by CJ Bishop
His head lolling to the side, Tazz stared at him, eyes wet.
“Give me room.” Angelo motioned the others back and gripped the bat, cocking it up over his right shoulder. His lips peeled back in a small snarl and he crashed the bat against Tazz’s hip, crushing bone. Tazz wailed and jerked with convulsions, his eyes rolling back in his head. Angelo turned and tossed the bat to Adrian. “Take a swing, baby.”
Clutching the Louisville slugger, Adrian walked around Tazz. “When we were kids,” he said, “you used to make fun of me when we played ball, said I was too queer to swing a bat.” He choked up on the handle. “Let’s see if I’ve learned anything since our backyard ball games.”
A gargled cry erupted from Tazz when his tailbone shattered beneath the blow of the bat. His head dropped back, hanging loosely as convulsive hitches jerked through his chest. Adrian handed the bat to Anthony and the older man blew out Tazz’s knees then chucked the bat to Clint.
Twisting the baseball bat in his hands, Clint looked into Blade’s eyes which were now bloodshot and glossy wet. “Because of you, our little boy lost his mom.” He shoved the thick tip of the bat under Blade’s chin, pushing against his throat. “Some nights, he still cries himself to sleep because he misses her.” He pushed a little harder until Blade started to gag, his Adam’s apple bobbing erratically. “Because of you.” He jerked the bat back and swung with all his strength, striking him in the side. His body swung on the chains and a forceful grunt burst out of the man as his face twisted in excruciating pain.
Blade tried to get his breath when Clint hit him again, a fraction higher, smashing into his already bruised and broken ribs. Very little sound came out of the man other than gurgling in his throat as his eyes rolled back to the whites and foamy saliva bubbled into his mouth.
Clint stepped back, breath quick, and offered the bat to Cochise. The Egyptian shook his head. “If I hit him,” he muttered. “He’ll be dead. And I want him alive and aware when we end this.”
The other three men nodded in agreement. “Let’s be done with it,” Anthony said.
Clint rested the bat on his shoulder, his cool jade eyes drifting between their guests. “I guess foreplay is over, boys,” he murmured. “Time to fuck.”
CHAPTER 15
Had he been able to speak, there were no words to describe the depth of pain pulsating through Tazz’s body. It felt like every fucking bone was broken. He hung heavy on his arms, his legs useless, and struggled to breathe as foamy, bloody spit dribbled over his lips. It hurt too much to turn his head and look at Blade, and wondered if the man was dead. If not—he would be soon. And so will you.
The cowboy was hardly more than a bleary figure as he approached Blade, and Tazz only knew it was him by the blurred cowboy hat on his head. Blade must’ve still been alive because the cowboy spoke directly to him.
“Rumor has it you’re fond of weeny roasts,” the cowboy drawled, his words dripping with a southern brogue. Tazz’s cock quivered and shriveled at the mention of ‘weeny roasts’; he wasn’t so far gone that he wouldn’t experience the torture of such an event. The cowboy strolled around behind Blade. “I hear you were planning to roast us. How did Callum put it? You were going to shove sticks up our asses and burn us?”
Oh fuck…fuck. Tazz could hardly think amidst the mind-numbing pain erupting through his broken body, but such an imagery exploded through his head.
“Bragging how you raped the girl just makes a weeny roast sound all the more fun.”
Tazz shook his head, the movement resulting in a heavy lolling of his throbbing skull. He tried to open his eyes wider, but it didn’t help clear his vision. He flinched suddenly when the tip of the baseball bat dragged across his tense ass cheeks and the cowboy was standing right behind him.
“My Egyptian brother over there is real good at picking out weeny roasting sticks.” He stepped closer, shoving the fat tip of the bat between Tazz’s cheeks, grinding his hole. His shattered tail and hip bones screamed with the pressure. “Bet you’d like a real long, thick one, huh? Or maybe just a really hard one?”
Words refused to form as his throat worked and his head dropped back. Someone grabbed a handful of his hair from the front and pulled his head forward. Up close, he could make out Adrian’s face.
