s a man of action, and I like that about him. Always have. No waiting around, no sitting back on our heels. We’re just going to go have a nice little chit chat with him about the gala and see if we can suss out what the fuck he knows and doesn’t know.

But we’re not stupid, and I’m not walking in there empty-handed.

So before we leave, I head down to the basement to grab some of my more… unconventional weapons. Things that aren’t like guns or big knives, but smaller and easier to conceal.

I finger a scalpel, and the distinct urge to use it rises up in my chest.

I haven’t stopped thinking about River’s story since she told it, and I picture having Lorenzo down here, chained up to the wall. Or any of the other men who hurt River and her sister so badly. Even Ivan again would do. I want them to suffer. I want them to pay. I want to make them feel even just a small bit of the pain they put my little fox through.

I bet they’d all beg for mercy before the end. Try to pay me off or offer me some kind of bribe. None of them have any fucking decency in them because that’s how people like that are.

I know I’m not a good guy, and I’ve killed and tortured and fucked people up, but not kids. I’ve never tried to make someone innocent pay for the shit someone else did. And thinking about it happening to River makes my goddamn blood boil. She’s strong and can take care of herself now, but back then? Before she’d even really dipped her toe in this world?

Probably a different story.

The rage inside me expands like a monster hungry for its next meal, and I indulge in the images cascading through my mind, savoring each one of them like a fine whiskey. I think about getting all six of those fuckers down here in my basement, hurting each one of them in turn and making the others watch and wait. I bet they’d be ready to shit their pants in fear, wondering if I was going to do the same thing to them or make it worse as I moved down the line. I think about taking a pair of clamps and using it to pull out teeth, one by one. Dragging knives and scalpels and razor blades down their arms and watching the blood spill out. Smashing their fingers with a hammer until the bones are in so many pieces they’d never be able to grab another girl again.

These are all happy little daydreams, and I spin the scalpel in my hand, my face spreading into a smile while I let myself get carried away with that for a bit.

But there’s not enough time to lose myself in fantasies. The fun will have to wait while we go gather intel and play the long game. I sigh and finish arming myself, grabbing clamps to go with the other things I have, and then head back upstairs where the others are finished getting ready.

Gage has a look on his face that I recognize well, somewhere between being pissed off and thoughtful. I know he’s thinking about what River told us just like I am. He glances at her every once in a while like he wants to say something, but he keeps quiet.

She looks determined, but also paler than she usually does. Better than she did when we found her outside, slumped over in the grass with the dog barking his ass off and alternating between running around in circles and nudging her to try to get her up. There’s something… not really fragile, but delicate maybe, in her eyes, but I don’t comment on it. I know why she wants to be a part of this, so I just give her a grin as we head out to the car.

Julian Maduro owns a boxing ring in the city, so we head there, going to see him at his place of business.

There are a few cars in the lot, and we park and head in. Without talking about it or coordinating or anything, all of us move to flank River protectively. It’s second nature to me, to make sure she’s not exposed and alone, and my brothers are doing it too, probably just as instinctively.

I look around the room we walk into, eyeing back anyone who eyes us, almost daring these people to fuck with us.

Honestly, I’m hoping someone will.

I’ve got that feeling under my skin that’s like a monster pacing its cage. Wanting to be let out. I want to work off this energy and fuck shit up. I want a knock-down, drag-out brawl, so I’m hoping someone takes my dare.

Gage gives me a narrow-eyed look, like he knows exactly what I’m doing, and I just grin back at him.

He’s no fun, but at least he does let me go nuts sometimes when I need it. When the time is right. He lets me handle the torturing that needs to be done, so I know he knows how I feel.

But this isn’t the time or the place, and we have bigger fish to fry.

“Can I help you?”

A big man comes over to us as he asks the question, his arms folded. He looks us all over, and if he knows who we are, it doesn’t show on his face. His eyes flit to River for a second, but his expression doesn’t change.

“We’d like to speak with Julian,” Gage says smoothly.

The bouncer, or whoever the fuck he is, gives Gage a look. Gage doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t add a reason why or anything, just stands there with that expression of cool authority on his face. There’s a reason we all look to him as the leader of our little family. He knows how to handle shit like this.

Finally, the bouncer nods and turns on his heel to go open a door a little way down a hall at the back of the building. He pokes his head in briefly and then comes back out.

“Alright, he’ll see you,” he says, waving us to follow.

We keep the same formation we came in with, making sure River stays in the middle of our pack as we head toward Julian’s office.

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