Page 30 of The Nightmare King

"Let's go." Barrel walked past me, so I turned to follow him, giving Jack one last, long look, hoping he would be able to see how sorry I was. It was my fault that all this had happened. But, then again, if I hadn't, they might not have found out that Daisy was some kind of mole or plant. At the very least, she was a traitor. I sighed in defeat, my shoulders slumping.

Following Barrel outside the bar, we came to his bike, and I hesitated for just a beat. Jack was the only person I had ever ridden with. It almost seemed too intimate an act to be pressed up against anyone other than him. Barrel stopped next to his motorcycle and looked back at me, then down to the bike. He cursed under his breath.

"Fuck. Prez would have my nuts if I put you on the back of my bike." He looked around until his eyes landed on the van that had taken all of us girls to the fight night at the warehouse. It felt like years ago, since so much had happened since then. "Come on, we'll take the van. That way, I can keep my balls intact. I'm kind of fond of them."

I couldn't help the small laugh that bubbled out of me. I hadn't had much interaction with Jack's men other than taking orders and the occasional hello, so I hadn't realized that Barrel was actually kind of funny and charming. By the time he had pulled up to the cabin, my cheeks were aching from laughing and smiling so hard. I finally understood why so many of the girls seemed to fall all over themselves to get his attention. Once you got it, he gave it all to you. I could imagine that, for a lot of girls, having his undivided attention was a heady thing.

"Thanks, Barrel," I said, wiping a stray tear from the corner of my eye. "I appreciate the ride."

"No problem. Do you have a key?"

I grimaced, thinking about how I left my things behind at the bar in the back changing room. "I forgot it. But I know where the spare is." Thank goodness there was a hidden key for times like this.

"Good. I'll wait here until you get inside." He jerked his chin in that way I noticed the bikers tended to do as I just smiled and climbed out of the van. It took me a couple of minutes to locate the correct rock, but finally found the spare key. After waving off Barrel from inside the house, I closed and locked the door, making sure to set the alarm so I didn't piss Jack off any more than I already had.

With a heavy sigh, I walked down the quiet hallway and into the primary bedroom before peeling off the skin-tight bartending clothes. Unable to stand the smell of alcohol and stale beer any longer, I took a quick shower. After blow-drying my hair until it was no longer damp, I crawled into bed and stared at Jack's pillow. I finally reached over and grabbed it, hugging it to me.

ChapterTwenty-Two

THE NIGHTMARE KING

Islammed the door open so hard it banged off the wall as customers scattered out of my way. With my fists clenched tightly at my sides and my teeth grinding together, my gaze went straight to Barrel's bike. Seeing that it was still sitting there, I relaxed fractionally, realizing that he had been smart enough not to take home my woman on the back of his motorcycle. Even though I had ordered him to, I would have had to hurt him if she had wrapped those arms around him.

"Ready, Prez?"

I grunted in response to Shock's question, heading over to my bike and climbing on. Side by side, we rode out of the parking lot, kicking up gravel as we headed toward the club compound where the shed was located.

The shed was more like an oversized garage with a drain in the middle, an industrial-sized walk-in freezer, and a furnace in the back. It was likely the cleanest place on the entire compound with the amount of bleach that we used to wipe away any traces of blood. Just to be certain, if any questions were raised as to what the building was used for, it doubled as a deer processing room. Which was also why we had an industrial-sized walk-in freezer full of deer meat. It came in handy whenever we held club cookouts. Win-fucking-win.

Shock and I came to the outside of the shed and stopped next to the bikes that were already parked there.

"Looks like Lock brought friends," Shock raised his hands to cup around his cigarette as he lit it and squinted at me through the haze of smoke. "How do you want to play this? We've never had a female guest before. It kind of goes against our creed."

