CHAPTER 8
“The little miss finally crash out?” Kane took a seat on the back porch steps beside Axel.
“Yeah.” Axel smiled small. “I think the tension was upsetting her. Once everything calmed down, she relaxed as well.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and gazed out across the spacious backyard shared by both houses.
“Are you okay?” Kane asked.
Sighing, Axel ducked his head, rubbing his eyes. “Has Cochise said anything to you about their plans?”
“Maybe. Which plans do you mean?”
Axel straightened. “With everything that’s happened in the last few months, Clint feels like…
” He sighed again. “… like they’ve let down their guard, left themselves and their families vulnerable to threats.
” Axel looked at Kane. “He wants to rebuild the Sanitini family, get back to what they were when Nathan was running things. He said that back then, no one would’ve fucked with them—wouldn’t have dared abduct or harm their kids. ”
“Cochise has mentioned something to that effect,” Kane murmured. “In passing.”
“The thing is…” Axel leaned forward, his heart pinching.
“I think there’s a part of Clint that just wants to be a normal, domesticated dad—backyard barbecues, birthday parties, playing with his kids.
” He swallowed thickly. “No worries about someone with a grudge—or anyone from the past—showing up to wreak havoc in his life. But he and Cochise… they’ve been too long in that world.
They can’t ever be just normal family men.
” Axel sniffed as tears stung his eyes. “No matter how much they want to be.”
“I know,” Kane whispered. “But sometimes I feel like Cochise thinks I expect that of him, eventually.” He shook his head.
“I don’t. Because of my brother, I’d always hated the gangster world.
When I met Cochise, I pushed him away emotionally because I didn’t want to get involved with someone from that world.
More than anything, I feared falling in love with him, then having that world take him away from me forever.
It took my brother and left Zoe an orphan.
” Kane blinked. “If I hadn’t been there to take her in, who knows what would have happened to her?
” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t want her to lose another father, and I didn’t want to lose…
the man I loved.” Kane rubbed his mouth and leaned forward.
“But you can’t fight the heart.” He smiled through a light glaze of tears. “But I don’t have to tell you that.”
Axel laughed softly. “No. I’m fully aware. Trying to resist that cowboy was futile from the start.”
“Futile for him, too,” Kane murmured.
“And Cochise. According to Clint, he had convinced himself you were the last thing he needed or wanted. When in truth…” Axel smiled and gestured at the house and yard.
“Thank God,” Kane chuckled quietly. He exhaled slowly.
“We both know we have to accept these men for who they are. And to be honest…” Kane let out another breath.
“I feel safer with them being who they are. Not all the threats come from their world. Tae wasn’t grabbed by a gangster with a grudge.
The ones who tried to abduct Jules, Rueben, and the twins weren’t from that world, either.
Those were real-world threats that everyone is vulnerable to. ”
Axel nodded. “If Clint and Cochise were normal, domesticated men,” he said quietly, “they wouldn’t have gone after those ICE agents; they would’ve tried to go through legal channels to get him back. By then, it would’ve been too late. Those agents would have assaulted Tae, maybe even…”
“Because of who they are,” Kane whispered. “Tae is home safe. And scores of other kids—including Luke—have been rescued from horrific situations.”
Axel was quiet for a moment, then murmured, “Whatever Clint wants to do, I’ll support him.
If re-enforcing the Sanitini family is what he needs to do to keep his family safe, then I won’t ask him not to.
Me, personally? I think it’s a good idea.
He wants an official alliance with the Santiago family. They’ve already spoken to Cruz.”
Kane sighed and nodded. “I’ll support their decision.
Cochise and Clint are men who need to know they can keep their families safe.
It’s a part of their DNA. Feeling open and vulnerable is not an option for them.
And I can understand that. I want my family safe, too.
I want to know that if someone comes after our kids—we have men who will go after them. ”
“Maybe Cochise needs to hear that.”
“He has,” Kane whispered. “But perhaps I need to make it clearer.”
Axel smiled. “Perhaps you do.”
Brad had no fight left in him when the men dragged him—lower legs dangling uselessly and smearing blood across the concrete—to the mounted bedsprings, the coils stained with Dan’s blood and clinging bits of his cooked flesh.
The wires cutting through his wrists were clipped and unraveled from his bleeding, bruised flesh. The agony was superseded by the pain screaming through his legs and up into his groin.
