“They’ve stopped,” I say to Alejandro as I watch the small red dot fixed on the screen. “They’re about twenty miles up ahead.”
He nods and floors the accelerator. We were already way over the speed limit but he pushes the SUV to the max. “Let’s go get her.”
When we pull into the parking lot of the boarded up diner, I see a silver Prius parked beneath the trees. We jump out of the car, looking around as we run to the door.
“You think he’s alone?” Alejandro asks.
“There’s only one car. If he’s not, there can’t be many of them in there.”
He nods and tries the handle. When he’s met with resistance, he pulls his handgun from the waistband of his pants and aims it at the lock. I grab his arm before he can pull the trigger.
“What the fuck?” I hiss.
“We need to get in there fast,” he snarls.
“It’ll take me less than two minutes to pick that, then we still have the element of surprise.”
“You got two minutes before I shoot my way in there.”
I take a small pick from my pocket and get to work on the lock. I feel him fidgeting beside me. He has seen me do this countless times but today the stakes are much higher than they usually are. I feel it, too. I can’t let my mind start to drift and contemplate what we might find when we get inside this place. What state she might be in. What he might have done to her. But the thought that keeps on persisting is the one that she might not be in there at all—that he’s found her tracker and managed to fool us somehow. This guy is good with tech. Who knows what he’s capable of?
“Come on,” Alejandro hisses and I tune him out, keeping all of my attention on getting through this door as quickly and as quietly as possible.
I breathe a sigh of relief as I feel the mechanism inside give against the pressure and after a soft click, the door is open.
I look at Alejandro as I curl my fingers around the handle. “Ready?” I whisper.
“I want this cunt alive,” he growls.
I nod my understanding. A quick death would be far too easy. Neither he or I are known for being men of mercy and I know he feels the hatred and venom for the man who took Lucia from us as fiercely as I do.
I pull open the door and the sight that greets us makes my heart stop beating in my chest. I see everything as if in Technicolor and it is an image that will be burned into my brain for the rest of my days.
Lucia is shackled to the table, naked except for her bikini bottoms. Her body shivers uncontrollably. There are large droplets of fresh blood on the floor and a psychopath is running the tip of a knife up the inside of her thigh.
I raise my gun and Alejandro does the same as we edge into the room, but the electric light casts a shadow and the movement alerts Richard to our presence. He drops behind the table, peering over the top like a frightened meerkat as he holds the knife to Lucia’s throat.
She turns toward us too. Her eyes meet mine and they are filled with relief and tears.
“You come another step closer and I will make her bleed out faster than you can possibly imagine,” he sneers as he presses the tip of his blade against the main artery in her neck. “Just a quick slice and she’s gone. I even gave her some blood thinner along with her roofie. I like it when they bleed.” He cackles to himself and seems genuinely impressed with his own genius.
“He’s fucking loco,” Alejandro hisses.
I aim the gun at him and he ducks lower while pressing the blade against her skin until it pierces it. A trickle of blood runs down her throat.
“Can you make that shot?” Alejandro whispers.
“Which one?” I hiss.
“I know you can kill him,” he mumbles. “Can you make the other one?”
He knows I can. I can take the stalk off a cherry from fifty yards away. But if I miss—well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Unfortunately for Richard Peterson, I never miss.
“Yes,” I growl.
Alejandro doesn’t need to speak again for me to know what he’s thinking. Richard continues to peer over the table, taunting us. He is talking non-stop but I tune him out. There will be plenty of time to listen to him talk—and scream—once I get our girl to safety. I squeeze the trigger and the bullet explodes through the second knuckle on his right hand, throwing him backwards with the force. The knife clatters to the floor and Lucia lets out a muffled scream.
Alejandro moves before I do, running to Richard as he lies bleeding and shouting profanities before he’s hoisted up by his collar. Alejandro snarls something in the sick fuck’s ear but I’m too far away to hear. I can imagine it was some kind of threat that involves his cock. Then he takes Richard’s injured hand and pushes two fingers into the gaping hole left by the bullet before twisting it behind his back. His screams of agony fill the room.
I run to Lucia while her father keeps Richard restrained. The first thing I do is remove the rag from her mouth.
“Matthias?” she croaks.
“He’s fine, Angel. He’s with your mom.”
She nods and a single tear runs down her cheek.
“Come on. Let’s get you out of here,” I say, brushing her damp hair from her face.
She nods again as she pulls at her restraints.
As I free her arms, my eyes roam over her body, giving her a quick check over but she has no visible injuries apart from the blood on her face that seems to have come from her nose. As soon as she is able to, she pushes herself up into a sitting position and I wrap my arms around her, pulling her close to me.
“Jax,” she sobs against my chest.
“I got you, baby. You’re safe now,” I soothe as I hold her tight while Alejandro holds onto Richard, one arm wrapped around his throat and one of his large hands clamped over his mouth.
Lucia pulls back from me, wiping her eyes before she reaches down to her legs to free them.
“Hey, I got you,” I say, pulling off my t-shirt. “Put this on, first.”
She nods and I help her, feeding her arms through the sleeves.
“Are you okay, mija?” Alejandro asks as I work on releasing her ankles.
“Yes. Thank you, Papi,” she breathes.
Once her legs are free too, I pick up her sneakers from the floor and crouch down to slide them onto her feet. When I stand again, she is smiling faintly at me and I thank God that she is safe and unhurt—it seems that sick fuck didn’t get to do any of the twisted shit he obviously had planned.
“Shall we allow Richard here to give us a practical demonstration of what some of these things do?” Alejandro asks, indicating his head to the table of tools and sex toys that I have done my best to avoid looking at.
“Sounds good to me.” I lift Lucia from the table and set her on her feet.
