Page 13 of Iced Out

No one suggested hurrying to deal with the men. They waited—for Cochise. This was his show. Cochise glanced at Clint as the cowboy turned off the phone and set it on the bar. Clint met his gaze. This was his show, too. The men in the guest room had struck the cowboy’s kid; he had a stake in this.

“Ready to play?” Clint asked.

“Soon.” Cochise grabbed the bottle of whiskey and filled his shot glass. “I don’t have to be home until dinner.” He threw back the drink, savoring the burn as it slid down his throat and settled warmly in his gut. “We got time.”

The cowboy nodded, set himself up with another shot, and offered the bottle to Cruz and his men. The only one refusing shots was Rodriguez. According to Cruz, the young man had shied away from hard liquor since the loss of Greco. He had too much anger and grief churning inside, and feared what would become of him if liquor tore down his inhibitions.

Rodriguez’s concerns were less about himself than about the child now in his care. The little boy Greco had given his life to save. Cruz believed the boy was Rodriguez’s only anchor to this life right now. Losing Greco—witnessing him being shot and holding his dying boyfriend in his arms as life drained out of him—had destroyed something vital in the young man. Caring for a fragile, innocent life gave him purpose, a reason to stay in this life. At the moment, it seemed to be his only reason.

Cochise understood the necessity of anchors.

Tae was one of those anchors for the Egyptian.

The men in the guest room had tried to take that from him—just as Quint and his prick son, Julian, had attempted to take away John and Donald on the island.

Cochise was sick to fuck of these motherfuckers who thought they could just walk into his private domain and take whatever the fuck they wanted.

They couldn’t.

And it was time to teach their new guests the same lesson that Quint and his son had learned on that godforsaken island.

Dan’s head flopped to the other side, and his watery eyes widened, tears spilling. He made a muffled, garbled sound as his lips quivered around the bar gag and he tried to speak. Long strings of drool hung from his chin to his upper chest, unbroken.

Brad watched, eyes bulging, as Dan came back to his senses, registering his situation in tiny, terrifying increments. His throat bobbed wildly, his eyes growing wider. His frantic words devolved into blubbering whimpers that forced more slobber to spray around the gag.

His body jerked in spasms, arms and legs yanking against their restraints, causing the wire to cut deeper into his bruised and swollen flesh, drawing fresh blood. His wild, bleary eyes locked on Brad. He screamed behind the gag, the sound blowing out of his nostrils along with globs of snot. Dan seemed to be demanding Brad do something—get him loose.

“I can’t…” Brad pushed up on the balls of his feet against the cold concrete floor, trying to ease the pressure on his mangled wrists. “I’m stuck, too.”

Dan’s face, blotchy with flush, twisted with fear and anger. He gritted his teeth around the bar gag and screamed at Brad again, his words incoherent, little more than a shriek. But Brad understood: Dan was furious with him, as if this were somehow Brad’s fault.

It was just him! I wasn’t going to touch him—I swear to God!

Back on the highway, Dan had tried to throw Brad under the bus just to save his own ass. He would have tucked tail and run while the men beat Brad to death.

“Don’t scream at me,” Brad snapped, spittle spraying from his lips. “This is your fault, too. I wasn’t the only one who was gonna rape the gook.” His face twitched. “You tried to fucking sell me out, you fucking prick!”

Rather than retaliating, Dan sagged against the metal springs, his chest hitching and his face pinching in excruciating pain. He squeezed his eyes shut as tears leaked out.

Brad’s anger subsided, and pity for the man returned. It was a shitty thing he’d done to Brad, but he didn’t deserve this. “Just hang on, man,” Brad rasped, looking up at his bound wrists. “Maybe we can… get out of this…” But the more he twisted his hands, the deeper the wire sank into his flesh, already grinding against bone. Fuck. Tears blurred his vision as he tried to make sense of how the wire was woven together. Maybe he could somehow unravel it with his fingers…

His eyes followed the intricate weave of the wire as it wrapped around the chain hanging from the low ceiling. It would take wire cutters to get free.

“God dammit,” he choked, looking at Dan. The man stared back, eyes red and bloodshot, tears leaking in a steady stream. “They’re going to pay for this.” His voice wheezed through his parched throat. “We’re federal agents. We’re protected by the fucking government.” His chest heaved as his breathing quickened. “We were just doing our damn job!”

“Just following orders.”

“Huh!” Brad’s head jerked toward the heavy metal door. The gook’s dad stood in the doorway, his height and bulk filling nearly the entire space. Behind him stood the cowboy.

“That excuse didn’t save the nazis…” the big man growled. “… and it won’t save you.”

CHAPTER 6

“How you boys doing?” Clint approached the man hanging from the chain, glancing at his buddy tied to the metal springs. “You don’t look so good.”

“Listen… please…” the chained man pleaded. “I-I’ll do anything, just please don’t do that”—he shot a wild-eyed look at his buddy—“to me. Please!”

Cochise circled behind him. “There isn’t a fucking thing you can do for us,” he snarled in his ear. “Except scream.” He punched the man in the kidneys, wrenching a strangled cry from him. The Egyptian huffed. “That was pathetic. But don’t worry, we know how to make a man scream properly.”