“If you had just let her and Jules go, you wouldn’t be here now.” The younger man’s voice strained with a concoction of anger and pain. “And maybe some part of me would still claim you as my brother.” His fist clenched, squeezing Tazz’s hair. “But you’re not my brother, you piece of shit. You’re nothing. These men here before you…they are my family now. They are Jules’ family.” Adrian leaned closer. “Stealing their precious Jules was a fatal mistake.” Tazz grunted as Adrian shoved his head away, releasing his hair. “Now, you’re fucked.”
♦
The Egyptian left the guest room and returned a few minutes later with a broom handle which he busted in half across his knee. He took out his knife and leaned against the wooden table and began shaving the jagged ends into smooth points.
Clint walked around and stood next to Adrian. “You sure you want to watch this?”
“They raped my sister and beat her to death,” Adrian said tonelessly, his emotions unaffected by the imminent torture about to befall their guests. “Jules’ little heart broke when he lost his mother.” He looked at Clint. “I meant what I said; this is my family now. Not that piece of shit.” His eyes shifted to the bloodied and beaten man hanging before them. “I feel nothing for him.”
Exchanging glances with Anthony and Angelo, Clint nodded. “Good enough.”
Angelo collected two metal gas cans from the corner of the room. “Open the vent,” he told Anthony as he placed the cans on the floor before the guests. Anthony walked over to where a large 55-gallon drum sat next to the brick wall. Above the drum was a closed vent with a lever at the side. Anthony cranked it open.
The metal cap of the first gas can spun loose from where Angelo squatted a couple feet in front of Blade. Adrian joined him and opened the second can.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a weeny roast,” Angelo said.
Blade whimpered in protest and was ignored.
“You’re going to have the boys with you for a couple weeks, right?” Anthony asked Clint when he rejoined them. “Noah and Noel?”
“Yeah.”
“We should have us an old-fashioned backyard barbeque out at your place,” Anthony said. “Invite Nolan and Rueben.” He smiled. “Jules keeps asking about Rueben, when can he come and play again.”
“Sounds good,” Clint murmured and asked Cochise, “What do you think?”
The Egyptian grunted and nodded without looking up from his task.
“I’ll take that as an affirmative,” Anthony chuckled low.
Cochise joined them a few moments later with the roasting sticks and handed one to Clint.
“Ready to fire things up?” Clint asked the other men.
Standing to his feet, Angelo nodded. “Ready.”
“Don’t…” Tazz’s bloodshot eyes bulged, his voice hardly audible as it cracked in his throat.
Blade’s chest heaved in panic. “No, please…fuck…”
“Do you know what I find detestable?” Angelo picked up the gas can and stepped toward Blade. “A merciless man who begs for mercy.” His face tightened and he doused the man’s crotch with gasoline.
“No!” The strangled cry wrenched out of Blade, his attempted struggles futile as his busted body hung heavy against his arms.
Anthony grabbed the other can and splashed Tazz. The man choked on his screams as the gasoline saturated his torn flesh, burning his open wounds.
Twisting the sharp stick in his fist, Clint walked around behind Tazz as Cochise circled Blade. The two victims jerked against the chains, their undivided attention now solely on the cowboy and Egyptian.
“Don’t—don’t…” Blade pleaded thickly.
Clint sighed. “I don’t believe you
would have headed our pleas, were our roles reversed. Do you, my brother?”
Cochise huffed. “No fucking way.” He rammed the stick in and Blade screamed—screams that reduced to gagging wails as his body convulsed.
“Fuck…fuck…fuck!” Tazz cried—then screamed as he was skewered in a single thrust.
Plucking a lighter from his pocket, Angelo murmured, “Step back, boys.” Then lit up their guests.
Flames scurried up the men’s bodies like living creatures, licking and devouring their brutalized flesh. Screams echoed dully off the thick brick walls as Tazz and Blade flailed and convulsed.
The five gangsters stood back and watched them in silence until their wails died away, then walked out of the room, leaving their flaming carcasses swinging on the chains, charred bits of flesh drifting to the floor.
