Kings of Chaos (Dirty Broken Savages #1)(34)

The hammer is heavy in my other hand, and I aim it for his fingers, ready to break them one by one if I have to.

“No!” Reggie screams. He balls his hand into a fist.

I laugh at that. “You’re a fucking idiot, Reggie. You think it’ll hurt less if I smash through your fist with this thing?”

I draw back, ready to smash down with the hammer, and he jerks in my hold, opening his hand. His breathing is coming out in little panicked sobs already, and I can feel it affecting me.

My blood is pumping faster, hot under my skin, and I lick my lips at the sight of it. It’s like I can smell his fear coming off him in waves. He was so full of himself before, when we caught him and dragged him here, and now he’s already sniveling and trying to get away.

But we haven’t even really gotten started yet.

I smile to myself and play eenie, meenie, minie, mo in my head, picking a finger to break first. Then decide fuck it and go for the middle finger. Something tells me he gets a lot of use out of that one, smug little shit that he is.

The hammer catches the light over head as it arcs down and there’s a satisfying crunch when it slams into his finger, breaking the bone at the knuckle.

Reggie screams again, sounding ragged and already close to breaking.

Good.

That’s where I need him to be. I pick another finger, going for the pinky this time.

“Who else was in on this?” I ask him.

“W-what?” Reggie manages. He lifts his face, and it’s already wet with tears and snot. So much for him being such a big shot.

“Oh, Reggie. Don’t make me ask again.” I bring the hammer down on his pinky, and he screams right in my ear. For good measure, I yank the scalpel out of his armpit, soaking the tatters of his shirt with blood.

When he still doesn’t answer, I sigh and go for his index finger, spreading out the pain better. Just as I’m about to break that one too, he suddenly remembers how to talk.

“Wait!” he screeches. “Wait. Wait. I’m… it was…”

I break the finger anyway.

Reggie sobs, and it sounds like it hurts. He tries to curl his fingers into a fist, but then screams when the broken ones don’t seem to like that very much.

“You’re so close, Reg. Just tell me what I wanna know.”

I don’t say ‘and then it’ll be over’ because that would be a lie. There’s no point in lying. It won’t be over, and we both know that, probably. The thing he did has already been done. This is as much about punishing him for getting uppity and thinking he can do whatever he wants with what’s ours as it is about getting more information from him.

It’s not going to end easy.

“T-the Diamond Devils!” he blurts out, shaking against the wall. His eyes are wild and wet, red rimmed from his crying. Blood pours down both arms, and his chest heaves with trying to breathe through the pain. “I… I’m a member. We were—oh, fuck. We were getting tired of waiting for you to make a decision.”

“Oh, about the weapons.” I remember Gage debating that the other night. Before we got wrapped up in the mess with River and all.

Reggie nods, still trembling. “I wanted to… to get some things moving, so I—”

“So you decided to just make things happen yourself.” I shake my head, smiling. “Oh, Reggie. You’re so fucking stupid. Did you really think that was gonna work? That you could get around having to talk to us. That you could scam me and my brothers and fuck with our girls?”

“It wasn’t a scam!” he chokes out. “You were gonna get your cut.”

“You never got our permission, you fucking idiot.” I drop the smile and bash his ring finger, hitting it a couple times for good measure. That hand is fucked at this point, but I want to make sure I drive the message home. “And you fucked with our dancers. You tried to bribe them, and when that didn’t work, you moved on to threats. You thought we wouldn’t find out?”

“Money is money,” Reggie sobs. “I thought—”

“You didn’t think shit,” I snap, going for the thumb. His howls of pain are like music to my ears. “You just wanted to be the hero. You wanted to do a deal without doing the deal, and that’s amateur shit. Even I know better than that.”

“Please!” he screams.

“Please what?” I shoot back cheerfully. “Please stop? Please no more? Please have mercy?” I jam the hammer under his chin, making him look up at me. “Is that what the dancer you fucked said when she was trying to get away from you? Is that how she begged when you grabbed her and did whatever the fuck you wanted with her? Doesn’t feel so nice, now does it?”

He flinches hard when I draw the hammer back, like he’s afraid I’m about to smash him in the face with it.

I do think about it for a second, but that would be too easy. I’m not going to let him get off like that. Not when there’s so much more pain I can make him feel for what he did.

I step away from him, taking the hammer with me.

Reggie slumps in his chains, sobbing and taking deep, rattling breaths. I watch him try to move his fingers and then cry out when none of them bend the right way.

That’s his own fault for being an idiot.

All of this is his fault for being an idiot.