“You don’t know Dax.”
“I don’t need to know him,” Snake said. “Viper is a master torturer. Hell, he kept your damn Sinner brother alive in our dungeon for three fucking months so he could make him suffer over and over and over again. You should have heard that Sinner scream, man. You should have heard him beg. Even after he spilled everything about your club, Viper didn’t let up. You know why? ’Cause he’s a fucking sadist. He enjoys that shit. Gets him off. That’s the difference between a real torturer and the pussy behind you. And that’s why I’d rather be sitting here than spend a minute alone with Viper after he finds out I failed him.”
Tank’s breath left him in a rush. Three months? The dude had to be lying. T-Rex had been gone three months almost to the day. Gunner and Sparky found his body in the Black Jack dungeon only a week after Viper had taken him. Had they been wrong and Tank was right? Had T-Rex been suffering for three months waiting for his brothers to come for him while the Sinners mourned his death?
Nonononononono. Pain sliced through his gut at the thought of T-Rex waiting for a rescue that never came, holding out hope that Tank would find him. His heart squeezed in his chest, and for a moment he wished it would stop beating, torturing him with each thud that meant he was alive and T-Rex had died alone. The bastard had to be playing him. The alternative was a hell beyond what Tank could bear.
“You didn’t know?” Snake smirked. “You thought he was dead? He wished he was dead. He begged me to kill him more than once.”
A sound escaped Tank’s lips—a roar—pain, rage, frustration, anguish, and grief—accompanied by an almost desperate need for revenge. He lunged toward Snake, reaching for his neck.
“Stop.”
He froze at the sound of Jagger’s commanding voice—the only voice that could have stopped his raging need to avenge his brother. Powerful, formidable, and ruthless, the Sinner president put a hand on Tank’s shoulder, dominating the small room with the force of his presence alone.
“We heard him.” He gestured to Gunner, the Sinner sergeant-at-arms, and Dax beside him.
“By the time I’m done with him, he’ll be begging us to take him to Viper, although we won’t be able to understand because he’ll have no tongue.” Tall, slim, and pale but with a shock of dark hair, Dax placed his black “toy” bag on the table beside the wall, deliberately paying no attention to Snake. He loved the drama of the moment, the slow reveal when he turned his black, soulless eyes on his victim for the very first time.
“Took you long enough to get here.” Tank didn’t understand why Jagger and Gunner had come to the interrogation room. Usually Dax worked alone with the assistance of a few junior patch members of the club.
Gunner reached for the door just as the new prospect, Benson, stumbled in. A former Conundrum deputy sheriff, Benson had asked to pledge to the club after his extra-curricular activities on behalf of the Sinners had brought him to the attention of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Instead of facing a grueling internal investigation, he had handed in his badge and begged the Sinners for a chance to prove himself worthy of the club and the protection they could offer.
“Christ. What the fuck is he doing here?” Gunner slammed the door and glared at Dax.
“I need an apprentice, and he’s already shown some promise,” Dax said. “Bruisers like Tank and Gunner are all about brute force and power. I need them for the heavy lifting. Benson understands finesse and the psychology behind what I do. He knows his torture implements. Plus, I’ve planned a nice, long session and we’ll need someone to bring us snacks.” A trained psychiatrist, Dax had become interested in torture and human behavior while writing his PhD thesis in university. His work had brought him to the attention of several covert government organizations, but Dax came from a biker family, and nothing could pull him out of the life. He liked the freedom to experiment, to come and go as he pleased, to have no one to answer to but his brothers and his old lady.
“Fuck you.” Benson, still unused to being on the receiving end of orders received a cuff to the head by an irritated Dax.
“Don’t care what you did before, prospect, or who you were,” Dax snapped. “Learn your place or go face the ATF firing squad.”
“Fuck you.” Benson’s face tightened when Jagger lifted an eyebrow. “Sir.”
“What happened to our friend T-Rex?” Dax tilted his blade saw to catch the light from the naked bulb overhead. He kept his voice low, deceptively soft, forcing Snake to lean forward to hear him. He’d told Tank and T-Rex over beer one night how much he enjoyed the brutal betrayal of that intimacy, saving some of his more vicious techniques for when his victims expected it the least.