♦
The ringing phone pulled Axel from a restless sleep and he sat up on the sofa with a sudden jerk. He grabbed his cell off the coffee table, his heart racing. “Hello?” he answered with a groggy voice.
“Axel?” It was Cory.
Fear latched onto Axel’s heart with unexpected swiftness and force. “Cory…” he swallowed, sitting up straighter. “Is everything okay?” The slight hesitation at the other end of the line scared the shit out of him. “Cory?”
“Yeah.” Cory cleared his throat. “I mean, Jules is home, and Clint’s okay. And Cochise.” He went quiet and Axel felt he had more to say.
“Cory, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Cory mumbled. “Maybe nothing. It’s just…some shit went down today that…that kind of tore open some old wounds.” Emotion strained his voice. “I’m kind of worried about the guys. I need you to do something for me. You, Kane, and the others.”
Axel trembled inside. “What?”
Another hesitation, then, “When the guys get home, they need to be reminded of who they are…what they have there at home…of their life apart from this.” Tears thickened his words. “You, and Kane and his family, you’re their anchors. You bring out the best in them, illuminate their human side.”
Feeling sick, Axel whispered, “What happened, Cory?”
Cory’s breath shuddered softly as he struggled with his tears. “I can’t go into it right now.”
Dampness stung Axel’s eyes. “Are you okay?”
“I will be,” Cory assured unsteadily. “Right now, I’m more concerned with Clint and Cochise. Just take care of them for us, okay?”
Axel slid his hand over his mouth and cleared his throat. “We will,” he said quietly. “Do you know when they’ll be heading home?”
“Soon,” Cory told him, but offered nothing else.
When the call ended, Axel sat still, staring at the phone. What ‘old wounds’ had been torn opened? Was Cory worried that Clint and Cochise would try to pull away again…even leave? Axel couldn’t imagine Clint doing that. They had gotten past that and Axel had “laid down the law” to Clint where leaving was concerned. The cowboy knew damn well that Axel wouldn’t stand back and let him walk away.
Don’t freak out. Cory didn’t say they wanted to leave. They just had a rough day and need some tender loving care. That’s all. Refresh their sense of family, how much they’re loved and needed by others.
“Yeah.” Axel released a slow breath and stood up. “Yeah. We can do that.” He called Donald as he walked into the kitchen and began preparing a fresh pot of coffee.
♦
The five men stood outside the exterior entrance to the basement. “We’ll clean up,” Clint told Anthony, Angelo, and Adrian. “You go on inside.”
“Maybe I should help with cleanup,” Adrian said. “This mess is because of me.”
Clint shook his head. “You did nothing to instigate this. Go inside with Jules.”
“What about Callum?” Cochise asked when the three men started to walk away. “Is he in or out?”
All eyes turned to Adrian. The younger man stared at them. “He made a big mistake that could have cost Jules his life,” he said. “But then he risked his own life to rectify that mistake and bring Jules home. In the bible, Jesus told the parable of the man with two sons who were instructed to go work in the field. The one said he would, but then didn’t do it. The other said he wouldn’t, but in the end, did the work. Jesus asked which one did the will of his father. And his disciples said, the latter.” He looked at the four men. “Callum is the latter. It isn’t how we begin that matters, but what we do in the end.”
Clint turned his eyes on Cochise. “Well said,” he murmured. The Egyptian stared at him as the three men left them and entered the house. “It’s what we do in the end,” Clint recapped and moved toward the basement entrance. “Let’s clean up this mess and go home.”
CHAPTER 16
The two men spread the large tarp on the floor beneath the charred bodies then cut them loose. The roasting sticks had consumed to ashes by the flames and disintegrated. Clint took the right side and began folding the tarp over the blackened corpses as Cochise folded from the left. Neither men spoke while they carried the bulky package outside and dumped it in the truck of the Clint’s car.
Fifteen minutes later, they were shoving the bodies and tarp into the old incinerator owned by the Santiago family; an insatiable beast that had devoured a multitude of unfortunate bastards who had crossed the wrong people.
