“What the fuck is wrong with you? Pres is playing him like a fool.” Cap grins at me and shakes his head.
Watching Pres instead of Denning, I take more notice of his moves, and I see a pattern emerge. Pres is deliberately leaving openings for the knife thrust or slash and seemingly recovering at the last instant. Cap is correct. It is not Nicholas Denning who is doing the playing, but our Pres.
After several minutes of this, I see the understanding on Nicholas’ face. He now knows he’s being played, and Tracker sees the moment too.
“I’m done playing. It’s time for you to die. You should never have taken this contract, and I’m going to ensure that you don’t get to accept another,” Tracker snarls.
Pres’ movements become a blur of motion, and there are several grunts of pain from Nicholas. Tracker targets one part of the body at a time, practically dismantling Nicholas piece by piece with his fists. Grabbing the wrist of the hand that is still holding the knife, Tracker twists and lifts. The knife drops to the floor when there is an audible crack from the arm.
Nicholas has nothing left to give and is on his knees. His tank is empty, and Pres looks at him with disgust.
“You’re just a worthless piece of shit, a waste of fresh air. You’ve obviously done your killing from a distance and never faced an enemy face to face. You’re going to watch me while I end you.” Taking the knife from the floor, Tracker holds Nicholas’ head by his hair, exposing the throat. “This is for all those who you killed from afar, you coward.” When Nicholas closes his eyes, Tracker says, “Open your eyes. You need to see how a man with honor kills.”
When his eyes open, Tracker places the knife against Nicholas’ chest, over his heart, and presses it home. The eyes go wide for a few seconds and then close forever.
“Burn the place to the ground and let’s go home,” Pres states to us all, and we quickly rush to do his bidding.
Morning came around with none of us having slept. Bessy is in the kitchen handing out breakfast casserole and other options. I’m going to check in with Cilla. She apparently made no fuss about moving rooms, which surprised me. I honestly thought she would throw a tantrum about it.
Before I reach my room, the door opens and Cilla walks out. Looking fresh and rested and feisty, oh yes, she looks full of sass this morning.
“Good morning, Mason,” Cilla says as she attempts to strut past me.
“Good morning, Cilla,” I reply, but snap my arm out and snag her around the waist. Turning her quickly, I place her back against the wall and lock her in with both my arms on the wall beside her. Deciding that is not close enough I lay my forearms on the wall beside her and lean in close. “Did you sleep well?” I do my best to purr and watch for her reaction. Nothing…okay, let’s try a growl! Yeah, that one definitely got me a reaction, and I move in taking her mouth as soon as she opened it slightly with the reaction.
She had a taste of minty toothpaste, along with a signature flavor that was entirely her own. Sweet, real sweet, and something I’m not going to get bored with tasting. My tongue confidently enters her mouth, a bold exploration that sweeps over her tongue and the roof of her mouth, a shared dance of entwined sensation. When Cilla sighs, I know she’s enjoying this as much as I am.
“Hey, you two, stop that. We don’t want to see you two doing more than kissing, you know, fornicating in the hallway…”
Cilla jerks but cannot move as I still have her back against the wall. I turn my head and give Phoenix a filthy look, which, of course, has him smirking and laughing as he walks away.Cilla bobs under my arm and heads towards the stairs. I turn chuckling, “We’ll finish this later, Cilla.”
Mumbling under her breath, Cilla quickly leaves me standing in the hallway with a smirk on my face. Yeah, this is going to be fun. I should have chased her earlier, but I’m a biker and we are not always quick on the draw when it comes to women.
Two hours later I’m sitting in Pres’ office along with the other officers and listen to Cilla who Pres has called here to answer questions.
Cilla is doing her best not to look at me, but when I move to sit beside her, she gives me a squint-eyed look. Tracker places his hand over his mouth so Cilla can’t see the shit-eating grin he has going on at my antics. Everyone else is blank-faced and doing well to hide their amusement.
“Bono said they killed her because she’d lost her usefulness, and yes, we have another snitch. Someone you all know, someone you’ve all trusted. He won’t say who it is for some reason that he’s not telling me,” Cilla looks at Pres with a frown. “Why would he protect this person?” She asks Pres who is now frowning too.
“Someone we all know. Someone we all trust. Has to be a brother who has been here a long time. So we can eliminate the prospects. If we are looking at anyone, I would guess at Snake,” Tracker throws the last out with more than a little conviction.
Rides leans forward in his seat, “He has been acting shifty for a while.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. I’ve also noticed he’s not doing the fundraising that he should have been covering,” Books throws into the conversation.
“Going back to Primrose. They didn’t just kill her. They beat her to death. Why do that? Why not just put a bullet in her?” Keys asks, looking at all of us.
Cilla closes her eyes, then looks at Keys. “Tank has joined us here and said ZeBach is not human. He’s a monster that needs stamping out. He enjoyed the show his men put on when they beat Primrose to death. It was done purely for entertainment, Keys. Let me see if I can persuade Bono to tell me the name of the snitch.” We all wait quietly, watching Cilla look at the wall. Well, she is looking at the wall to us, but obviously she’s seeing Bono.
“Bono, for God’s sake, man, tell us who the fuck is snitching. We don’t want any brother dying because of this fucker, so come on. I’m going to tell all the brothers if they die to kill you when they get over there. Pyro, if you are there make him tell us, or light up his ass,” I snarl, because I’m sick of this playing with us.
Cilla looks at Pres, and after closing and opening her eyes, which you could describe as slow motion, she whispers, “Snake!”
The room is silent, but more than one of us is nodding our heads, showing that we are not shocked and confirming what we had been thinking.
“Thanks, Cilla. You can go,” Pres watches Cilla leave the room before he turns to us. “This is what we are going to do,” we all lean forward, listening to our President's orders on how to remove a snitch from our ranks.
Before leaving the office, I heard Coin speaking with Tracker about Scribe and arranging the meeting. I can leave that with Coin, unless he asks me for help. I know he can deal with the financial side of things. It is the side where the shop is concerned that he may need me. I’m an enforcer, after all. All muscle andmeanness, unless it concerns one beautiful, feisty woman, and then I am the opposite side of the coin.