CHAPTER 6
“How you boys doing?” Clint approached the man hanging from the chain, glancing at his buddy tied to the metal springs. “You don’t look so good.”
“Listen… please…” the chained man pleaded. “I-I’ll do anything, just please don’t do that”—he shot a wild-eyed look at his buddy—“to me. Please!”
Cochise circled behind him. “There isn’t a fucking thing you can do for us,” he snarled in his ear. “Except scream.” He punched the man in the kidneys, wrenching a strangled cry from him. The Egyptian huffed. “That was pathetic. But don’t worry, we know how to make a man scream properly.”
Cruz and Rodriguez were the only two left from Cruz’s men.
Sanchez and the others had taken the Durango to get rid of it so it would never be found.
Clint noticed Rodriguez staring at the wooden table where the toys and tools were laid out.
He was focused on one item. The scourge—handcrafted by Greco as a gift for Clint the night they captured Clint’s brother, Vincent…
the man who had come within an inch of killing Axel earlier that same night.
The young man shifted his eyes from the weapon and met Clint’s stare.
The boy’s memories of Greco remained vivid.
Clint knew from experience that such vivid memories brought unbearable pain, and that pain showed in Rodriguez’s eyes.
Clint felt the anguish as well; he had been by the young man’s side as he held his dying love in his arms, his screams still echoing in Clint’s head.
“I heard of an incident not too long ago,” Cruz said, his eyes drilling into the hanging guest. “Officers like you arrested a five-year-old Latino boy as he got off the bus, coming home from kindergarten. Took him away from his parents and sent him to another state, to a fucking detention center where he didn’t know anyone.
” Quiet rage darkened his eyes. “Does it make you fuckers feel tough to traumatize children?”
At the mention of the boy, Rodriguez came to attention. “My son is five.” His voice was low, barely audible at first, but Clint heard him loud and clear. The young man stepped forward, a look in his eye that would’ve chilled the devil himself. “You kidnapped a five-year-old child?”
“Not us!” the man cried. “We’d never do that to a child!”
“No,” Cochise spoke in a low, deadly voice. “You just rape them.”
“No! No!” the man shrieked, his throat bobbing frantically. “We’ve never raped a child! Never!”
The Egyptian flushed rage-red as he leaned in, his lips rippling against his teeth.
“You were going to rape my son. You think because he’s sixteen instead of six, that makes it better?
That it somehow means you’re not a fucking pedophile?
” He grabbed the man’s throat and squeezed until the guest’s eyes bulged in their sockets. “It doesn’t.”
The man gagged under Cochise’s grip, foamy drool bubbling at the corners of his mouth.
Cochise stared into his face and squeezed harder, the soft flesh around his clenching fingers turning red, then purple, the pressure bursting capillaries in the man’s eyes as they rolled back in his head.
Blood trickled from his nostrils, and the Egyptian released him moments before he lost consciousness.
The guest flopped forward, wheezing and gasping, sucking in air. Blood and drool ran down his chin, and watery tears streaked his flushed face.
Clint looked at the man strapped to the bedsprings, then back at the hanging guest. “Which of you hit my son?” He already knew the answer—Ash’s video had captured it all. But he asked anyway. “The thirteen-year-old boy.”
The man’s chest hitched with his frantic breaths. “H-He did! He hit him! I never touched him!”
Clint glanced at the other man, who was conscious enough to understand that he had been thrown under the bus.
“Fucking… liar…” he rasped. “I didn’t… touch him… It was… you!”
The cowboy exchanged dry looks with the Egyptian, Cruz, and Rodriguez: their guests bickered as if shifting blame could save their asses. It couldn’t. Both were guilty of unforgivable sins.
Dan seemed angry that Brad had passed the buck, as if Dan hadn’t thrown Brad under the bus on the highway. At this point, it was survival of the fittest—Dan could fucking fend for himself.
Brad had only one card left to play, and it might or might not benefit Dan as well, if it worked at all.
Brad had his doubts, but he had nothing left.
His throat hurt like a bitch after the big fucker strangled him—felt like he’d broken something in there—but Brad pushed the words out despite the pain. “They’ll come… looking for us.”
“What was that?” The cowboy stepped closer. He wasn’t quite as large as his companion, but he was no less scary or deadly.
Faltering, Brad worked up the courage to continue—out of sheer desperation to survive.
“We’re federal agents,” he rasped. “You can’t…
You can’t just disappear federal agents without repercussions.
Major repercussions.” He coughed, wincing as his throat clenched in pain.
“Let… Let us go now, and… and we’ll forget this ever happened. We can all… walk away.”
The cowboy stared at him in silence, then chuckled. The humor didn’t reach his jade eyes. “You hear that, boys?” he drawled. “These G-men are willing to walk away without having us arrested. Isn’t that generous of them?”
“Mighty generous,” the older spic replied dryly.
