Chapter 11 Cal
CAL
Itake the pipe leaning in the corner of the warehouse and hit Keller Summerton in the left kneecap. Bolton rips it out of my hand and before I can stop him, he swings it like a baseball bat into his right one. He howls, thrashing around like a fish on a line.
“What? I said I’m in,” Bolton quips. My ride or die baby, always ready to get to work.
“Are you sure? If you go down this road with me, you’re an accomplice. You’ll break the law, and your hands will be dirty.” I need him to understand the weight of his decisions.
“If we get caught, I’ll blame you and say you made me do it. I’m just an innocent young man who was enthralled by his much older, sinister husband,” he replies with enough sweetness that I’m not sure if he’s joking or not.
“You bastard,” Keller breathes, his voice sounding like sandpaper. “Fuck you both!”
“You couldn’t handle us, pervert,” Bolton snipes. “Tell me everything you know, or else I’m going to make you wish my husband had slit your throat days ago. Or he can drown you. He has options.”
There are quite a few deaths left to choose from in his backlist, but I’ll worry about that later.
I’m interested in how Bolton will get answers out of him, especially because none of my methods worked.
Keller spits at him, his saliva landing on the floor between them.
A wicked laugh rips from deep within his belly, and I'm awestruck by how sexy evil Bolton is.
“Hunny, I like being spit on. Try again.” He lifts Keller’s blood soaked shirt, exposing his beer gut. He dips the pipe in a cold bucket of water before whacking it right into his stomach. The slapping sound rings through the warehouse, and Keller screams.
“Stop him!” he begs me.
“I’d never deprive my husband of his fun,” I drawl, leaning against the wall. May as well settle in for the show.
Bolton does it three more times, leaving deep welts in his stomach. Then he takes the pocketknife from me and flips it in his hands. Show off.
“Keller, you’re disgusting. Covered in blood and reeking of your own piss.” Bolton throws the bucket of water on him, and he convulses. “I’ll start by shaving your head. I’m pretty sure I can get close to the scalp with a pocket knife. Or should I start with your nails?”
He picks up Keller’s left ring finger and digs the tip of the knife into the cuticle, moving in a circular motion to slice the nail off. Blood drips to the floor, and he does the same thing to his other hand.
“Fuck. You.” Keller cries, but doesn’t break. He tries to kick Bolton, but he catches his foot with his free hand, then pockets his bloody knife.
“I forgot about your feet. Men rarely take care of themselves.” He takes his shoe and sock off, wrinkling his nose. “Yeah, these are disgusting. The smell…the calluses. They need to go.”
Bolton shocks me as he takes the knife out of his pocket and saws off Keller’s pinky toe, without a grimace or care. Like this is an average night for him. Fuck me, he does it with a cruel smile on his face. Maybe I underestimated how dark he is.
Keller shouts, begging Bolton to stop. But he waves him off and removes two more toes. I didn’t even think about this level of micro-torture and went right for beating him within an inch of his life.
Bolton is a natural at this.
“Keller, this stops when you give us information. I don’t care if you run out of toes, fingernails, and fingers. I’ll slice your eyelids off. I’ll Van Gogh your ears. I’ll pretend to be a dentist and pull your veneers right off your teeth.” Keller pisses his pants, and Bolton sighs.
“Really, Keller?” I ask. “I haven’t given you water in days, how do you even have piss left?”
“Look, short of cutting out your tongue and breaking your jaw, the sky is the limit.” Bolton seems way too pleased with himself at this realization.
He gets to work, rotating between removing his toes, slicing his fingernails off, and then removing the nailless fingers.
He’s humming something familiar, and I realize it’s “Santa Baby”, his favorite Christmas song.
A song he’s used for Christmas lap dances and other sexy holiday fun.
It’s a battle not to get hard as a rock thinking of how he’s used the song in the past. That he’s smiling like a lunatic as he carved this fucker up only adds to his allure.
I push my fist into my cock, willing it to stand down.
