5 Chapter 5: GABRIEL

I’m not too up on the latest biker bullshit though I’d heard stories before I came here and had done some research on my own to get some idea of what I was walking into. There’s some shit that these people do that I can never wrap my head around, but one thing I know, if a seller has a buyer lined up, then there were talks of a deal.

I walked outside, where some of the men were still milling around, no doubt talking about what just happened with Sam. I saw the only Billy in the group that I’d met so far. A middle-aged beer gutted man with a dirty grey and brown beard who looked like he hadn’t seen the inside of a shower in ages.

I knew from the way he reacted when I called out his name and started walking towards him that he knew precisely why I was coming after him. His eyes jumped around like a cornered rat looking for an escape. There is none.

I saw my two shadows move away from the wall where they’d been standing and follow behind me. I stopped right in front of this specimen, looking him up and down. “How much?” I heard everything come to a standstill behind me but did not turn around to look.

“I don’t know what you mean; how much what?” Either he wasn’t as tough as he seemed, or he was one of the rare people who’d seen beneath my polished veneer to the beast beneath because swear to fuck he was already starting to sweat, and there was a hint of fear in his eyes.

I leaned in close, close enough that I could smell the staleness of his fetid breath. “If you’d ever touched her, you’d be dead. Now how much did you offer to pay for her?”

“It wasn’t like that.” I reached out and grabbed him by the throat, which has always been my signature move.

The right amount of pressure on the pulse that beats there can incapacitate a man of any size in mere seconds. It beats getting my hands bloody by bare knuckling someone’s face, which is my other go-to. Him, I wanted to kill in a very vicious way for even thinking he could touch her; mine… The fuck! Shake it off, Gabe, wrong time, wrong place.

I got myself together but barely restrained from choking him out right there in front of everyone. “Let’s try this again.” He took one look at my eyes, and drool escaped the side of his mouth. I could smell the fear coming off him now. Most people aren’t aware that fear has its own scent; I was trained to sniff that shit out. More often than not after, I’d been the one to instill it, of course.

He almost shit himself when the smile crossed my lips. Oh yeah, he knew.

“Te…te…ten grand.”

“And where were you supposed to be getting this money?” They have no way of knowing, the twenty or so men that my dad had left behind, but I’d already combed through their finances, among other things. I knew everything there is to know about them going back two generations. That’s how I work.

“I…I had it saved up.” His eyes did that, flitting around shit again, but there was no escaping the hold I had on his neck.

“You’re lying. Who asked you to buy her?” His eyes popped open wide as if it was some mystery that I’d come to that conclusion.

I guess after dealing with the other assholes around here that weren’t much better than him, he’d expect everyone else to be dumb as a fucking stump. He has no idea I’m way ahead of him. It was the only thing I’d asked dad for when I agreed to come clean up his mess. He was to tell no one who or what I really am.

“A name or your life, you choose.” “You…you wouldn’t do that here with all these people around.” That was his last-ditch effort to feel me out. I exerted just enough pressure on his jugular, making sure to press my thumb down on that pulse as I did, and his knees buckled as he started to grapple to get a hold on my hand.

His fingers just slid off the buttery soft leather of the gloves I wore as he scrambled to catch his next breath. “Okay-okay, I’ll tell you.” The words came out warbled and unintelligible, but since they’re what I was listening for, I heard them loud and clear.

I released my hold on his neck as his body gave out, and he dropped to the ground clutching at his throat and breathing like a wounded bear tracking a hunter in the woods. I wiped my gloves off and looked over his head when he stood. “I’m waiting.” He did that shit with his eyes again, but I wasn’t worried. He’s the type that would give up his mother if it would get him out of dying.

He rattled off a name, and I didn’t show by even the flicker of a lash whether I knew it or not. “Sebastian, Garret, take him,” I ordered my guys, who moved around me to lift him by the armpits while he bellowed about us having a deal. I don’t recall saying anything about a deal, but he wasn’t worth telling. My time with him was over.

My team knew why I was really here and would get everything I need out of him; there was no need for me to ever see his face again unless something else comes up involving her. I’m not usually callous with human life, but since he’d been all set to sell one of his own into certain hell, fuck him.

I’m sure the boys will keep him alive for a while, though, since they like to find reasons to save people and shit. Me, I’d given up on finding saving graces in man long ago. At least I doubt the father knew what he was selling his daughter into. But it’s still sick that he was even going to sell her. Then again, how sure am I that he didn’t know? He got off too easy.