I ducked and narrowly avoided getting a fucking bullet in my chest. King was right behind me. Without hesitation, he entered the bedroom, taking purposeful strides towards the asshole. Dean shifted the aim of his gun and shot at King who took a bullet in his arm. That didn’t slow him down, though.
He grunted through the pain and bellowed, “Welcome to your worst fucking nightmare, Dean,” right before he punched him so hard in the face that it almost knocked him out.
By the time I joined them, King had the guy down, flat out on his back. He’d straddled him and pinned his hands to the floor above his head. No amount of fighting King helped the asshole; he was stuck beneath him, caged in by King’s legs that refused to budge. King had strength and grit that not many men I knew possessed. When he set his mind to something, nothing stood in his way.
“You good?” I asked King as I took a look at his arm where the bullet hit.
“Yeah, it just grazed me. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”
I bent to get a better look at Dean. Eyes full of hatred stared up at me, and I wondered how long and what efforts we’d have to go to in order to change that hatred to fear. And whether we’d have to introduce some horror to make that happen. After being shot at, I was itching for some of that, and I figured King would be too.
“Next time you wanna shoot a man, make sure you know who the fuck you’re shooting first,” I barked. “King here doesn’t appreciate bullets in his body.”
Dean spat up at King. “Go fuck yourself.”
His spit landed on King’s face, and I felt the energy change in the room as King reared backwards, a look of absolute rage settling over his face. After he had wiped the spit away, he spoke, his tone low and murderous. “You’ll regret that.”
Without pause, he swiftly stood, bringing Dean up with him. Grabbing him by the shirt, he pulled him out of the room, down the hallway and into the small, dirty kitchen. Yanking out a chair at the kitchen table, he shoved him down onto it. He then took both of Dean’s hands and bound them together tightly with a large tea towel he found next to the kitchen sink.
Gripping Dean’s hair, he wrenched Dean’s head back and demanded, “Tell us everything you know about Marx and the drugs he’s dealing. And once you’ve done that, tell me who killed one of my men this week.”
Sweat beaded on Dean’s forehead as his eyes met King’s, but he refused to give up what he knew. “Like I said before, motherfucker, go fuck yourself. You’re getting nothing out of me today.”
“We’ll fucking see about that.” King slammed his face into the table and then jerked it right back up again.
Blood streamed from Dean’s nose, and I figured King had broken it with the force he’d used. Dean glared up at King as he kicked and thrashed his legs in an attempt to move off the chair. I reached down to grab his legs to prevent him from breaking free.
“I’ve got all fucking day, asshole,” King said. “Longer if needed. And I’m in the kind of mood to inflict some pain, so I suggest you stop fighting us and start fucking talking or this isn’t gonna go well for you.”
Dean didn’t reply. He simply sat there staring at King defiantly. I knew then that my itch for violence was about to get scratched. King did, too. His eyes met mine and he nodded at the knife block sitting on the kitchen counter. “Time for some Jekyll time.”
“You read my mind, brother.”
I selected a knife from the block and stood in front of Dean after King swung the chair around to face me. I undid the binding holding his wrists together and splayed his hands out on the table, holding them down in place with my free hand. I then dug the tip of the knife into the back of one of his hands. “You want that through your hand, Dean?”
When he didn’t answer, I sliced into his hand. Not too deep, but enough to give him a reason to start talking.
“Fuck!” His body jerked and he tried to pull his hand away, but I pressed my hand down on his harder keeping them there.
“I can go deeper if you want.”
His eyes met mine, and I saw some of the fear I was aiming for. “You’re fucking crazy! I don’t know anything that you want to know.”
I bent and pushed my face close to his. “Your reaction to us showing up here tells me otherwise.” To give him more incentive to start talking, I ran the blade of the knife along his throat, making sure to draw some blood there too.
His hostility intensified at that, and instead of volunteering information, he spat at me like he’d spat at King. “Fuck. You.”
Anger rolled through me, and the fine line I walked between surviving in this world with a touch of rage and sliding over the edge into full-blown madness was crossed. Slamming the knife down, I grabbed his shirt with both hands and lifted him out of the chair. The adrenaline coursing through me gave me the kind of strength that took over and achieved my goal. Barrelling him into the wall, I shoved him with enough force that he dented it. Not giving him a second to catch up with what was going on, I smashed my fist into his face. Again. And again. Over and over, until his face was a bloody, unrecognisable mess.
My mind ceased to process my actions. Instead, my rage controlled me.
I wanted to inflict as much pain as I could.
Misery and blood fuelled me.
To cause it and to see it.
I wanted to inhale his pain.
I wanted to draw it in to my soul and breathe through it.
All I lived for right then was his torment. It would match my own raging storm of pain. Being in the moment with him—with his agony—would ease mine for a brief time. I would be able to forget it. His suffering would wipe mine, even for just a moment.
“Hyde. Enough.” King stepped in and dragged me off Dean.
I blinked a few times as my surroundings came back into focus. I’d beaten Dean so badly that he’d slumped to the ground, covered in blood, half unconscious.
After he had pushed me out of the way, King crouched down and slapped Dean’s face a few times. “You still with us, asshole? Ready to talk? Or do I need to finish what Hyde started?”
Dean coughed a couple of times and attempted to sit up straight, but he cried out in pain and swore as he failed. After spitting some blood out onto the ground, he managed to get out, “I’ve never met Marx, but I’m pretty sure he’s tied to that murder. I overheard my dealer talking about it yesterday. That’s all I fucking know.”
King shook his head as he took hold of Dean’s throat. “No, you know something else. Keep fucking talking.”
Barely able to talk thanks to the unyielding grip King had on his throat, Dean choked out, “Whoever organised the murder is Italian.”
King grunted and let Dean go, shoving him hard as he did so. Standing, he looked at me and said, “Well that narrows it down.”
By my count, there were six major Italian players in Sydney. “Shouldn’t take us too long to go through them all.”
King pulled his phone out. “I’ve got something I’ve gotta do for the next couple of hours and then I want you, me, Nitro and Devil on this. I want to find that motherfucker and end this shit now.”