Page 63 of Colt

When he started to come to, he began pulling at his restraints. “What the fuck is going on?” Torch shouted as he tried to break free.

I watched as Viking approached Torch, like a lion hunting his prey. He moved with purpose, maintaining his air of complete dominance.

“We have reason to believe you’ve betrayed the patch you’ve worn for years. Now's your chance to set the record straight.”

Torch’s eyebrows shot up, and his eyes darted around the darkened, cold space. He knew he was screwed, but he still wanted to act like a defiant prick. “Fuck you! You don’t give a shit what I say. You’ve already made up your mind. I’m as good as dead.”

“True,” Viking said, and I saw Torch’s brief flinch as the reality of the situation sank in. “But, I’m willing to work with you to get a bit more information out of you.” Torch was right. There was no way he was making it out of this alive. But if he worked with us, we could make this a bit less painful for him. “Let’s start with why you took out Damon.”

“That fucker needed to die. He’d been causing problems for too long, and you were too much of a pussy to do anything about it.”

I guess we were doing this the hard way.

“Hmmm.” Viking pretended to consider that. “But, you took him out the second he mentioned someone wearing our patch turning on us. Kinda obvious, don’t you think?” Torch didn’t respond to that. “Now you’re not going to talk? We can definitely play this your way. Colt, have at him.”

Viking didn’t have to tell me twice. I was more than happy to have another go at the fucker. I expected to feel satisfied the moment my fist connected with his face. Instead, it fueled my rage even more.

I poured every ounce of anger I felt into the punches I was raining down on him. I thought of everything he’d put Ember through and continued until I was sure his nose was broken, and he was hanging on to consciousness by a thread. It took both Viper and Mac pulling me off of him before I stopped.

“We still need him to talk,” Viper whispered in my ear.

I nodded my head while ragged breaths coursed through my body.

“It’s time for a story, don’t you think?” Torch stared silently at Viking through eyes that were almost swollen shut. “We know you were blackmailing your president’s sister.”

That caught Stone’s attention. We’d brought him back here with us since we needed the Reno club to understand what went down. “What the fuck?” he said, completely taken by surprise.

Viking turned toward Stone. “She told us after Fitz was murdered. We needed time to let this asshole slip up. Trust us when I say Ember’s safety was one of our top priorities during all of this.”

“What did you blackmail her with?” Stone asked through gritted teeth. It was clear his loyalty was still with Ice and the Desert Sinners, and I was relieved to see this betrayal wasn’t widespread amongst the Reno members.

Torch continued his silent act, so Viking filled him in. When Viking told him that Ember continued her relationship with Torch to protect Ice, Stone lost it.

Before I realized what was happening, he pulled out his gun and aimed it at Torch’s head. Viper burst across the room and tackled Stone to the floor, sliding his gun across the floor toward my feet.

“Not yet, man,” I heard Viper tell him as he pinned him to the ground.

“That’s not all, though, is it?” Viking’s attention was back on Torch. “During one of your calls to Ember, you fucked up. You mentioned having a way of knowing what she was up to here in Las Vegas. We did a little investigating, and we managed to find some calls between you and one of the Phantom assholes that stayed behind while the rest of them were out of state. It seems to me like you were working with the enemy.”

Well, that was new information, and I wondered if Viking was bluffing or not.

Torch finally relented and started to speak. “Ice is the one that fucked up. The Phantoms offered him a chance to work together and make a real name for ourselves, along with a ton of cash. But he refused, sticking with some stupid ass moral code you and the other old guys came up with years ago.” He must have been talking about our unwillingness to get into sex trafficking like the Phantoms. “I needed to get him out of the way so I could take over. The Phantoms were expecting me to come through for them and I knew Ice wouldn’t suspect shit as long as his sister was involved with me. It gave me time to come up with a plan.”

“That plan included setting up the brawl at the diner where Ice got arrested, right?” Viking continued to piece together the puzzle.

“Then you asked her to spy on us when Viking offered to let her stay here,” I added.

Torch’s eyes were closed as he gritted his teeth in pain. “Fucking bitch couldn’t even do that right,” he growled. Hearing him speak about Ember like that sent me back into a blind rage. Viking threw his arm out to keep me from charging him again since he was still speaking. “The hit was supposed to take her out.” He realized his mistake the moment he uttered those words.

“You killed Fitz?” Viking roared, barely hanging on to his self-control. “What did you hope to accomplish by taking a hit out on Ember?”

Hearing confirmation that Ember was the intended target nearly knocked me to my knees. I’d almost lost her before she was even mine. And that’s what she was now.Mine.

Torch laughed, blood from the cuts I’d left when I hit his mouth was running down the side of his neck. “Don’t you get it? If Ice found out you couldn’t keep his sister safe, he wouldn’t have a choice but to see things my way. We would have broken from the Desert Sinners and teamed up with the Phantoms. Since that didn’t work and Damon was breathing down my neck, having you and the Phantoms take each other out this way was the next best thing.”

“Seems none of your plans panned out well for you.” Viking laughed, but it lacked any hint of humor.

“That may be true, but the Phantoms and I aren’t the only ones working to rid the world of the Sinners. You can kill me, but you won’t be able to eliminate every threat.” Torch glared at me before he continued. “Have fun with your whore while you still can.”

I was done listening to his bullshit, and Viking must have agreed as we both sent bullets flying, hitting Torch directly between the eyes.

Viking ordered a few guys to stay behind on clean up duty as the rest of us drove back to the clubhouse.

As we got off our bikes, Stone approached Viking and me. “We’ll head out in the morning. We obviously have shit to deal with back home.”

“Sorry about that, brother,” Viking said while offering his hand to the man in front of him. “We had to know what we were dealing with before we could say anything to you guys. If you need anything, you know where to find me.”

Stone nodded his head in understanding and then led the other guys from Reno into the clubhouse.