It wouldn’t.
I looked to Alphabet. “Give me the other one.”
Alphabet’s eyes lit with something like professional pride. He set the tablet aside and reached into the kit we’d scattered across the workbench. What he lifted wasn’t a collar. It wasn’t even finished-looking—more wires, more exposed metal, the kind of improvised cruelty that only brilliant problem-solvers under pressure could fabricate.
“This one,” Alphabet said, handing it to me with a respectful nod, “is designed for… alternative placement.” He demonstrated by creating a loop out of the cabling then miming how to close it. It would work quite well if we tied it around his balls.
Ignacio’s breath froze. Completely froze.
Grace’s eyes didn’t move from Ignacio—not once.
I weighed the device in my hand. Cold metal. Coiled wiring. More intimate points of contact. More targeted pain.
“It’s going to hurt,” I told him plainly. “A lot more than the collar.”
Ignacio’s pulse hammered visibly in his throat. “No—no, please—wait, wait?—”
“We are,” I said, perfectly patient. “For a name.”
He shook his head violently, straining against the restraints. “I don’t know— I swear I don’t— I never met the guy, I never talked to him— I only heard?—”
I paused.
And the room went dead quiet.
Becausehe’d said something. Not much—but enough.
Grace leaned in, voice barely a whisper. “Heard what?”
Ignacio jerked like she’d slapped him, then squeezed his eyes shut, as if not seeing us made us less real. “Just… rumors,” he rasped. “Just a nickname.”
Holding the new device loosely in my hand, I sighed. He really was going to make me ask. Fine. “What’s the nickname, Ignacio?”
“I cannot tell you,” he said, his wild gaze jerking to me. “I swear, I cannot. You don’t understand?—”
“Honeys,” a familiar voice called from above before Lunchbox strode down the stairs, dragging a bound and unconscious Sinclair with him. “I’m home.”
He flashed a grin when he came in and I kept an eye on Ignacio. His whole body tensed and his eyes widened when he saw Sinclair. What color he’d regained from his earlier writhing drained away once more.
“Did I miss anything?” Lunchbox asked as he dropped Sinclair in a lump and swept his gaze over all of us before honing in on Ignacio.
“He’s about to tell us what we don’t understand,” I said and Lunchbox eyed him.
“We’re listening.”
The man’s throat bobbed. Then he shook his head. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong. I held up the new device to Lunchbox. “You want the honors?”
“Got it.” He took it and flicked out a knife, because the man still had his pants on. “Gracie, you might not want to watch this.” Not that it slowed Lunchbox down and when Ignacio tried to struggle to get away, Lunchbox eyed him. “This is a sharp knife, keep struggling and you’re going to bleed.”
That froze him in place.
“I’ve already seen it,” Grace said bluntly. “It’s nothing to be intimidated by.”
After making short work of the man’s jeans, Lunchbox paused to eye his flaccid shaft. “Yeah, I can see that.” When he gripped the man’s dick, however, Ignacio started swearing and the stream of words were directed at Grace.
I didn’t have to know all of them to hear the insults. Lunchbox twisted the man’s cock until he broke off on a scream. Then without waiting, he looped the new device over the man’s balls and pulled it tight so it was secure.
