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Content Warning - Age Rating: 21+
This scene contains extreme graphic violence, torture, blood, gore, psychological terror, and dark themes. It is intended for mature audiences only.

The Greystone warehouse crouched like a rusted beast on twenty-five acres of forgotten Florida scrubland, twenty-five minutes from the manor’s iron gates. No roads led here anymore. Just tire tracks through weeds and the distant echo of fairground music carried on the night wind, a mocking reminder that normal people were still laughing under strings of colored lights.

Inside, the air reeked of diesel, old blood, and wet concrete. A single hanging bulb swung above a metal chair bolted to the floor. Vargo was already strapped into it: wrists, ankles, throat. Thick zip-ties biting deep enough to draw beads of red. His left eye was swollen shut from the earlier takedown, but the right one burned with feral defiance. Gunner stepped out of the shadows, rolling up the sleeves of his black dress shirt. Blood from the border skirmish still speckled his knuckles. He didn’t speak at first. Just walked a slow circle around the chair, boots crunching on broken glass and dried rat shit.

“You’ve got a nose on you, tracker,” Gunner finally said, voice low and flat. “Smelled a woman with hair like copper flame the second she crossed state lines. Rogue alpha sent his best dog after her. That’s you, right?”

Vargo spat a glob of bloody mucus that landed near Gunner’s boot. “Fuck you, Greystone. You think you can keep her from him? He’ll tear this whole territory apart—” Gunner’s fist slammed into Vargo’s mouth. Teeth cracked. Two of them skittered across the concrete like dice. “Wrong answer.”

He grabbed a rusted toolbox from a nearby crate, flipped it open. Inside: pliers, a blowtorch, a cordless drill with a quarter-inch bit, and a set of silver-coated scalpels that gleamed under the swinging light. Gunner selected the pliers first. Vargo laughed through the blood pouring down his chin. “You think this scares me? I’ve been skinned before. I heal.”

Gunner smiled. It wasn’t pleasant. “Good. Means we can take our time.”

He clamped the pliers around Vargo’s left pinky nail and ripped it off in one clean yank. The tracker howled, body jerking against the restraints. Gunner moved to the next finger. Another nail. Another scream. By the fifth finger, Vargo’s voice had gone hoarse.

“Name,” Gunner said calmly, wiping the bloody pliers on Vargo’s torn shirt. “The rogue alpha. His pack. Where he’s holed up.”

Vargo’s head lolled, breath coming in wet gasps. “You’ll never… touch her. She’s his. Scent-marked the second she—agh!”

Gunner drove the pliers into Vargo’s thigh, twisting the metal deep into muscle until it scraped bone. Blood jetted out in rhythmic pulses, soaking the tracker’s jeans black. “Keep talking about her like property and I’ll start taking pieces you can’t grow back.”

He dropped the pliers, picked up the cordless drill. The high whine filled the warehouse as Gunner pressed the spinning bit against Vargo’s left kneecap. Metal met bone with a sickening crunch. Vargo’s scream climbed into something animal, throat ripping raw. The drill bit sank deeper, chewing through cartilage and ligament, spraying fine red mist across Gunner’s shirt. When he finally pulled it out, Vargo’s leg was twitching uncontrollably, the kneecap shattered into pulp.

Gunner leaned in close enough to smell the fear-sweat and copper on the man’s breath. “She crossed into my territory. That makes her mine to protect. You tell me where your alpha is, and maybe I let you die with both eyes.”

Vargo’s remaining eye rolled wildly. Blood bubbled from his split lips. “He’ll… kill you all… for her. That hair… that scent… he’s obsessed. Sent me… fairground border… said she’d run there…” 

Gunner straightened. He took the blowtorch next. The blue flame hissed to life. He ran it slowly up Vargo’s bare arm, skin blistering and peeling away in blackened curls. The smell of cooked meat filled the warehouse. Vargo thrashed so hard the chair legs screeched against concrete, one zip-tie snapping at the wrist. Fresh blood poured from the torn skin.

“Last chance,” Gunner said over the screams. “Coordinates. Safehouses. How many wolves he’s got in my city.”

Vargo’s head snapped back, veins bulging in his neck. Through the agony he snarled, “Third… warehouse district… south docks… he’s got thirty… waiting… for her copper hair… says she smells like—”

Gunner shoved the lit blowtorch straight into Vargo’s open mouth. The screams cut off into a wet, gurgling shriek as flame filled his throat. Smoke poured from his nostrils. His body convulsed violently, heels drumming the floor, urine and blood pooling beneath the chair. Gunner held it there for a long ten seconds, then yanked it free. Vargo’s mouth was a ruined black crater, teeth fused together, tongue a shriveled lump. He was still alive, barely, eyes wide with shock and pain. Gunner dropped the torch and crouched, grabbing the tracker’s jaw with one bloody hand, forcing what was left of the man’s face up.

“You should’ve stayed out of Greystone territory,” he whispered. “Tell your alpha in hell that the woman with the copper-flame hair belongs to me now.”

He drew a silver knife from his belt and slit Vargo’s throat in one clean motion. Arterial blood sprayed in a wide arc, painting the concrete and the hanging bulb. The tracker jerked once, twice, then sagged, eyes glazing over. Gunner stood, wiped the blade on Vargo’s ruined shirt, and looked down at the steaming, broken body. 

“Clean this up,” he called into the shadows. Two of his men stepped forward with black body bags and hoses. Outside, the distant fairground music played on, cheerful and oblivious, while inside the warehouse the smell of charred wolf and spilled blood settled thick over the concrete.

The hunt for the copper-haired woman had only just begun.