“No.” Kaden vigorously shook his head. “It’s not true.” He took a step away from his dad. “Wh… what does that mean?”
“Her father, Psych, was the president many years ago when our clubs were at war. He’d use his daughter as payment to get what he wanted from other men, even abusing her himself before passing her off to Vex when she was barely a teenager. Whatever awful thing you can think of to do to another human being, they did it without a care for her pain and suffering. She was an object to them, to that entire fuckin’ club.”
Pain weaved through Marek’s voice, the anguish he felt vibrating with every word he spoke about his wife.
“But what does Tag have to do with this Vex guy?” I asked, moving back a step when Marek turned his eyes on me.
“Because he’s his son,” he growled.
“But he didn’t know his dad. The guy left when Tag was a few years old.”
“And how do you know that?” Hawke shouted from across the room, his voice vibrating against all four walls. “’Cause he told ya?”
“Well… yeah.” My shoulders slumped in defeat because there was a possibility Tag wasn’t who he said he was.
“He lied,” Jagger chimed in. “Don’t you think it’s a little too convenient he just so happened to befriend you guys?”
Kaden walked away from me and Marek, heading straight for the guy restrained on the table. When he was close enough, he leaned down and studied him, as if Tag was gonna somehow give him the answers he wanted all without speaking. Hell, all without even being conscious.
“What are you planning on doing?” I asked, aware Marek planned on killing the guy, but I needed to hear his answer, all the same.
“We’re gonna end him like we did Vex and Psych.”
“You killed them both?” Kaden asked, turning back to look at his dad.
“We didn’t only kill ’em. We tortured ’em first… then we sent them to hell for what they did to Sully.” Marek ran his hand over the top of his head several times, and if I wasn’t mistaken, I thought I saw a few more gray hairs sprout up.
“Should we wake him?” Cutter asked, reaching for something on the rolling table behind the one Tag was tied to.
“Yeah.”
One word from our president was enough to make me nauseous because I could only imagine what was gonna happen as soon as Tag opened his eyes.
Without realizing my feet had moved, I soon stood beside my father, swallowing my nerves as best I could. I’d fought some of the biggest and baddest in the ring, and I never felt the urge to vomit beforehand. But now, looking at the sorry state of Tag, not sure whether he was who he said he was, and realizing the severity of what was gonna happen once he woke up, the bile churned in my stomach. The last thing I ever imagined was being privy to a murder tonight, and never in a million years did I think our club would be the one to commit the act.
Cutter waved something under Tag’s nose, and at first, the unconscious man didn’t move, but when he moved his hand back and forth under his nostrils a second time, Tag’s head moved slightly to the side. I assumed he used smelling salts, a pungent substance often used in the ring to either wake someone up after they’d been knocked unconscious or make them more alert if they’d been hit in the head and were on the verge of passing out.
Hearing Tag groan in protest to the potent aroma tugged at something inside me. Was it nerves? Compassion? Guilt? I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was I wanted to be anywhere but here right now.
Once he was alert, Tag’s eyes moved to each person until they fell on me. My expression froze because I didn’t want to alarm him any more than he already was. I realized the sentiment may seem odd, but God only knew what was runnin’ through his head.
If he was, in fact, a Reaper and had infiltrated our club for the purpose of gaining information to later use against us, then I was on board with teaching him a lesson. Killing him, though? I was on the fence about that.
But, if he was innocent, his only sin being related to the man who tortured Sully….
I didn’t even know how to complete my thought process on that option.
Marek pushed me aside and moved toward the top of the table, Tag’s eyes following him until they were close in proximity.
“We know you’re a Reaper and we know who your father was.” Marek’s voice cracked with a sinister chuckle. “And we’re gonna end you, just like we did him.” He jerked his chin toward Cutter before taking a step back. In fact, all the men except for me and Kaden retreated as Cutter closed in on Tag, leaning over him with the knife held strategically in his hand. The look in the ol’ man’s eyes unnerved me. He looked like he was absent, as if a wall had gone up inside him. It was the scariest shit I’d ever seen, although I had a feeling I’d retract the statement in the next few minutes.
Even though Tag was now conscious, when he opened his mouth to speak, no noise escaped. But when the tip of the blade pierced Tag’s flesh, separating his skin as Cutter moved the knife diagonally over his torso, Tag’s eyes popped open, and a pained groan hurdled through the air, deepening but getting louder with each inch of parted flesh.
His arms and legs thrashed against his restraints, his eyes pleading with me, then Kaden, before Cutter finally lifted the knife. Blood dripped down Tag’s side and over the edge of the table. The
