Page 47 of The Obsession
Footsteps approach the open doorway behind me, and when I glance back, I find Romeo leaning a shoulder against the frame, his eyes flicking from the bikie to me as he casually takes in the scene.
“Need a hand?”
I nod. “I need some rope or something I can use to string him up.”
Romeo steps inside without another word, circling the space as if he owns it. His eyes scan the shelves and the piles of junk. His hand trails along a workbench covered in dust and discarded parts until he finds a drawer and yanks it open with a grunt.
When he doesn’t find what he needs, he keeps moving. He crouches near a stack of old paint cans, reaches behind them, and pulls out a length of thick, braided rope that looks like it hasn’t seen daylight in years. He holds it up, brows raised.
“That’ll do,” I say.
Romeo doesn’t hesitate. He steps beneath the rafters and tosses one end of the rope upwards, threading it cleanly over the beam on the first try. The loose end drops back down, thudding softly against his shoulder.
I grab the bikie’s belt when he starts to twitch in my grip, to steady him, and that’s when I see the small leather pouch clipped to it. Inside is a flick knife. I flip it open and test the blade with my thumb. Sharp enough.
I toss it to Romeo and watch as he uses it to trim the rope to the length we need.
“Give me his arm,” Romeo says.
I shove him closer, and one of his hands comes up on instinct. Romeo catches it without missing a beat, binding it tight. The other arm fights harder, flailing in a useless, sloppy panic. I pin it to his side, so Romeo can secure that one too.
The rope goes taut, and Romeo gives me a look, a silent question.
I nod, and he pulls.
The bikie’s boots lift clear off the floor by an inch, just enough that he can’t get his footing. He kicks and thrashes, his breath now coming out in frantic bursts, but it doesn’t matter. He’s not going anywhere.
Romeo ties off the line, steps back to admire his handiwork, dusts his hands off, and turns towards the door. “I’ll leave you to it.”
Now that my hands are free and he’s contained, I take a slow breath, letting the stillness settle into my bones. With him helplessly hanging and swaying, I finally have the space to move. To think. To walk the garage and look at him from every angle, study every flinch, every twitch of awareness creeping back into his fogged-up brain.
I want him lucid enough to understand exactly why this is happening and why he should never have put his hands on his woman.
“What do you want from me?” the bikie piece of shit murmurs. “If you want the drugs, take them, just don’t hurt me.”
I chuckle as I step towards the workbench and scoop up a rancid, oily rag, cramming it so deep into his mouth he has no chance of removing it. I’m not interested in anything this motherfucker has to say.
“I don’t want your filthy drugs,” I grumble, pausing for asecond to pick up a large steel wrench. “What I want is your broken corpse rotting six feet under. What I want is justice for Emily.”
His eyes widen at the mention of her name, but I don’t give him time to digest that information. My arm snaps back, and I swing the wrench with enough force to shatter his kneecap.
That one was for Lucia; every hit he gets from here on out is all me.
He throws his head back, a muffled scream tearing loose from his throat. “Buckle up, arsehole,” I growl as I move to his other knee. “I’m just getting started. By the time I finish with you, you’ll be begging for me to end you.”
“Fucking hell,” Romeo mutters, a slow whistle slipping between his teeth, when he enters the garage half an hour later. “No wonder they call you Dead End Rizzo. Remind me never to piss you off.”
Sweat collects on my forehead, my chest heaving with each ragged breath. The bikie is still hanging limply from the rafters, but he’s barely recognisable. He’d be lucky if he had a single bone in his body still intact.
He lost consciousness a good ten minutes ago, but that didn’t halt my attack. The bastard probably received more than I intended to dish out, but somewhere along the way, I got flashes of my mum cowering on the floor with my father standing over her with his arm raised, ready to strike. With a sobbing Violet wrapped in my arms.
That helplessness I felt back then came rushing back to the surface, unleashing a whole other monster.
I prefer to use my hands in situations like this, but tonight I opted for the tools I found lying around in the garage. I don’t want to go back to the house with bruisedand bloody knuckles. Emily can never know what went on here. All that matters is he can’t hurt her ever again.
He messed with someone who means something to me. What exactly that is, I’m yet to fully identify, but he fucked around and found out the hard way. The lethal way.
The Cosa Nostra has no beef with the Steel Reapers, so once we clean this place up and make sure he, his bike, and the drugs disappear, it’ll look like he just vanished without a trace. Maybe they’ll think he did a runner with the stash. I honestly don’t care what story his bikie brothers settle on, as long as none of it touches Emily.