His head lolled listlessly as the men pinned him against the springs and wired his wrists and ankles to the coils, spread-eagled.
To Brad’s horrific dismay, he remained just conscious enough to be aware of what was happening.
Though ungodly pain surged through his legs, his full focus was pulled to his groin region when someone grabbed his cock and wired the tip to the coils.
“No…” he slurred, eyes puffy and leaking tears. “… don’t… please… my family…”
Brad gagged when a hand gripped his throat and squeezed.
The cowboy’s huge friend shoved his face close to Brad’s.
“I don’t give a fuck about your family,” he hissed.
“We’re not the good guys.” His voice turned to a snarl.
“We’re not fucking heroes. The only ones that matter are mine.
I’ll burn the whole fucking world to protect my own.
” He leaned closer, his breath scalding Brad’s ear.
“And I don’t give a fuck who I have to sacrifice. ”
The man stepped back, releasing his grip on Brad’s throat. Brad coughed desperately, gasping for air, before a wave of pain shot up from his legs, making it harder to breathe. Despite his suffering, he sensed things were about to get a hell of a lot worse.
The large man, who looked like he might be from one of those towel-head countries, looked at the two spics. “Bring me the knife.”
The younger spic approached the table, picked up the item, and brought it to the man.
In some indistinct corner of Brad’s mind that somehow functioned on its own, he imagined what a haul it would’ve been if he and Dan had brought in all these filthy immigrants—especially the gigantic Muslim fucker; he would have been a prize worth gloating over.
A sharp smack to the face brought Brad back to the moment. The towel-head was in his face again. “Still with us, fucker?”
Brad desperately wanted to spit in his face, but he didn’t even have enough strength to work up a good loogie, even though plenty of foamy saliva filled his mouth and dribbled down his chin.
“Fuckers like you have targeted our kids and abused them too many fucking times.” His stern face was too close, and Brad watched the muscles pop as his jaw clenched.
“It stops now.” He raised the small knife and ran his thumb along the thin blade.
Brad wasn’t a knife expert, but he’d been fishing enough to recognize a flaying knife.
The one they used to skin Dan’s cock.
Now it was Brad’s turn.
His head flopped to the side, and a stuttered sob broke in his throat. “No… please…” It was all he could say at this point; he had no argument they would accept.
“I told you…” the man snarled in Brad’s face. “… men who use their dicks as a weapon lose their privilege to have a dick.”
The cowboy, who had wired Brad’s cock to the springs, stepped out of the way, making room for the towel-head to take a knee before Brad.
A surge of strength from an unknown source tore through Brad.
He thrashed his hips and fought the wire securing his wrists.
“No! No! Nooo!!” His shrill screams ricocheted off the impenetrable brick walls and fell heavily to the floor, dying in the confined space.
Grabbing more wire, the cowboy wrapped it around Brad’s waist and hips, pinning him tightly to the springs. Every movement after that sliced the thin wire into his flesh.
“Please don’t…” he whimpered, his words blubbering off his wet lips. “Please… I won’t ever hurt anyone again… I swear… I SWEAR!! PLEASE!! GOD!!”
“God don’t listen to child fuckers,” the big man muttered as he touched the tip of the razor-sharp blade to the top of Brad’s dick at the root.
“PLEEAASE!! NOOO!!”
The knife bit into the soft skin, just breaking the surface. With a surgeon’s precision, the man sliced open the “sheath” down to the tip of Brad’s shaft. The pain somehow surpassed that of his blown-out knees, and he screamed.
The men watching the “operation” didn’t flinch—neither at what they were witnessing nor at Brad’s cries, which escalated when the blade severed the sheath from the head, and the man began peeling it away from the muscle.
Instead of making Brad’s member shrink, the pain sensors in his cock caused it to stiffen slightly, which made the surgical process more effective.
“Stop… please stop!” His head thrashed back and forth. “Don’t! Please don’t! It HURTS!! STOOOP!!”
“It’s supposed to hurt, dumbass,” the young spic mumbled, his tone ice cold.
The cowboy walked closer. “How many times did your victims beg you to stop because you were hurting them?” When Brad opened his mouth—whether to answer or to scream, he didn’t know—the cowboy backhanded him, slamming his head against the springs and ripping his cheek on the coils. “That was rhetorical, motherfucker.”
