“I’ve got some things to do,” he told me after I had unbuckled my seatbelt.

My brow furrowed. “Like what? It’s eight at night.”

“Hector found a guy that knows some things, and I need to question him.”

It was too dark in the car for me to study him, not that I would learn anything if I did. He was closed off and impenetrable.

“Okay,” I said uncertainly. “When will you get back?”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure. In the rare event I don’t return later tonight, Gerry and the men will look after you.”

As if on cue, Gerry stepped out from behind the steering wheel and waited for me.  Another meathead I couldn’t remember the name of slipped into the front seat, looking straight ahead.

I frowned. “If you don’t return tonight, can you call Graeme and have him with me instead?”

“Why?”

“He’s familiar to me.”

“Emma –”

“Please.”

Borden sighed. “Fine.”

I wouldn’t push my luck asking for Hawke too. That was not a safe territory yet to venture into. I turned away and opened the door. Just as I put a foot out, Borden’s hand wrapped around my arm. I looked at him just in time to catch his lips against mine. He kissed me tenderly, a kiss filled with assurance, and when he pulled back, he didn’t say anything. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and then I turned back and he let me go.

Nine

Borden

It didn’t feel right stepping into the warehouse without his right hand man Hawke by his side. He didn’t like to be surrounded by bikers, circling around him like hungry vultures. But they weren’t looking at him. Their eyes were centred on the fat fuck tied to the steel chair. Hector stood by his side, arms crossed, and his cut on full display.

“This is Bull?” Borden asked, eyeballing the sweaty fat man. He was in nothing but his white soiled briefs on, his chest a black carpet of moist hair, his head bald and glistening, and his eyes blindfolded. He was a major disappointment to Borden. He would be easy to crack. The stench of fear clung to him, an inescapable giveaway that this man would do anything to survive.

But he couldn’t survive this. It was a disturbing fact that came hand in hand with Marcus Borden. This man crossed him the second he opened his mouth and signed his death wish.

“Yeah,” Hector replied. “How do you want to do this? Knives?” The man whimpered. “Hammer and nails?” The man’s lips trembled. “I’ve got some of my best men here that are fucking mint with torture methods. They’ll make any dick squawk like a porn star.”

Borden sighed. He didn’t want to do this. What he wanted was to be in bed with his woman, cradling her in his arms, talking dirty in her ear. Torture was different to a swift clean kill. Torture meant getting his hands dirty, and that usually left scars to his mental state.

He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his knuckleduster. He’d put miles of blood on this baby. “Time to go back to the old ways, huh?” he murmured vacantly. The will inside of him had died, though. This type of violence had become nothing but a drain on his soul, and the only thing keeping him going was putting the man behind that message down. “I’d like to get this done fast, to be fucking frank. I’ll handle it my way, and that means I want to be left alone with him.”

“You want me gone?”

“Just your men.”

Hector nodded and wasted no time. He turned to his men and ordered the Warlord members out. When the warehouse was completely empty, Hector lingered nearby, watching as Borden approached the chair and removed the blindfold off the blob of man seated there. The man’s eyes shot open, blinking rapidly, bloodshot and swollen. He stared up at Borden, his mouth twisting in fear.

“They call you Bull, isn’t that right?” Borden said, his voice void of feeling as he stared down at him. “You know who I am?”

The man didn’t respond. He could hardly look in Borden’s eyes. The cuffs around his wrists shook against the steel chair as he watched Borden fit the knuckledusters on and whimpered out. Borden glanced disgustedly down at the man’s briefs and the freshly soaked patch between his legs growing bigger by the second. The smell of it hit his nostrils strong, and he recoiled for a moment.

“He’s a pisser,” Hector called out just as the piss formed lines down the legs of the man. “Men say he’s pissed himself four times already.”

“You the kind that begs, Bull?” Borden then asked. “I’d rather get that beta shit out of the way now instead of later.”

“I-I don’t know why I’m here,” Bull cried out.

“Don’t lie.”

“I haven’t done anything, Mr Borden.”

“Don’t. Lie.” Borden repeated slowly, his anger rising. “And don’t you fucking think that pissing your underwear and crying out like a little pussy is going to erase who you are and all you’ve done. People talk, Bull. They say a lot of shit, and they’ve been running their mouth about you, talking about how much you’ve been running me down.”

“That’s not true! I swear it.”

Borden immediately swung his fist into the man’s face, splitting his skin and bloodying his mouth in one clean punch. In a split second, the man’s face bloodied and he howled in pain. Leaning over the man, Borden gripped his dusters tighter, already coated in blood, and snarled, “I told you not to fucking lie. Every time you lie, I’m going to take a pound of flesh off you. Either you crumble now and tell me what you know, or I’ll force every word out of you until you’re nothing but blood and bone. Got it?”

But the man just sobbed and shook his head, begging.

Begging like it would do him good.

Borden shook his head and raised his fist again.

*

The man surprised Borden. He was stronger than he originally thought. Even though he sobbed like a little girl, he tolerated pain remarkably. Borden knew what was going on. Bull hoped if he carried on with his lies, they’d believe them. On and on he denied talking shit about Borden. He had no idea who would want to watch him fall. He made no plans to bring him down. He was just an innocent man, unrightfully terrorised.

The more Borden heard, the angrier he grew.

He was tired of playing soft. He was sick of hoping the man had easy cracks. Bull needed a lot of work, and Borden snapped. He lost it. He stopped holding back with his strikes. He erupted.