When Lord yanked him off the wall, blood smeared the expensive paneling, streaking down. Chaz felt the crushed cartilage in his nose, and if he had any chance of living past the next couple of days, it would’ve healed at an awkward angle, marring his “perfect features”—Helio’s words. But his nose wouldn’t have the chance to heal. Hishourswere numbered.
Lord herded him outside, where two men Chaz recognized but didn’t know waited by a car with the trunk open. Lord stuffed him in the trunk and slammed the lid. Muffled voices pressed through the cramped, dark compartment, but Chaz didn’t strain to hear their words. His fate was sealed, and eavesdropping on their conversation wouldn’t save him.
The car doors opened, and the vehicle rocked slightly as the two men climbed in, closing the doors behind them. The engine rumbled, and then they were moving. Chaz shifted as something cold, hard, and steel dug into his side. Something he could use as a weapon? A tire iron, maybe?
The thought went in and out of his head like a puff of breath. The steel cuffs bit into his wrists; there was no wriggling free, even if he dislocated his thumbs. And if by some miracle hecouldfree himself, there was still no escape. If he came out of the trunk with a weapon, they would shoot him—non-fatally—beat him down, and still deliver him to the devil.
Any way he looked at it—he wasfucked.
Clint and Cochise waited in an empty parking lot beside a deserted gas station located in the city’s ghetto. A lone streetlamp flickered as dusk fell, creating shifting shadows of weeds sprouting through the cracks in the old pavement.
The two gangsters were there for only about five minutes before another vehicle entered the lot, and two men stepped out, both dressed in perfectly tailored Italian suits and immaculate hair. Clint shared a glance with the Egyptian, feeling more than ever like aroughneckgangster beside these polished “mafia” men.
Clint and Cochise walked over to the car. Inside the trunk was a cuffed man with longish dark hair and tattooed arms. He eyed the men hovering above him, wary and alert.
“This is the shooter?” Clint asked.
One of the “couriers” nodded.
“How do I know?” Clint muttered, skeptical. “Lazarus could have sent me one of his random men.”
“If Lazarus says he’s the shooter,” the courier said, “then he’s the shooter. You want him or not?”
Clint’s attention fixed on the captive. He watched the man’s eyes dart between him and the courier, cataloging their words. Clint also watched thelieforming behind his intense gaze.
Clint nodded once and flicked his hand. The two couriers grabbed the shooter and hauled him from the trunk, dumping him heavily onto the cracked pavement. The man grunted as his head thudded against the hard ground.
The two men returned to their car and left the parking lot.
Clint waited, his jade eyes steely as they locked onto the cuffed man. He counted down—three, two… one.
“They’relying,” the captive spat out the lie right on cue. “I didn’t shoot anyone! I’m just a fuckingscapegoatto appease you. I swear, I’m not the shooter!” His throat worked as he stared up at the two men, then shifted until he managed to get onto his knees. “Lazarus’s henchman grabbed my buddy and me.Hetold Lazarus I was the shooter and my friend was the driver. Lazarus believesanythinghe says. He shot my buddy in the head!” He lost his balance and toppled onto his side, catching himself with his elbow, which cracked against the concrete.
Clint exchanged a dry look with Cochise—then kicked the shooter in the face, the heel of his cowboy boot catching him in the chin, clacking his teeth and sending a canine flying from his mouth as the sudden force laid him out on his back. His head smacked the pavement again, harder this time, but he remained conscious. Clint squatted next to him and jerked him forward by the front of his shirt. “Lie again, and my friend here…” he jerkedhis head at Cochise, “… he’s going to cut out a piece of your tongue. And he will keep taking pieces until youstoplying… or you run out of tongue?” His fist clenched, squeezing the man’s shirt tighter around his throat. “Capisce?”
The shooter gagged and stared at the cowboy through watery, bloodshot eyes, his tongue flicking out over his bloody lips. He nodded.
“Good,” Clint drawled, releasing him with a shove that cracked his head against the ground a third time. “We have an understanding.”
Blood drained down Chaz’s throat as he lay on his back, his skull throbbing, his cuffed wrists digging into the small of his back. His entire fucking face was racked with pain from the hard kick to the chin. The fucker had about broken his goddamnjaw. Only one tooth had come out, but he’d rattled the others loose.
His watery eyes darted to the Egyptian, who stared back at him with dead eyes. Chaz had heard stories about him and the cowboy—scarytales that made his blood run cold now that he was at their “mercy.”
The two gangsters hauled Chaz to his feet. The sudden upright momentum sent his head spinning with a violent rush of dizziness. His legs turned to rubber, his ankles rolled, and he staggered into the men, immediately catching a fist to the gut that doubled him over. His legs went completely slack beneath him, and the two men dragged him the rest of the way to their car, where he was again crammed into the trunk.
His feeble attempt to play on the cowboy’s distrust of Lazarus had failed miserably. Chaz only now recalled the cowboy’s reputation as a human lie detector. Very little got past the fucker, and his threats weren’t to be taken lightly. Chaz didn’t doubt for a fucking second that the Egyptian would start taking pieces from him at the first provocation. The bastard looked like a fucking wraith from hell.
The drive to the next unknown destination was brief. Chaz knew this was the last car ride of his life—they were taking him tohell.
Clint drove through the front gates of the Sanitini mansion and around to a side entrance that led to a lower level of the massive home.
They transferred the shooter from the trunk to a concrete-and-brick basement room.The Guest Room.It wasn’t fancy: a rough-hewn wooden table along one wall, arrayed with tools of torture; a couple of metal chairs set to the side; shackles hanging from the low ceiling; a metal bedspring attached to the opposite wall; and a barrel drum of coals placed beneath a vent. Odds and ends of other “accessories” were sprinkled throughout the room. In the center of the concrete floor was a drain, making cleanup easier.
Work smart, not hard.
Cochise dragged one of the metal chairs into the center of the room. The seat blackened—the result of anotherguestwho had been put in the “hot seat.” They removed the shooter’s cuffs,stripped him naked, and seated him in the chair, then strapped his wrists and ankles. His skin pebbled beneath the bitter chill of the torture room—and plainfear.
Good; Clint wanted the fuckerscared.