“You okay?” I whisper, keeping my arms around her.
“Yes. I can stand,” she says as she takes a step back from me. Then she turns to her father who still holds onto Richard. I wonder if she has the stomach for what we’re about to do. I look at Alejandro too. We have worked together for so long that he knows what I’m thinking without me having to tell him. He nods his agreement. Lucia needs to stay for this.
“Let’s get him on here then?” I say with a flash of my eyebrows.
Richard kicks and screams as Alejandro and I lift him onto the table and shackle his arms and legs the same way he’d restrained Lucia.
“No,” he wails, shaking his head from side to side.
I grab hold of his face, holding his head still while I glare at him. “Seems you can give but you can’t take it, Richard. Is that right?”
“I can get you money,” he pleads.
Alejandro starts to laugh his ass off as he picks up one of the huge knives and begins cutting through Richard’s clothes. “Even if I needed money, you sick hijo de puta, you think I would allow the piece of shit who took my daughter to buy his way out of facing up to his crimes?” he snarls as the knife in his hand slices a welt into the soft skin of Richard’s thigh, making him howl in pain.
“We got plenty of toys here to try on you too,” I add as I pick up a huge black dildo and he starts shaking and crying again.
Alejandro slaps him across the face. “Shut the fuck up!”
Richard mumbles as tears run down his face and blood runs down his thigh. Alejandro works quickly and our captive is soon completely naked as he lies shivering on the table. I pick up a strange metal object. It’s shaped like a cock but has some kind of mechanical part to it.
“What the fuck is this?” I hold up the offending item.
“A speculum,” Lucia replies.
“A what?”
“They use them in internal exams,” Alejandro replies as he steps toward me and takes it from my hand. Twisting the screw at the base, the tip of the metal object starts to spread open. “They use it to open a woman’s cervix so they can see inside. This is a pretty outdated one though. I believe they mostly use plastic ones now.”
“How the fuck do you know that?” I frown at him.
“My wife had twelve months of fertility treatment, amigo.” He arches an eyebrow at me. “I’ve seen things no man ever should.” He arches an eyebrow at me.
“Papi,” Lucia admonishes him.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, but then he holds it up again so that Richard can see it.
“Just what exactly where you planning on doing to my daughter with this, you sick fuck?”
“Nothing,” Richard shakes his head.
“Liar,” Lucia hisses.
“The more pressing question is what can we do to him with it?” I say.
“Hmm?” Alejandro rubs a hand over his jaw. And then he runs the metal over Richard’s cock and down to his asshole making him whimper and beg.
“Maybe later,” Alejandro laughs. “How about we start with your mouth?”
Richard clamps his lips together and shakes his head making Alejandro sigh loudly. “You wanna?” he says to me as he lifts the speculum up again and presses it against Richard’s lips while I grab hold of his cheeks and squeeze hard until his mouth opens slightly.
Alejandro takes the metal instrument in his grip and smashes it through Richard’s teeth. I don’t see how many he breaks but bits of tooth and blood and spit dribble down his chin as my best buddy pushes the speculum deep into Richard’s mouth, only stopping when he hits the back of his throat, making his body convulse as he gags at the intrusion.
“You wanna see how this thing works?” Alejandro grins at me.
“Seems like I’m the only person in the room who doesn’t know,” I say with a shrug.
Alejandro begins to turn the screw on the base of the instrument again and it expands further, stretching Richard’s mouth with it.
“That looks kind of uncomfortable.” I wince and turn to Lucia. “They really use those things?”
“Yeah,” she nods.
“What exactly do you think this twisted fuck was planning on doing with this?” Alejandro asks again.
I glare at Richard as he lies there trembling. Alejandro takes the opportunity to walk to Lucia and give her a brief hug. Then he steps back, running his hands over her arms. “You sure you’re okay?” he asks her.
“Yes.”
“You mean the world to me, mija,” he says before he kisses her forehead.
The sound of water trickling makes us all look back to the table to see Richard pissing himself. “Seems Dolos can’t hold his bladder,” Lucia says with a laugh and she steps closer to the table and leans over him. “You’re pathetic,” she hisses. “Who’s the filthy little slut now?”
Richard’s mouth is held wide open now at a strangely unnatural angle by the speculum which is opened to its limit.
He closes his eyes as though this might stop what is about to happen.
“He called you that?” I ask her.
“Yeah,” she nods.
I noticed some Clorox when we came in here and walk over and pick it up. “Seems Richard has something of a potty mouth,” I laugh as I unscrew the cap and hand the bottle to Lucia. “You would be doing him a favor by helping him clean it out, Angel.”
She takes the bottle from me, her hands trembling as she holds it over his mouth. The smell must hit his nostrils because his eyes fly open and he shakes his head wildly from side to side.
“For fuck’s sake!” Alejandro hisses as he holds Richard’s head still. “You can do this, mija,” he says to his daughter with a reassuring smile.
“I’m not the only woman he’s done this to,” she sniffs as she tips the bottle and starts to pour the Clorox down his throat, as though that gives her the strength to go through with it. “He said there have been others too.”
Richard chokes on the harsh liquid as it burns his esophagus. She keeps on pouring until I put a hand on her arm. “That’s enough for now, Angel,” I tell her. “He’ll choke if you keep going and we haven’t ever started on him yet.”
“Nope,” Alejandro agrees as he eyes the array of tools on the table. “We won’t be leaving here until every single one of those objects he planned to use on you has been forced into his body. I don’t care if we have to cut him open to do it.”
Lucia nods her understanding. She has a lot to learn about the way we deal with our enemies, but this afternoon she is about to be schooled in the fine art of causing extreme pain.
