Page 170 of Stand: Part One

“I saw,” he confirmed with a nod.

“Try to keep as many alive as you can. I want at least five to gut later on.”

“I’ll do what I can, but I don’t think there are many left,” he replied with a bloody smirk on his face.

“I’ll head east and meet you at the front exit.”

“Have fun,” he jested before I turned away and headed farther into the house.

Rage filled the void in my chest at the state of my fucking house. It was completely destroyed, which meant Jaden couldn’t stay here any longer than completely necessary. Once I wrapped things up here, I’d have to move her to a nearby safehouse.

I managed to tag three more remaining gunmen, killing only one and clipping the limbs of the others with enough bullets to keep them from lifting a single toe. My guards had killed the rest that had scattered out along the rest of the property.

With the grounds finally secured, I ordered my men to clean up the bodies and to start working on damage control. With my medic team on their way, the only thing left to do was to drag some answers out of some soon-to-be very sorry assholes.

The corners of my mouth lifted as I made my way back through the house. Scott was going to need some assistance in stringing a bunch of dead motherfuckers up.

41

Aftermath

Ice-cold water was thrown into the face of the man hanging by his wrists from the chains built into the wall. His dark beard was caked in blood, the red droplets dripping onto his cheap leather boots.

The striking cold rush of the water abruptly woke him from his fist-induced coma, causing him to cough and sputter.

Four of his buddies were also strung up throughout the concrete room, their bodies wrought with destruction and wear from the small battle that had ended barely an hour ago.

Instead of just setting the metal bucket down, Scott threw the damn thing right into his chest, the bucket bouncing off him and clattering to the floor.

“That was excessive,” I commented, side-eyeing Scott as he moved on to one of the other captives. With so many of them, a team effort was needed.

Grabbing one of the wrenches off the nearby tray, I made my way toward the shivering fuck and placed his thumb between the clamps of the wrench and gently squeezed.

“How did you know we were at this location?” I asked calmly.

This particular location was pretty well-known among my inner crowd, since most of them attended my wedding here. But how they knew we would be here when I literally decided on it only two days ago had me questioning that inner circle. I needed to know if I had any rats among my ranks and confidants.

He took several deep breaths then, his chest rising up and down as he contemplated how many fingers he wanted to lose before I killed him. I gave him five seconds to decide before squeezing the clamps until they cut through the flesh of his thumb. A squeal of a scream escaped his lips, a pathetic sound I intended to amplify.

“Answer my question or I’ll finish what I started,” I said, squeezing the wrench just a little tighter.

He groaned as he sucked in another breath, his eyes moving back and forth from me to Scott as he began cutting off his screaming captive’s ear. It was nice having some extra motivation in the room.

“Okay, okay,” he began, his heavy breathing becoming increasingly annoying. “The information w-was given from an outside s-source. But I’m too low in the r-ranks to know who or c-care.”

His Mexican accent was thick as he spoke in stuttering English. I squeezed the wrench until the bone between it finally snapped, crunching under the pressure like a walnut.

“Fuck!” he screamed, the sound bouncing off the concrete walls and causing the other captives to jerk in their chains. I couldn’t help but snort.

“You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to keep the rest,” I informed him, flipping the bloodied wrench in my palm.

More breathing. More crying. More wishing he were already dead.

“Really!” he cried. “I don’t know where we got the info. I’m just a foot soldier!”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ve already encountered enough of Miguel’s foot soldiers to know where he’s hiding and how many of his men are across the border.”

More screaming stole his attention away as Scott continued questioning the other captives, hopefully creating more motivation for this stupid motherfucker to speak.