Keller folds like a lawn chair about fifteen minutes into Bolton’s torture session.
“STOP!” he cries. “I’ll tell you everything. Please!”
“Go on,” Bolton says as he continues to cut a finger off at the first knuckle. “I’ll stop if I like what you say.”
“Our network is huge,” he starts, his voice barely audible. “In New York, New Jersey, Connecticut. You’ll never stop us. Too powerful.”
Bolton pops a fingernail off, then shoves it in one of Keller’s wounds. “Keep going, fucker. Who runs your operation?”
I assumed it was Bawdin, but now I’m not so sure.
“Maurice Melton,” he rasps. I’ve never heard the name before. “He’s in the Bronx.”
“Where? You need to give me more detail, and then I stop.” Bolton poises the knife at Keller’s wrist.
“He runs a strip club on Penrose Street. Start in the basement.”
Bolton looks at me, and without words, I understand what he wants. I research the information on my phone, and it checks out. Maurice Melton owns and operates multiple gentlemen’s clubs throughout the city, including a place called Split on Penrose Street. I give him the thumbs-up.
He passes me the knife and takes a seat on the floor. “I’m done with him. Do whatever you want.”
I thought I’d have to argue with him for the kill. Torturing someone is one thing—killing them is an entirely different thing. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t want my husband to have someone’s life on his conscience.
“Hmmm,” I muse. “Drowning him is too much work. You tired me out, lightning bolt. Maybe I can slit his throat?”
“You did that already,” he reminds me. “Burn him alive! No, chop him into pieces and feed him to his family!”
How bloodthirsty my lightning bolt can be.
“Wait!” Keller screams. “I told you what you wanted to know. Please make it quick. Don’t let me suffer.”
I punch him in the face, hearing a satisfying crunch as his head flies back. “How dare you ask for mercy! Did you watch my sister suffer? Did you stand by while Bawdin beat her? While he made her do unspeakable things? Did you join in?!”
Keller looks to the ground, and it’s all the confirmation I needed.
“What a piece of shit,” Bolton marvels. “You know, hun, if you cut someone in the stomach the right way, it takes a while for them to bleed out. He’ll feel everything until the blood loss makes him go into shock.”
“What a great idea. Just the death this fucker needs.”
“Being a writer comes in handy sometimes,” Bolton quips. He instructs me on where to cut him and how deep to maximize his suffering.
Watching him die didn’t give me the satisfaction I thought it would. If anything, it made me feel empty. Eloise is still gone. There are still bad, horrible people in the world. Women just like her are still suffering. Killing Bawdin, DiMuzio, and the Summerton brothers doesn’t erase those facts.
Bolton wraps his arms around me, giving me support I didn’t know I needed.
As if he’s reading my mind, he says, “Tomorrow, we’ll get started on finding the rest of these sickos tomorrow.
Let’s clean this place up and go home. We can cuddle and watch something fun. I hear there’s a new gay hockey show.”
“Sounds great, baby.” Bolton and I love hockey. I love it because I’m a fan of the sport, and he loves it because he enjoys watching the players beat each other up.
“How are we going to clean this up?” He scans the room, taking in all the bloodstains and the dead body hanging from the meat hook.
“I own this warehouse through multiple shell companies. We’ll throw the body into the river, so the water takes care of any evidence. Then a few days later, we can burn this place down just to be safe.” I don’t want there to be any chances of Bolton being implicated in this.
“Sounds good, daddy,” he quips, winking at me. “Look at us, a vigilante husband duo. Taking out trash the city can’t bother with.”
I kiss him on the cheek, sighing.
“Maybe when we get home, I can show you some pictures of Eloise?” I haven’t looked at them in ages, mostly out of shame. I should have done more to help her. But with Bolton, I feel like I could at least try.
“I’d love to. Let’s go home.”
I didn’t want Bolton involved, but I can’t deny he has a knack for this. And there’s no one else I’d want by my side. Everything is better with him. We’ll find out who Bawdin worked for and take them down.
Because with my husband, anything is possible.