The Diary of Bink Cummings: Vol 3 (MC Chronicles #3) (30 page)

A lone tear drips down my cheek as my eyes remain fixed on Big’s. I let it run to the tip of my jaw and fall, landing where it may.

How is this for us? How am I being distant? I always thought I showed my love without having to say it. None of my hesitation and fear has to do with him. It has to do with me. My own inability to cope with my own feelings. Or to know how to trust someone with my heart. I’ve spent my entire life trusting him with every other part of me except that. I’ve trusted no one with my heart. I had every intention of giving it the best I could after we’d spent more time together. Then the run came upon us, and I still wasn’t ready. Then the woman on her knees followed by the woman answering his phone. Then the things my mother said, about my sister and him keeping that from me, along with my father. How can you truly hand something over, unprotected, when you aren’t one hundred percent sure they aren’t going to destroy it and you along with it?

I know I’m talking as if my heart is a tangible item to be gifted. In reality, I know he already possesses it. I knew that as soon as I laid eyes on him when I returned home for my brothers’ wedding. But the only thing I have power over any more is what feelings I express or don’t. That’s it. My heart has already been captured. My soul owned. Those things I’ve been unable to control, which is hard enough to swallow. Now, having to openly admit and express those inner most feelings through words, that’s the worst part. That gives someone else power. More power than they already own. Power that I’m desperate to hold on to.

He has to understand this isn’t about him. It’s about me. About my issues.

“Listen,” I sigh, my shoulders deflating. “I know you think that my issue is with you. And part of it might be. But it’s mostly about me,” I attempt to explain. However, by the look on his face, he’s not buying a lick of what I’m sellin’.

I try harder because I don’t think I can bear to see him hurt intentionally. It’s hard enough when it happens other ways. For him to want pain inflicted because of me, I don’t know if that’s something I could ever get over. “Big, listen to me. I’m serious. My issues don’t lie with you. They lie in myself. My own insecurities. Do you need me to tell you how I feel? Is that gonna fix this? Will you stop this madness if I just come out and fucking tell you? Will that work? Make this go away?”

Please say yes!
My brain screams in my head, as the internal urge to begin shaking with both fear and adrenaline makes my bones ache, but I hold it in. I have to. It’s bad enough I am on the brink of crying. I can’t start shaking too. I will not show that much weakness. Must stay strong.

By the expression on Big’s face, when he frowns and drops our eye contract as his head slumps forward, I know I’ve lost the battle.

“Big,” my voice rasps. “Big.”

He doesn’t acknowledge me.

“Gunz, let’s begin,” Big orders in an eerie whisper.

I dart my eyes between Big and Gunz. He can’t be serious. He can’t actually be letting this happen.

“Gunz!” I shout, panicked.

“The ball-peen hammer,” Big mutters under his breath.

The what?!

“What!?” I screech.

Gunz silently nods in Big’s direction, his face impassive. Then returns to the table, sorting through the tools and lifts the hammer to eye level, examining it.

My heart stops. My breathing falters. Teeth clench to the point of pain.

Jizz leans in, getting close to my ear, “That’s Gunz’s go-to. Works great on the kneecaps, feet, ankles, elbows, and makes it easy to crack ribs one at a time,” he explains calmly, like we’re in the middle of shop class, and this isn’t his club president who’s going to have that tool used on him. What’s wrong with these men?

My heart starts again, and I suck in a pained breath.

I can’t let this happen. I can’t watch this!

“Stop!” I scream, which does me no good when Gunz pivots on his boot heel, wearing his black t-shirt, his cut, and jeans, as he approaches Big, hammer firmly in his grasp.

Oh my fucking God, he’s going to do it!

“Stop! Don’t!” I screech, thrashing in my brothers arms, trying to break free. I turn my head to try and bite my brothers’ hand to let go of me. It doesn’t work; he jerks my arm away before I’m able to sink my teeth in.

“Stop! I’ll choose! Not the hammer. I’ll choose!” I scream raggedly, turning my voice raw.