After the deed was done, the beast fed once again, Clint leaned against the car and ran his hands through his hair a few times. Behind his eyes, he saw Diego lying dead on the floor of the warehouse, and the look of horror on Cory’s face as the young man relived his worst nightmare. At that moment, his life with Axel felt like the life of another man…one he was observing from the outside. The world back home and this world…two distant dimensions. He thought about Cochise’s words; was it all play acting? Was it even rational to think they could be family men? That they could come from this world and be anything but killers?
Clint’s mind drifted back to the first night he and Axel had spent in their new home, and that look in Axel’s eyes when Clint had walked up to him standing on the back porch.
“I was beginning to think you’d abandoned me.”
“Never…Do you like your new home?”
“I love it. It’s what I’ve dreamed of all my life. A home like this. A family like this…A love like this.”
“Kind of nice to know that dreams really do come true, isn’t it?”
“So nice…Let’s go to bed. Because I’m not at all tired. I must warn you, though…I sleep in the raw, and I like to cuddle.”
“What a coincidence…so do I.”
Dampness crept into his eyes unaware and he blinked when he felt the sudden sting. It had been their new beginning together. But what if it was all an illusion? Just a façade that would one day crumble and leave their lives…their love…in ruins? A day like today.
“Clint.”
Clint flinched and blinked. Cochise stared at him from across the top of the car. “What?”
“Let’s go.”
The two men climbed in the car. The Egyptian sat silently in the passenger seat while Clint cranked the ignition and they pulled away from the old, secluded building.
“When you get home,” Cochise spoke suddenly, his voice low, hardly audible. “Tell Axel about Diego. Tell him what you’re afraid of. Don’t try to hide shit from him.” His gray eyes drifted solemnly to the passenger window. “He will help you fix it.”
Clint frowned. “Will you take your own advice with Kane?”
“You know our situations aren’t the same.”
“Kane is good for you,” Clint murmured. “That family is good for you. I think you underestimate your value to them. You see only your sins. They see everything else.”
The Egyptian exhaled deeply and sagged against the seat. “One day,” he whispered. “They’ll see only my sins as well.”
♦
“Where’s Jules?” Cochise asked when they entered the room. All
the men were present but Jules was not.
“He’s taking a nap in our bed,” Anthony said.
Cochise nodded and exited the room, following the hallway to the master bedroom. The door stood ajar and he paused in the doorway. The child lay on top of the blankets cuddled up to his puppy, who came instantly alert as soon as Cochise pushed the door open a fraction wider. When the animal spied the Egyptian, its tail wagged furiously and he squirmed out of Jules’ arms, wriggling to the end of the bed. Cochise approached and scratched its ear then walked around the side of the bed. The pup’s excited movement on the bed stirred Jules from his slumber.
“Cochise?” He rubbed his eyes with his small fists.
Cochise sat down and the boy crawled into his arms, hugging his neck. He laid his head against Cochise’s shoulder, eyes closing again. “Did you and Clint beat up the bad guys?” he mumbled.
Sliding his arms around the child, Cochise held him tight. “Yeah,” he whispered. “We beat up the bad guys.” He pressed his lips to Jules’ soft hair and closed his eyes. “They won’t ever take you away again.”
Jules lifted his head. “Was you scared they’d hurt me?”
A sudden rush of startling emotion surged through Cochise and his vision blurred. He pulled the boy deeper into his arms and hugged him as hard as he could without hurting him. “Yeah,” he shuddered. “I was.”
Jules’ small hands grasped the back of Cochise’s strong neck. “But I’m okay,” he said. “You don’t have to be scared now.”
Everything inside the Egyptian came crashing down and he clung to the child, sobs clogging his throat. “I know.”
The boy pulled back and flattened his hands on Cochise’s damp face. “Why are you crying?”
Cochise shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Do you miss daddy Shay?” he asked softly. “Is that why you’re crying?”
Clearing his throat, Cochise nodded, “Maybe that’s it.”