“Interesting.” The younger spic looked at Brad, his eyes pools of darkness. “That he believes he’s speaking from a position of authority.”
“Very interesting,” the cowboy muttered. “I wonder where he got that idea.” He stepped closer. “In case you missed my little convo with your buddy earlier—we’re not here to negotiate.”
Brad trembled. “They’ll come for us.” But would they?
Did he really believe it? Weren’t they all disposable “soldiers”—wasn’t everyone disposable to the man at the top?
They all knew it… But no one ever said it out loud, because as long as they “did their job” and stayed in line, the perks and rewards were great.
The big man moved behind Brad like a predator. “They won’t find you.” His breath was hot, his voice a snarl. “Because there won’t be anything left to find.” His attention shifted to the young spic. “These men are cut from the same rotten cloth as the one who shot Greco. Choose your weapon.”
Brad’s eyes darted to the young man as he walked to the wooden table. He didn’t hesitate, picking up what looked like a whip with many thin leather tails, each pierced with multiple nails and sharpened at both ends to fine points.
The spic turned and looked at the cowboy, gripping the weapon. The cowboy nodded once, his expression suggesting he wasn’t surprised by the young man’s choice.
The big man motioned him over. “Choose your victim.”
The spic looked at Brad, deadness in his eyes, then glanced at Dan. “Him.” He shifted back to Brad. “And I want this one to watch.”
“As you wish,” the large man said. “Try not to kill him. But if he dies…” He shrugged. “… he dies.”
Cochise and the other two men stepped back as Rodriguez approached the man tied to the metal springs. His arm hung at his side, tense, his fist clenching the handle of the scourge. His fingers flexed around the leather grip, squeezing and relaxing, his face a brittle landscape of rage and anguish.
The three men believed he saw the face of Greco’s killer on this man. It didn’t matter that Rodriguez had gutted the killer himself, and that he was dead and gone; to the young, heartbroken man, all these fuckers wore the same face.
“No…” the man whimpered, his head flopping back and forth. “Please… don’t…” Blubbering sobs broke in his throat. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
“I don’t accept your apology,” Rodriguez whispered, bringing up his arm.
He struck with precision and fury. The nails sank into the man’s flesh, biting deep, and when Rodriguez jerked his arm back, chunks of meat came with it.
The man screamed and thrashed, his midsection bouncing forcefully against the springs.
Rodriguez whipped the scourge up and back for another swing, flinging blood and bits of flesh all over the hanging guest, who turned his face away, jaw clenched, eyes squeezed shut.
Clint grabbed the man’s jaw and forced his head back. “Open your fucking eyes and watch, asshole,” he hissed. “Or I’ll cut off your goddamn eyelids.”
His chest heaving violently, the guest opened his eyes in time to see Rodriguez slash into the other man a second time.
The tails of the scourge caught his victim on the upper arm and ripped off half his bicep in a single clump.
Blood splattered the young Spaniard’s face and chest. He didn’t flinch.
The metal springs creaked and protested as the man convulsed, his screams muffled as he began to gag on his pain.
The hanging guest choked on his horror, head shaking, tears flowing.
Cochise watched him; his trauma wasn’t a result of his buddy’s suffering—but of the reality that he was next.
Brad couldn’t breathe as his throat and chest tightened with ungodly pressure. He wanted to shut his eyes, but he was too terrified to call the cowboy’s bluff. The cowboy wasn’t bluffing—he would fucking cut off Brad’s eyelids if Brad closed them again.
Dan’s blood and specks of his flesh clung to Brad’s face, neck, and chest. More of “Dan” flung back against Brad with each backward swing of the spic’s arm.
Brad’s screams began to form words. “Stop! Stop! Make him stooop!!”
The other three men stood still and silent, with no intention of stopping the slaughter.
Brad shrieked in horror when one of the whip’s tails caught on Dan’s cock and ripped it off his body.
The skinned organ detached from the nails and plopped wetly between Brad’s feet.
“No-no-no!!” Brad screamed hysterically and kicked wildly at the severed member, his feet slipping on the bloody concrete. “Get it away! Get it away!”
His vision blurred and darkened at the edges. Let me pass out—please let me pass out! His mind slid toward the darkness when he was suddenly brought back by a splash of icy water flung against his chest and face.
“Huuhh!!” Brad sucked for air as the freezing water stalled his system and went up his nostrils. He coughed violently as the liquid went down his windpipe.
“Don’t want to fall asleep now,” the cowboy drawled, gripping a metal bucket. “The fun’s just beginning.” His mouth twitched. “And we all know how much you boys like to have fun.”
Brad watched in stark horror as the cowboy scooped up another bucket of water from a large blue barrel next to the wooden table and walked over to Dan—barely coherent—and splashed him in the face.
Somehow, Dan came back to consciousness… and that was the most frightening thing of all.