Thump.

“I simply don’t understand it, Bart. You had everything in the palm of your hand…”

Thump.

My fist connects again with his body and this time it elicits a muffled screech. That tends to happen when someone’s kidneys have been hit hard enough. It’s strange, for such vital organs, the body sure didn’t keep them hidden inside somewhere safe.

The screams and screeches peter out until I slam my fist against the other kidney. If I was a gambling man, which I’m not, I would say that Bart would be pissing blood for a week if he wasn’t destined to die pretty soon.

“You were a part of the inner circle. You had your mouth on the golden teat! How the fuck could you betray Lucifer?” I ask.

Standing in front of Bart, I shake my head at him. His eyes are wide with terror, and if I’m not mistaken, he pissed himself recently.

“All you had to do was tell Lucifer the Japs had approached you. You could have told him they were trying to pay you off. You know for a fact he would have fixed you up. He always takes care of us!”

I don’t mean to scream that at the end, but Bart has to have known that.

Loyalties have been tested in the past with some of the guys, and every time Lucifer was there to make sure we followed him. To make sure we knew he was as loyal to us as we are to him.

The shrill sound of my phone ringing from my suit pocket stops me from swinging at his eyes. My fist is inches away from his nose when I stop myself.

I grin at him.

Wagging a finger in his eyes, I say, “Not just yet, be right back. You just hang out for me.”

I pull the phone out of the suit jacket I left hanging on the back of the shitty chair in this room. Everything in this shitty room is fucking way past its prime. Then again, if it wasn’t an abandoned old motel out in the middle of nowhere it wouldn’t be so shitty.

“This is Andrew.”

“Andrew, my friend!”

“Harrold, I was going to call you soon… How’re things going?”

“Busy, as you well know. Mr. Lucifer informed me you would be needing my services today. I wanted to see if you had a time frame…”

Winking at a terrified Bart, I say, “Can you meet me at the old motel in about an hour? I won’t be here much longer.”

“I will be there.”

“Thanks.”

Disconnecting the phone, I put it back in my pocket before I pull the forty-five pistol from my shoulder holster. Bart is shaking now, and that wet spot I saw earlier is growing larger by the second.

The distinct smell of shit erupts in the air as I walk up to Bart and push the barrel of the pistol against his stomach.

“It’s a shitty thing to know exactly how much more time you have left to live. To know you can’t change the certainty of your own death.”

Lowering the pistol towards his crotch, I pull the trigger.

The loud eruption of the gun in this small but tattered room deafens me. It’s a few moments before I’m able to hear his loud screams through the ball gag I have crammed in his mouth.

“You’re going to the afterlife a cockless bastard!” I roar over his screaming.

Aiming at his knee caps, I pull the trigger twice in rapid succession.

One in each knee cap.

The screaming continues for a few seconds before he passes out, his head slumping forward. Pain has a way of breaking everyone. He’s no different than any other pile of shit out there.

Not any more he isn’t.

Fucking little bitch is now one of the commoners. One of the fucking sheep out in the fucking herd that gets to die when the big bad fucking wolves tear his throat out.

There’s a code in this world, it’s an oath to each other that binds us. It’s there to make sure we have each other’s back, no matter what.

What he did… It’s just not done.

We are all hard, battle-tested men who want the most from our role in life. He just threatened that role. He removed himself from being above the common crowd and put himself down in the mud like the rest of the fucking pigs.

Rolling in filth and shit.

Sitting in the chair that my coat hangs on is the small black leather bag I brought into this shitty motel with me. It’s a fucking dump here, and I pray that I don’t get bugs from the shitty room.

Pulling a hypodermic needle out of the bag, I take the bottle of adrenaline out as well. I fill the syringe as I walk over to Bart.

Back when I was in the SEALs, I served as a medic. Normally, I would never pull someone from a blackout like this…. it fucks with the body and will probably hurt his heart and brain pretty bad.

But he doesn’t need to worry about those things.

I inject directly into the heart. His head snaps forward in wide-eyed misery as he comes back to reality.

Walking back to the bag, I pull out a small bottle of morphine.

His hands are stretched high above his head and he hangs from the ceiling supports. It doesn’t help with injecting the pain meds.

Shrugging my shoulders, I push the medicine into a vein throbbing on the left side of his neck.

The drugs must work pretty damn well because his eyes lose that pain-filled haze and slowly begin to focus on me. I didn’t give him much though, just enough to dull the pain but not cloud the mind.

“Bart, I know you were one of us so I won’t send you to be fed to the pigs while you are alive. You get that much out of me. But Lucifer has a reputation to protect and so do I. I’m going to use you as a message to the Japs. You won’t be alive to give it to them, but I’m pretty sure they will understand it all the same.”

Pulling a scalpel from the bag, I first slice off his right ear then his left.

The screams are audible through the gag again and I’m tempted to do this after he dies, but I don’t think that would be the right thing. He betrayed Lucifer and put the wife and kids in jeopardy—that can’t be allowed ever.

But more importantly, he betrayed me and the men who serve our boss.

Taking out my anger again, I punch him in the mouth. I wince. Fuck, I think I hurt a knuckle with his teeth.

Shit, it’s time to finish this off. I need a cold beer and a very hot pussy after shit like this.

He passes out sometime after I stab his eyes out.

No sight, no hearing, and no talking. He will go to them as a good message of what is to come for daring to attack us. To dare attack our boss.

Slicing the rope that is holding him up, his body falls to the ground in an almost boneless fashion. He’s in the land of twilight now, not dead but almost.

I’ve never removed a tongue before and it makes my stomach quiver a bit.

My phone rings as I am unzipping my pants, my thick flaccid cock coming out of my boxers. “Fuck”

Walking over to my coat, I pull the phone out and walk back to the still-breathing body. I push connect at the exact moment I release a torrent of piss down on the bastard’s face.

“Yeah?”

“We’re here, Andrew.”

“Ah, okay. Come on back, I’m done here.”

My bladder comes to a stop as I finally empty it completely. Bart’s face turns towards me and he makes a loud, pitiful groan.

Kneeling down beside him, I say, “I hope you find even more torment in hell.”

Putting the pistol to his forehead, I pull the trigger, and again the roar of the gun is deafening to my ears.