"What goes against our creed is spies, liars, and traitors. That woman in there has been working for someone and has shared who knows how much information with them for over a year." I shook my head. "Fuck, I don't even know how long she's been here. Longer?" It didn't matter. Even if it had only been a day, I couldn't allow what she'd done to stand. If word got out that someone had sent a spy to our club and I let them walk away, I'd look weak. It would open the door for someone to try to take our territory or challenge me for my position.

Besides, the woman had hurt my Queen. I should have kicked her out weeks ago after I'd seen her catty attitude towards Sally one too many fucking times.

I strode to the door and punched in the code. After waiting for the light to turn from red to green and the door to beep, I yanked on the handle, striding into the large open space. Usually, when we had interrogations, we stripped the man of his dignity first. By making him hang from the hook in the middle of the room completely naked, he was left feeling vulnerable. It tended to lower their defenses, scared the piss out of them, sometimes literally, and got them talking faster. Dealing with a woman was going to cause unique challenges.

I wasn't surprised to see Lock standing with his arms crossed in front of a pissed off Daisy, looking uncertain about how he should proceed. All of my men knew my stance on women. They were to be respected, not treated like disposable blowup dolls for their pleasure. And above all, they were always to only be used with consent. So, knowing that I wouldn't want to strip a woman naked in order to make her vulnerable during interrogation left him floundering about how to proceed.

I stalked to the table where tools had already been laid out. They were all clean, scrubbed, and soaked after the last time they had been used. I glanced around until I spotted a rope lying coiled in the corner of the room after someone killed a deer. Pulling out my knife, I went over to the rope, sliced a length off the long coil, and brought it over to the woman with her wrists bound, standing over the drain in the middle of the floor with a glare on her face and a gag in her mouth.

"She wouldn't stop running her mouth about how we would all regret laying hands on her 'when her brother finds out'." I grunted at Lock's use of air quotes. I could imagine how much the woman had likely ranted. That was fine. She'd be telling me what I wanted to know soon enough.

I tied a loop and a knot around each end of the rope and hooked one end to the hook. The other end went around her wrists after a slight struggle before Shock held them still. She was a fighter. I had to give her credit. Her muffled curses were easy enough to make out through the gag, so I didn't bother removing it yet.

Once I had her hands secured with the rope, I jerked her arms above her head and pulled the rope tight at the knot, shortening the distance between her wrists and the hook until she stood on her toes. It would be uncomfortable. Her shoulders would be screaming in agony soon, and fear would be setting in quickly. It wouldn't take long for her to realize that she was truly stuck with no way to escape. I hoped it was all the tactics I would need to use to make her talk. If it wasn't, well, I would just have to do what I had to do.

"This can be easy, or it can be difficult. I'm not going to lie. I hope you make it difficult." I made sure she could see the dead-eyed stare I gave the world, letting them know that there was nothing they could do that would affect me. It made anyone who saw it swallow in fear. You couldn't intimidate a man who felt nothing.

I yanked the gag out of her mouth and tossed the damp material to the floor. "You stupid mother fucker!" I crossed my arms over my chest and tilted my head as she screamed at me. Regardless of how it might appear to my men, I didn't want to be here. I had more important places to be, and dealing with this woman was just keeping me from getting to my Queen. I knew Sally was upset and had sensed how angry I was. I didn't like leaving our business unfinished, and I needed her to understand that she couldn't disobey me, not when she was jeopardizing her safety. But I would do whatever was required to discover the information this woman was hiding before I went home to deal with my little Queen.

As the screaming continued for several more minutes, I simply stood with my arms crossed and stared her down until she finally stopped. With her chest heaving and her breasts threatening to escape the short shirt she was wearing, Daisy began to tremble. Whether it was from the discomfort of having her arms wrenched up painfully or the reality of her situation finally settling in, I didn't care.

"Who is your brother?" It was a simple question I didn't expect an answer to… yet. But she would talk. They all did.

"Fuck you, Bones. You are nothing. The Boogeymen are going to take everything from you, starting with your freak of a woman. I hope they split her apart as they take turns destroying her cut-up cunt."

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