Page 231 of Fury

I hit my kickstand. “I know you like that.”

“This is how it’s goingto go down.”

Notch, the Broken Blades president, struggled against his handcuffs, the thick metal chains strapped around his body. No use. He knew it too, but was giving us a good show of resistance. He had to. His men were looking on, their faces rippling with anxiety.

“You’ve pissed me off one too many times, Notch. You’re unpredictable. Which keeps things interesting, but I’ve had to put up with your shit for a very, very long fucking time. You never listened to any suggestions I made over the years to be more—let’s say, neighborly. You’ve got a mighty thick stick up your ass, and you didn’t ever want to compromise, not one fucking bit.”

“And you kept chipping away at us, bit by bit,” Notch shot back on a sneer.

“I enjoyed that. Like I enjoyed destroying your little bonding session with the Calderas Group. Thought you were going to raise yourselves up from your little patch of mud that way? Make up for your numbers, your lack of funds?”

“Times are tough, amigo. I was watching out for my club. Gotta do what you gotta do.”

“And I did what I had to do. But now you’ve been shaking hands with the Smoking Guns instead of dealing with me when I offered you the chance.”

He chuckled, a stream of throaty laughter that dissolved into coughing. “I didn’t think you’d like that.”

“Oh, I like being dared, being provoked. Brings out the best in me.”

His thin, drawn face creased like rumpled paper, his lips curling.

I scanned the faces of the Broken Blades on their knees in the room. “The rest of you get to choose. You’ll be Flames or go down as Blades. Either way, your shit’s over.”

I caught Drac’s gaze, and he motioned behind him. Catch and another bro brought in Scrib, tying him to a table next to Notch.

Notch’s eyes bulged, his face shining with sweat. He writhed in his seat like someone had just planted itching powder in his ass. “What the fuck is this? What the hell are you doing?”

“Exactly what I want,” I replied.

I took out my knife and ripped open Scrib’s shirt, pierced his skin, slashing down his chest, his fat stomach. Scrib yelled and shuddered, his eyes following the movement of my blade. The blood slid forth. An “F.” Huge. Glorious.

“You like my scribbles, huh? Fuck I’m having fun,” I said. “Why aren’t you laughing now? Come on, laugh!”

Scrib only shuddered. Notch was suddenly quiet and still, riveted on my knife.

I slashed at Scrib, cutting deep, my pulse beating a hammering rhythm in my head. “That looks good.”

“Fucking beautiful is what that is,” said Drac.

“Tattoos in the raw or some shit,” said Catch. “Just like what he did to my sister.”

Yes, what Scrib had done to Tania. What he’d done to me and Serena.

Blood and saliva dripped from Scrib’s mouth. His dazed eyeballs hung on mine.

Massacre, Butler had said. Yes, I wanted to massacre them all, strike hot and blind and rid myself of them. I’d felt a sense of failure as a man and as a Flame when I’d listened to Lenore confess her truth. I had to make the world safer for my woman and my daughter. Even if they would never know it.

I held my blood smattered knife up high so Scrib could see it. “What’s wrong is, I can’t leave my signature behind, now can I, Scrib? If I do, your club will know it was me. But it wasn’t me.”

“Stop, you fucker!” Scrib wailed. “God, stop!”

I cut into his skin again drawing a deep line down his belly to his raping dick. He yowled and bawled through the pain.

“Fuck me,” muttered Catch. “You’re an artist is what you are.”

“I owe that to Scrib.” I cut him again and he yelped, his body twitching, his head hanging.

“What the hell you doing to him?” shouted Notch.

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