Chapter 2: Wolf.e: Prologue

In two generations, you will be completely forgotten.

The illusion that you won’t be keeps you going.

The illusion that somehow you are different.

Illusions serve no one.

The illusions we have about ourselves make us feel good about what we do every day.

Grow up, get married, work, have babies, raise them, die.

For what? For most people, to simply return to the earth and be forgotten.

In turn, none of it matters.

As I stand over the battered body of the middle aged man who raped one of my men’s little sisters, I don’t feel sorrow over his impending doom. I don’t feel remorse.

Instead, I feel all the things they say that you shouldn’t when taking a life.

Joy.

Satisfaction.

Gratification.

His bloodied, broken body gives me peace.

The illusion that killing him should torment me isn’t real.

I’ve seen enough to know there’s only here and now, there’s no after. And whether I’m good or not has no bearing on my fate.

“I don’t want to die… please, I didn’t know she was sixteen,” he whines. The drool and blood dripping from his mouth lands in a pool in front of him, where most of his teeth now sit on the tarp below.

“I’m sorry, it wasn’t my call… I didn’t have a choice.”

“Nah… don’t make excuses. You always have a choice. It’s fucking weak to go out like that man,” Mason, my treasurer and the older brother of the girl this sick fuck drugged, raped, and recorded to keep photographic evidence of his fucked up conquests spits out as he smacks the guy they call Gator in the back of the head. Should’ve known with a nickname like Gator the guy would be a sleazeball.

Mason nods to Kai, my enforcer. Kai doesn’t say a word, he’s a brick wall, showing zero hesitation. He moves forward and assumes his position behind Gator, bracing his forehead with one hand and holding his mouth open with the other.

Mason thinks for a minute, looking into Gator’s mouth at what’s left. The pickings are slim, but he chooses a back molar. He clamps down on it with his pliers and wrenches it free from Gator’s mouth then drops the broken pieces to the ground amidst those peaceful garbled screams that sing to my soul.

My turn.

I fire up the butane torch again, time to take a little more ink off Gator’s neck and left arm where he bears the Disciples of Sin insignia.

Their club has been our club’s natural enemy for years, ever since my grandfather, Ira Wolfe, started our legacy, The Hounds of Hell in the sixties.

I grin as I see the horror on Gator’s face while I stalk toward him, the blood—dark and syrupy— leaking from his mouth now heavier than the drool.

I run my first two fingers through the flame as I eye Gator up—or what’s left of him. I don’t even know how he keeps coming back to consciousness at this point.

All we want is a name, and he’s holding out a lot longer than I thought he would.

“Time to take some more ink unless you’re ready to talk,” I tell him. In truth, we stop when the stench of burning flesh gets too strong in this small cabin.

“This is your last chance to do the right thing,” I say, preying on the human instinct that salvation is real.

He hovers on the edge of consciousness as my flame meets his skin. That’s when he jolts awake, his bloodshot eyes wide as he screams. It’s a pathetic scream really, barely more than a whisper.

“Stop… please. It was Foxx. He said he wanted me to hit you guys where it hurts. I was just doing my job, man.” he whimpers.

“Fucking finally,” Kai says lighting a cigarette.

It’s what we assumed but we needed the confirmation before we plot to kill their club president.

I assess Gator. Men tend to tell the truth in the last seconds of their lives so I’m sure he’s being honest.

“And our clinics?” I ask. “Who ordered the theft of our product?”

“Foxx,” he answers with the same soon-to-be dead president’s name, looking up at me through one barely open eye, the other swollen shut.

“Please, Wolfe. I wanna die.” His voice is a whine. “Please… kill me,” Gator begs.

I stop my flames and set down the torch. Moving towards him again, I grab a handful of his hair in my gloved hand, lifting his pathetic face up to view the last soul he’ll ever see.

“It’s fucking pathetic that you beg me for death now,” I bite out.

“I’ve heard enough,” Mason says from the other side of the room.

I promised him. It was his sister, so it’s his call.

Gator lets out a sigh, his fate settling with him.

“Please,” he whispers.

I draw my gun and take aim at his forehead. Just as I’m about to shoot, Kai says my name and nods toward the other side of the room in my periphery.

I follow his gaze to the cabin door, and I’m met with horror. The rawest form of fear lines every plane of her perfect face through the screen. Her long onyx hair blows in the ocean breeze around her moonlit shoulders.

I may be a killer but I’m not a savage. I would never want her to see this if I had a choice, but now she’s made her own bed.

I have no idea how or why she’s here but there’s no turning back. My eyes hold hers as the innocence drains from those beautiful blue eyes, the same color as her dress. She’s on her knees outside the cabin door.

Every single hope she had about me, about my club, shatters around her and falls to the earth.

I never lied about who I am. The hopes she had were her own.

I don’t pretend.

I am the villain she sees now, but that’s not all I am.

She will learn to understand. She has no choice but to.

I find her eyes again, mouthing to her the only escape I can give, then press my gun to the spot between my prisoner’s eyes and pull the fucking trigger.