Gunz stops in front of Big’s stretched body. They pass something through their eyes, and both nod at one another.

“Let her go. She can choose,” Gunz voices. “But…Baby Doll, ya know if you try to get outta this, I will use the hammer with or without you here. This is what Big wants. It is my job to give it to him,” he finishes and strides the last steps to the table littered with weapons.

I don’t say a thing when my brothers release their hold on my arms, which are now throbbing and sore, from me putting up such a struggle. I fast waddle my way to the workbench and stop next to Gunz who’s realigning the hammer into its rightful place.

“So, what’ll it be?” he mutters, sweeping his hand from one end of the table to the other.

I say the first thing that comes to mind. “Which one hurts the least?”

That question offers me an amused grunt from Big, under breath chuckles from my brothers, an ‘it’s about damn time’ from somebody outside, and a “Ya know I can’t tell ya that, Baby Doll” from Gunz, before he throws an arm over my shoulder and tucks me to his side, kissing my temple.

Surveying the lot of tools there is just about anything you could need here all laid out nicely on a sheet thick of plastic. A baseball bat, pliers, an icepick, both ball-peen and claw hammers, nails, which probably go with the hammers seeing as though they’re right next to them. Down the line, there’s a thick chain, a piece of rebar, hunting knife, and Big’s S.S. belt, which I stop on and point at.

“We use the belts for this sorta thing. Since Big’s the one askin’ for this, it’s customary for him to be hit with his own belt, should that be your weapon of choice,” Gunz explains reaching out to rub my belly and leaning further in to whisper in my ear. “Ya think ya can handle this? Don’t want ya goin’ into labor,” he kisses the hair just above my ear.

“He shoulda thought about that before he got himself chained up there,” I whisper back.

“I know, but he thinks this is the only way you’re gonna let go of your issues and give him what he wants.”

“And what’s that?”

“You and the life he’s wanted with ya for over ten years. This is the only way he knows how to prove himself to you. To wash away his past sins. Ya know, to wipe the slate clean,” Gunz expresses, his lips still in my hair above my ear.

“How does—” I start.

“How does him gettin’ beat do that?” Gunz butts in knowing what I’m about to ask.

“Yeah,” I snuggle further to his side, allowing his warmth and love to seep into me and calm me. God knows I need that right now. Especially if all of this is about to go down, whether I like it or not.

“When a brother does somethin’ wrong, what happens?” Gunz questions on a whisper.

“They get dealt with,” I reply.

“And how do they get dealt with?”

Ah, I get it now.

“A beating,” I answer.

“When I fucked up and knocked ya down last year, when Linda had pulled all that drama, what happened to me?” Gunz tries to personalize the justice. I see his angle.

“Big knocked ya around.”

“Yeah, and then shit was forgiven. We worked it out. Moved on. That’s how we roll. You know that.”

I know it, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

“I do. I get it. But those were fists. A few punches. He wants chains and this,” I point to the table. “That’s a helluva difference.”

A few hits I think I could take. This… I dunno.

“The bigger the crime, the bigger the punishment,” Gunz rationalizes, sighs heavily, and continues. “Just do this for him. Listen to what he says. Do it willingly without your brothers restraining you. He needs this, Bink. He needs to show you this side of him. He wants to cleanse your relationship through bloodshed. This is how we work. Men work shit out with sex and their fists. Just suck it up, and it’ll all be over soon. I promise you.”

I say nothing further and let Gunz’s words percolate in my mind as I search out for a weapon. A weapon that I am personally choosing to have inflict pain on my beloved. Wow, that’s one thought I never thought I’d have to wrap my mind around. Fucked up isn’t it?

My eyes zone in on the brass knuckles, and I jerk my chin at them. “Those.”

Gunz releases me and grabs them off the table, rubs the dust off them using his pant leg, and slides off his two rings. He stuffs them into his jeans pocket before gliding on the brass knuckles and flexing them in his fist.

I picked them because there’s only one of them, and Gunz will have to use his own physical strength to inflict the punishment. Everything else seems too brutal.

