“They know about her, Forge. They know she’s your weakness. She’ll never be safe.”
“I’ll handle it like I’ve handled everything else over the years.” He walked toward the display of weapons. He loved to torture, to hurt, to draw out every single little fucking detail of information he needed in the most excruciating way possible. He’d done it so many times, sometimes prolonging a person’s life just for fun. He enjoyed it.
Now, he wasn’t happy. He was pissed off. Hound was one of his men. Someone he was supposed to trust, but instead, he’d betrayed him.
Even though Beth was alive and she’d come to him, he knew she was still hurt by what he’d done. He didn’t blame her. He’d hurt her, threatened her, scared her, all in the hope of getting the truth out of her, and it had worked. Only now he felt like a monster because all along it had been one of his men.
Hound. One of his most trusted men, and that pissed him off.
Picking up the knife, he turned to Hound and without waiting, he thrust the blade in deep.
Hound’s screams filled the air.
He wasn’t done. After pulling the knife out, he thrust it into the second leg, twisting it. He made sure he was nowhere near any major artery. The last thing he wanted to do was to end this quickly. Beth had told him what Hound had tried to do. She was only for him. He didn’t share.
For the next few hours, he didn’t really know what the time was or how it had passed. Hound hung lifeless from the ceiling. Some of his flesh cut was away, burned. The blood soaked through his clothing and onto the floor.
Leaving the basement, he arranged for the cleaners to come and take care of the body. He wasn’t even sure when he’d died. Forge had gone into another state, that fucked-up state where all logic vanished away. Moving to the bar, he didn’t touch a single thing. His hands were covered in blood as were his chest and face. None of the brothers said anything as he threw back a shot of whiskey.
“Tomorrow we’ll go pay our enemies a visit. I want to burn their place to the ground and let everyone know that if they come trying to fuck with my woman, they’re going to end up dead and burned.”
The cleaners arrived soon after and helped him remove all trace of Hound’s blood and matter from him, and then he made his way upstairs to his bedroom. There was no sign of Beth, but then he wasn’t expecting it. Sable was being treated within the clubhouse. Once he took a shower to completely wipe off all traces of what he’d just done, he found her in one of the spare bedrooms. The doc always tried to keep their care and medical procedures within the clubhouse so they didn’t have to go to a hospital.
The last thing they wanted was for cops to start investigating their business.
Beth sat in a chair beside Sable. The club whore was out cold. One of the machines beeped, letting them know she was alive.
He closed the door behind him. Beth whirled around and looked at him. He saw the bruises on her face from Hound. His hands clenched into fists. He wanted to kill him all over again.
Beth didn’t say anything as she turned back to Sable, giving the woman her full attention.
“I didn’t know you and Sable were such good friends.”
“We’re not. Tonight is the first time she’s ever spoken to me. It’s probably stupid, but I’d like to keep the woman who was nice to me alive. She’s the only one who has been around here.”
Her words stung. “I know I fucked up, Beth, but that’s a little unfair.”
“I meant of the women. Most of them can’t stand me. I know we’ve had our differences and we’ve had a few issues.” She shrugged. “You dealt with Hound?”
“Yes. He won’t be bothering you again, or ever.”
“Good.”
“That doesn’t bother you?” he asked, pulling a chair up beside her.
“I don’t know. He hurt me and he was going to kill Sable. The gun was trained on her head and I couldn’t let him kill her. She hadn’t done anything wrong.” She sniffled. He reached out to take her hand but she pulled away.
He was going to get tired of her coldness real fucking fast. Beth was his woman. She belonged to him. He’d fucked up, but there was only so much shit he was going to put up with.
“Will other people keep trying to hurt us? Ruin us?”
“Yes. I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you, baby. Men will try to take you from me. I can’t stop them.”
“They’re assholes.” She sniffed. “Then if that’s the case, I want you to teach me how to fight.”
“What?” he asked.
“I want to be able to protect myself and the only way to do that is to fight. I don’t want to be someone who’s too weak to handle what’s thrown at her. I hated hurting Hound today, but I hated being helpless even more. I watched as he shot Sable and all I wanted to do was protect her. I want you to help me do that.”
“There will always be someone from the club here—”
“No! Hound was someone from the club. I was supposed to trust him and the club, remember? I’m not going to put my life on the line like that or anyone else’s. No one deserves to suffer.” The fire burning in her eyes turned him on.
“You want to fight and you want to learn. I’ll teach you but you have to do something for me.”
“What is it? What do you want?”
He loved this woman so damn much. She
