CHAPTER 14
Chaz wasn’t getting out of this alive. He looked at the cowboy, who was fixated on him with that “lie-detecting” stare.
“It… It wasn’t Lazarus,” Chaz said, swallowing anxiously around the blade at his throat. “He didn’t know anything about it.”
“Why did you say it was him if it wasn’t?” Clint asked, his voice brittle. “Were you just trying to stir shit up for Lazarus? Get me to go after him?” He twisted the knife harder, and Chaz’s Adam’s apple quivered and bobbed. “Tell me.”
He was barely holding back from plunging the knife into Chaz’s neck, so it was vital that Chaz choose his words carefully. “No.” He swallowed hard. “I-I wasn’t trying to stir up shit. I wouldn’t do that. I like Lazarus.”
“That’s one,” the cowboy growled low.
Chaz’s eyes flickered wildly. Lie number one. He was lying about liking Lazarus. How many lies would the cowboy allow before he took Chaz’s tongue?
“O-Okay,” Chaz backpedaled. “Maybe I don’t like the man, but I wouldn’t try to stir up shit for him.” The truth. “I’m not that stupid.” True? Eh, iffy. Chaz wasn’t always the sharpest tool in the shed; he could admit it.
The cowboy leaned closer. “That remains to be seen.” Something popped beneath the blade’s tip as he drove it deeper.
Was there anything that would prevent him from ultimately butchering Chaz?
Why the fuck did he even care about some random drive-by shooting?
What the fuck did it have to do with him?
Whatever the reason, Chaz’s fucking life was on the line, so he’d better come up with something to placate the fucker. The problem was—he didn’t know what the fuck the cowboy wanted from him.
This wasn’t Clint’s first rodeo. He’d been through this shit before, time and again. The bastard tied to the chair would string together whatever bullshit he could, hoping to save his worthless ass—like all the others before him. But nothing would save him now.
Clint’s mind drifted briefly to the families suffering the worst fallout from this shitshow.
Families who should never have been touched by any of it.
He thought about Axel and that life-changing moment on the street when the boy was run down right in front of him.
Experiencing the horror up close altered a person.
Clint’s gaze returned to the man in the chair. Because of this fucker right here, Axel would never be the same again—another innocent piece of him ripped out. And Clint had no intention of letting that go unpunished. No one fucked with Axel and walked away.
Chaz’s mind spun like a hamster wheel. Proving he wasn’t among the smartest humans on the planet, he hadn’t considered what he’d do if things went sideways.
It wouldn’t have gone sideways if not for that goddamn KID.
He’d meant to take out all three of the fuckers, but the kid got in the way, fucking up his element of surprise.
I hope you died, you little fucker. He deserved it for fucking up their plans.
Because the other two bastards lived, they were able to identify Chaz and Helio, which got them in deep shit with Lazarus—and got Helio killed.
His chest pinched for a split second as he grieved his friend and lover.
Then the knife grinding into his neck brought him back, and he knew that if he didn’t think of something to save his ass, he’d be joining Helio.
Only his “exit” wouldn’t be nearly as quick and painless as Helio’s.
“Play it through for me,” the cowboy said, a brittle tone to his southern brogue. “The shooting. How did it go down? Who were you targeting?”
Chaz swallowed hard. “A… A guy everyone called Soomy. You-You know, like, sue me. ‘Cause that’s what he’d always say to people, sarcastic like – ‘So sue me.’ He double-crossed my partner and me, owed us money he didn’t want to pay.
” Chaz swallowed again. “I-I was gonna take out his two friends, too—because they were there on the street with him—but Soomy was the target.”
“Did you take them out?”
Chaz’s teeth started to chatter from the bitter chill in the torture chamber—and the ungodly terror surging through his system. “I-I got Soomy, but not the others.”
“Why?”
“Because…” He shivered hard. “Because some fucking kid got in the way and fucked up my shots.”
Something ominous shifted behind the cowboy’s eyes. “What happened to the kid?”