Brad squeezed his eyes shut as hot tears streamed down his face. Blood wet the coils beneath his cheek, but he barely felt the sting of the wound as the cowboy’s friend peeled his cock like a kid dissecting a frog in science class.
Just let it be over—please, God, just let it be over!
The big man’s words rippled through his mind: God don’t listen to child fuckers.
But God was on his side—on the side of those in power—not these filthy pagan heathens. That was the consensus in Brad’s circle and higher up.
Does it look like He’s on your side now?!
Brad’s insides quivered and shook, triggering revulsion throughout his body. He couldn’t stop it and retched again, but only a thick, disgusting coating of bile came up, which didn’t make it past the back of his tongue and made him retch even harder, grinding his gut into excruciating knots.
He felt the skin of his dick pulling back from the main muscle, fibers tearing, the thin blade slicing through those clinging veins and vessels. Brad’s breath was wild and ragged, heaving his chest so hard it caused a pressurized pain to surge through his chest cavity.
Let me have a heart attack! Just make it stop!
His heart kept beating.
It didn’t stop.
Cochise stood, wiped the thin blade on his jeans, and stepped back.
He looked at Clint. The cowboy nodded, took the small knife, and returned to the table, replacing the blade with the other tools.
He sank to his heels beside the table, reached into a small wooden crate beneath it, grabbed the items inside, then crossed the floor to the Egyptian, who took the thick, protective gloves and pulled them on. Clint handed over the second item.
Crus and Rodriguez moved in closer, curious.
The guest’s eyes were clamped shut again, his stomach still lurching slightly.
“Open your eyes,” Cochise said, his voice low.
The captive choked on sobs and shook his head.
“Open your fucking eyes, or I’ll chop up your cock and make you eat it, piece by piece.”
Whimpers bubbled from the man, and he opened his eyes a crack.
Cochise held up the item Clint had given him: a medium-sized jar of clear liquid. The guest’s eyes opened wider. “Wh-Wh-What is that?”
Looking at the jar, Cochise said, “Some old school stuff my dad used back in the day on those who really deserved to suffer.” The Egyptian stepped closer, and the guest flinched. “Wretches like you.”
“Wh-What is it?” the man cried. “What the fuck is it?!”
Cochise carefully removed the jar lid. “Some truly nasty shit.” His mouth twitched.
“No-no-no!” the guest choked on a renewed surge of panic. “No, don’t! Don’t! No!”
Leaning in, Cochise growled in his face, “Fuck you.” He held the jar just above the man’s flayed cock and tilted the container as the liquid flowed toward the opening.
“No! NO! God DON’T!! Please DON’T—” His cries twisted into screams as the liquid spilled from the jar in a thin stream and splashed onto his skinned member.
The flesh bubbled and sizzled, the acid burning through the muscle.
The man shrieked, whipping his head from side to side as foamy spit spewed from his mouth. His body convulsed and thrashed against the springs, heedless of the wires grinding into his skin.
Cochise continued to dribble the acid over his cock until most of it had melted away, oozing through the coils in grotesque droplets of dissolved flesh.
The two Spaniards were slightly shocked but impressed by the old-school creativity.
The guest’s convulsions tapered off, an occasional spasm twisting through his body as his screams turned into gagging, bubbly sounds in his throat. Heavy, foamy saliva spilled over his lips and down his chin, draining onto his chest. The man’s eyes glazed and rolled in his head.
But he wasn’t quite gone.
Not just yet.
Cochise grabbed the man’s face, his gloved fingers digging into his jaw. “You still there, motherfucker?” He squeezed until the man flinched and his eyes focused, tears flooding out. “You put your hands on my son. You tried to rape him. Your dick learned its lesson. Now, it’s your hands’ turn.”
“No…” the man protested weakly, barely audible.
“No one put their hands on my kids,” Cochise hissed in his face.
He drew back and lifted the jar, pouring the contents over the man’s right hand, then his left, the flesh immediately melting away from the bone.
He moved back as the guest found his voice again, his shrill screams bouncing around the guest room with no means of escape.
Cochise took a couple more steps back—then threw the remainder of the acid onto their guest, the deadly liquid splashing his chest and up into his face.
The four gangsters stood side by side, watching the pedophile’s skin and muscle melt away from his skeleton, the last of his screams dying out as his throat dissolved into an oozing flow of waxy flesh.
Rodriguez nodded, unfazed by the gory scene, and whispered, “Nice touch, big guy.”