“Shut up,” Cleaner ordered. “You aren’t a fucking club member.”
Bash stiffened. “I’m not warning you again, fuckhead. Donotdisrespect my little sister. I might have to cut out your tongue.” Sane again, he nodded to Easton. “What, motherfucker?”
“Take Tío back to Salt Lake City. I’m not a full patch Death Dweller yet like Shine, but I’m a prospect.”
“Shine’s not any fucking thing anymore,” Bash spat, glowering at Tabitha. “I hope you sucked him off good the last time he stuck his cock in your fucking mouth, slut.”
Shine?
Tabitha’s sob reached Johnnie through a dull tunnel.
Shine.
Shinewas a Scorpion?
“What…what happened to Shine?” Johnnie pushed out.
Cleaner swung his annoyed gaze to Johnnie. “The last place we tracked him to was a funeral home. I guess they killed him and didn’t realize his phone was on him.”
Johnnie swayed like a scared bitch. “D-D-D-Diesel…uh, Diesel…w-w-w-was it Diesel who g-g-g-got him?” he managed, his stuttering echoing Brooks and their first visit to Salt Lake City.
Smirking at Johnnie, Cleaner nodded and folded his arms. “That’s what we’re thinking. We can’t prove it, so we can’t strike back.” He jerked his head toward Bash. “According to him.”
“What the fuck you meanaccording to him?” Bash demanded, narrowing his eyes. “You’re pissing me the fuck off, Cleaner. Who the fuck else would it be according to, fuckhead?I’mthe motherfucking president. Unless we go to the funeral home and tear the motherfucker apart looking for Shine’s body, we can’t fucking prove Diesel fucked him up. He didn’t deserve to be shot or stabbed or whatever.”
Johnnie choked. Shooting and stabbing was too simple for Diesel.
Ignoring every gaze turning to him, Johnnie scraped his trembling fingers through his hair and yanked, threatening to tear strands from his scalp. “F-first, if itwasDiesel who snatched him, there won’t be a crime scene.”
“Explain,” Bash ordered.
Johnnie pursed his lips, rocked on his heels, and cleared his throat. “If Diesel got Shine and brought him to the funeral home,alive,he threw him in the crematorium. Alive.”
“Goddamn,” Cleaner said.
His eyes widening, Bash lost his color. “Knocked out?” He sounded surprisingly hopeful.
Relating to Bash’s fear and disbelief, Johnnie shook his head. “Tied up, but very much awake.”
They glanced amongst themselves, silent. Horrified.Terrified. Even Tabitha’s sobs had stopped. Blindly, she reached for Celia, who returned to her seat and hugged her tightly.
“You know this how?” Bash finally asked.
“Because Christopher does it to enemies,” Johnnie croaked. “He taught Diesel.”
“Goddamn,” Cleaner repeated.
“I thought you told me your texts to Diesel weren’t inflammatory, Easton,” Bash said, still a little colorless. “And why the fuck did you send the motherfuckers?”
“You told me I have to listen to him, Bash,” Easton said, snatching his phone from his pocket. “Here,” he said a moment later. “Screenshots of the texts I sent to Diesel from Tío’s phone.”
After Bash read the texts, he grunted.
“Do you want to see them, Johnnie?” Easton asked, the only man there with the sense to appreciate Johnnie’s presence.
“I’d appreciate that.” Once Johnnie read the texts, he agreed with Easton. He’d sent nothing to annoy Diesel, which meant only one thing. “I haven’t seen the footage of exactly what happened to Tío, Bash but he must’ve taunted Diesel. Jerked his chains in some way. “My guess is he pissed Diesel off by running off at the mouth or by pretending to back off and thinking to get the drop. Christopher taught me…Diesel…Val…Mortician…he…You don’t understand about Logan,” he whispered. “Christopherlearned to read the smallest change in our grandfather. Things no one else would notice.”
Johnnie staggered to the vacant seat and flopped onto it, imagining his own gruesome death. He dropped his head into his hands. “I love torture.” That was well known, too. Technique and brutality traveled through the pipeline. “Christopher goes for the head almost every time. But Diesel? He loves it all. Blood, gore, torture, quick kills, drawn out death, hand-to-hand combat, decapitation, fire, drowning, hanging. It doesn’t matter,” he said dully. “He’s a fucking executioner.”