“The kid?” Chaz blurted with blunt annoyance. “Who fucking cares about that goddamn kid? He fucked everything up. Fuck him, I hope he fucking died.”
Clint looked at Cochise, who stood behind the shooter. The Egyptian nodded once. Clint dropped his knife hand into the shooter’s crotch and jabbed the blade into his scrotum.
“Huh!” the man clawed at the armrests, his spine snapping straight and rigid. His neck cords popped as he drew in deep, quick breaths, his bloodshot eyes bulging.
“What did you say?” Clint hissed, pressing the blade’s tip into one of his balls.
The shooter gasped, pressing against the armrests to lift himself away from the blade. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“I-I—”
“You hope he fucking died?” Clint stabbed one testicle. The shooter screamed, his hips convulsing as blood spilled between his thighs and dripped off the edge of the seat, splattering the cement floor. “Is that what you said?” He pressed the blade tip into his other nut. “Is it?”
The man gagged on the pain, his knuckles bone white as he clutched the chair.
The balls of his feet dug into the cold floor; his toes curled so tightly the tendons stood out.
Air surged through his throat in ragged, uneven gasps as he tried to speak.
“Huh… huh… I-I… huh… I… don’t… huh… huh…
” Tears ran down his bruised face, splotched with heat. He seemed to be trying to answer.
Not fast enough.
Clint punctured the other testicle. The shooter let out a shrill scream, and his lower half jerked wildly in the charred seat. Gurgling sounds bubbled in his throat as foamy spit gathered on his lips.
Leaning in, Clint bared his teeth. “Say it, or I will cut off your fucking cock!”
“I don’t… huh-huh-huh… I-I… huh-huh… yes… huh-huh… I-I said I hope … Huuuh-huhh… he dies.”
Clint stood slowly as the tightness took hold—razor wire twisting his gut.
The shooter writhed in pain, his breath hitching and faltering in his throat as tears streaked his face.
Clint looked at him, feeling nothing as his mind echoed with the cries and screams of two mothers and the image of the traumatized older brother…
and the broken father… haunted him. Ordinary people living ordinary lives—until this fucker destroyed it all. And for what—fucking drug money?
Clint gritted his teeth and shoved the blade against the captive’s throat. Cochise grabbed a fistful of the shooter’s hair and yanked his head back, exposing his throat. The blade’s tip pressed into the soft flesh beneath the crook of his jaw. “He did.”
Chaz didn’t account for any of this. How could he have? Why would he have ever thought a drive-by would ultimately place him under the cowboy’s knife? It wasn’t even conceivable—even with all things that could have gone wrong, this would have never even crossed his fucking mind.
Why was he asking about the fucking kid?
What if it was HIS kid—what if you killed the COWBOY’S kid?!
He tried to form the words to hurriedly backpedal, but the pain exploding from his ruptured nuts had webbed through every fucking crevice of his body.
His body was shaking, and breathing became a conscious effort.
Trying to think was impossible as all the “pain synapses” in his brain were firing off, and he couldn’t focus on anything else.
“Does that make you happy?” The cowboy dug the tip of the blade into his throat. Chaz felt that.
His throat worked with an erratic hitch, bobbing against the knife blade.
His jaw clenched as a violent spasm of pain ripped through his groin.
Chaz gulped down his pain, wheezing heavily.
“I-I… no… I didn’t mean...” Cold sweat sprouted over his body, beads rolling down his face and blending with his tears.
“I-I didn’t mean to...” He gulped a couple of more times.
Chaz squeezed his eyes shut, trying to breathe.
The cowboy leaned back slightly, though the blade stayed flush against Chaz’s throat. “You didn’t mean to what?”
Chaz swallowed hard as the tip of the blade dug in harder. “Shoot… the kid…”
“You didn’t seem too sad about it a moment ago,” the cowboy reminded with brittle clarity. “When you said you hoped he fucking died.”
Chaz coughed, and a surge of pain exploded through him. “I didn’t… mean it.” Chaz wheezed, terrified yet still feeling the irritation with the kid. All this was about him? That fucking little cunt—
“That’s two,” the cowboy said.