Gunz kisses my cheek and gives my belly one final rub before I return to my corner, where my brothers are standing in uncomfortable silence. I glance over to see Big beaming at me with pride.

“Thank you,” he mutters adoringly.

I blush, turning away and find my rightful place between my brothers. This time they keep their hands at their sides. Or in Jizz’s case, tucked in the back pockets of his jeans, and he’s rocking on the back of his heels too. That is enough to tell me he’s extremely uncomfortable, nervous, or both. That’s always been my little brothers’ tell.

Quietly, Gunz shrugs off his cut and tugs his black tee over his head, laying them nicely on the table before approaching Big’s naked body. His boots scuff the concrete floor with each heavy step. It sends a shiver of unease up my spine and goose flesh to sprout down my exposed arms and shorts covered legs. The hairs on the back of my neck stand attention, just as my hands instinctively seek to cradle my daughter, centering myself.

Gunz makes two steady circles around Big and stops at his far side, leaving us a full view of his heavily tatted, muscled abs, pecs, and indented hips. My eyes drift over the both of them taking in the scene. Gunz’s jeans ride low, allowing the brim of his blue boxers to poke over the top. Unable to control myself, my eyes slide to Big and down to his heavy balls that hang under his long, fat, flaccid cock, as it dangles exposed between his slightly parted thighs.

Big must see where my attention is aimed because his cock jerks, stiffening a fraction, and he clears his throat with a rough cough. I break my eyes from his masculine beauty to focus on Gunz. He’s flexing fists at his sides.

“No face, no cock and balls, no kidneys,” Gunz rattles off.

“Game on, brother,” Big replies with a gravelly growl.

Loosening his shoulders by shaking them out, and cracking his neck from side to side, like a boxer, Gunz prepares himself. “I hit. You do what ya gotta do,” he states.

Both of my brothers move closer to me, boxing me in. I’m not sure if it’s for support or to hold me back. Neither of them touch me. They give me room to breathe, and for that I’m grateful. I’m already tense enough without them making it ten times worse.

Gunz stops moving, and somehow the air in the shed floods with my apprehension and Big’s raw need. I could almost cut it with a fork.

Cradling my belly, teeth clenched, heart racing, arms trembling, I hold onto our daughter for dear life, watching in slow agonizing motion as Gunz raises his adorned fist and brings it down, plowing into Big’s left pec. The sickening sound and sight of fist meeting hard flesh tears at my insides.

Big blows out a choked lungful of air as a small scream erupts in my mouth, and I wince, turning away, unable to watch the rest play out. This is too fucking much.

“I’m….sorry,” he wheezes, stops, takes a deep breath, and coughs raggedly before trying again. “I’m sorry for sleepin’ around…..with….all those… women. When I shoulda…only… been… sleepin’ with… you,” he staggers, voice raw with emotion.

“It’s over with,” I reassure him on a whisper, my eyes focused downward.

We can’t have this go on all day. I don’t know how many of those hits his body can take or how many I can withstand hearing and seeing. I’ve got to come up with something.
Fuck
… did you see his skin ripple like jelly under impact? Just the memory of it makes me shudder.

Moments pass, as I try to wrap my mind about what is actually happening. The room turns eerily quiet, giving me time. Or that’s what I think they’re doing. The only sound that reverberates between these walls is Big’s heavy breathing, mingled with the undertones of everyone else’s.

There’s only one decision to be made to get through this without falling apart. For the sake of coming clean to truly lay everything on the table to start fresh to let him prove himself, I’ve got to try and be strong..

I stand up straight and force myself to look at Big. Hesitantly, I take in his body from his sweat that’s made the edges of his loose hair cling to his forehead to the glassy look of his pained eyes. I look all the way down to….
I take a sharp breath
… his chest. It’s bright red and swollen where Gunz punched him. You can see the indentations of where the knuckles met his thick flesh. The blood underneath the skin has bubbled to the surface, and it looks painful.