While we were dealing with the boys in blue, I had Coal distribute the girls to Crissy’s safe house then take Madyson to his own home. We are unsure of the extent of what she has endured; however, I want Morgan to feel comfortable as she helps Madyson heal.
Now, I am sitting with my brothers in the waiting room of the hospital, standing by for an update on Hammer. Pacing back and forth isn’t expediting the process any, but I can’t be still. Evan, Hammer’s brother, came as soon as we called and actually arrived before we did.
The first time the nurse comes out, about an hour and a half after we arrived, it is to ask if there is family here for Ethan McCoy. Once Evan tells them he is Ethan’s brother, she updates him with Hammer’s prognosis. He is covered in superficial lacerations and bruises. From the x-rays they took, it appears as though Hammer has an intertrochanteric fracture. She goes on to explain that the fracture is between the neck of the femur and a lower bony prominence called the lesser trochanter. When the nurse sees our confused faces, she quickly adds that this means they need to take Hammer into surgery.
Time seems to stall, an endless monotony of waiting. We are all on edge, and the clock and silence seem to mock us. Six hours go by before a different nurse finally comes out.
“Family of Ethan McCoy?”
“Here.” Evan jumps up and practically runs to her.
“Your brother is out of surgery. The doctor went in and inserted a nail and screw to stabilize the areas. Until he is out of recovery, we won’t know the extent of nerve damage and if it will be permanent or not. The nerves in his feet are, at the moment, unresponsive to touch. As he has suffered major trauma, we were in a situation to fix what was visibly damaged, and now we’ll have to wait to see what happens. I’m sorry I don’t have better news right at this time.”
Evan runs a shaking hand through his hair. “When can we see him?”
“Once he’s out of recovery, you can see him two at a time for short periods. Please understand, his body needs rest to heal properly.”
Helplessly, we pace around some more until we are finally told two of us can head back to Room 308. Evan waves for me to follow him, so I do.
As we walk down the hall, my hands get clammy. It takes everything I have not to wipe them on my pants, letting anyone who may be watching me know how jittery I am right now. I haven’t felt this nervous since I went on my first Special Forces mission, unsure of what to expect.
As we open the door and walk into the room, my stomach drops.
Hammer lies on his hospital bed, eyes closed, almost as if he is sleeping peacefully. Bruises and bandages all over his body tell a different story, though.
Evan walks over to the bed and lifts the side of Hammer’s blanket then gown up to expose the large bandage that covers his hip. Gently placing the gown and blanket back down, Evan then collapses in the chair next to the bed and breathes out a long sigh. He doesn’t say a word, but he doesn’t need to. We both know it could have been worse, which is saying something since there is no way to know if Hammer will ever walk again.
The thought of this man, my brother in both battle and on the road, never riding his bike or walking into our club again kills something inside of me. A proud man like him might not survive with his legs taken from him. The both of us have gone to more than one funeral of a soldier we have known who had lost their legs someway, somehow, in the war. They had either died of a complication of their paralysis or had taken their own life rather than live without their legs.
I can’t imagine a world without a smartass, ball-busting Hammer riding on the road with me.
My mind flashes back to the last mission we were on together as Green Berets. We were in the middle of a nasty fire fight in the Kandahar Mountains against a group of terrorists we had been sent in to take out because they had taken over one of the villages in their attempt to get closer to a nearby fob, or Forward Operating Base. We had intel saying the group had a number of high value targets that the powers that be wanted taken out.
As we marched through the rugged terrain of those mountains, making our way to the village’s location, we were spotted by a couple of local goat herders. They ran ahead and warned the very men we were after of our impending arrival, causing us to basically walk into a trap.
Taking cover behind a crude mud-brick wall, I returned fire with Hammer by my side while the rest of our team moved to different vantage points around the village. We were outnumbered, taking heavy fire, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it home to my little girl and mother.
Shit had looked pretty dire at the time, and as I ran out of ammo, I sat behind that wall, scrambling to change out for a fresh magazine. Being preoccupied with what I was doing, I didn’t see one of our targets sneaking up on our flank on the opposite side of the wall.
But Hammer did.
The man ended up saving my life by putting a bullet hole in the center of that motherfucker’s head. When I looked over to him, just after our enemy’s body disappeared from sight, he said something that resonated through me and gained my undying loyalty.
“Don’t look so fucking surprised. I’ll always have your back, Ice.”
Now it looks like I am going to have to figure out the best way to have Hammer’s back. It is the least I can do for the man who saved my life. The man who has had my back since the moment he first joined my team in the Army. The man who has followed me from one band of brothers to another.
A man who is an integral part of what I call my family.
Chapter
18
Ice
Coal’s fist strikes out, smashing into Sandoval’s cheek, whipping his head to the side. While a small spray of spittle and blood flies to the already stained cement floor, he grunts, which is nothing compared to the screams he let loose earlier. I am not worried about anyone hearing us, though. We are in the soundproof basement of a house we own on the edge of Miami.
What the fucker tied hand and foot to the chair does not know is that Coal’s fists and what we have already done to him are the least of his concerns. I plan on things getting a lot bloodier before we are through with him.
Since we have already choked him half to death with a garrote and ripped his fingernails off with pliers, I am sure Lazaro Sandoval thinks he can survive anything we do to him without giving us the information we want. If that is what he thinks, he is wrong.
I learned a lot of things on my missions, and how to be a sadistic, lethal motherfucker was one of them.
“Who are you? fbi? atf? dea?” Sandoval asks through crimson stained, swollen lips, shaking off the blow delivered by Coal as he continues to spit blood with every word he speaks.
“I’m your worst fuckin’ nightmare, that’s who I am,” I answer in a merciless voice.
“People will look for me. The police will look for me, even. I have quite a few of them on my payroll. Do you honestly think they will want to lose the money they make from me? They will find out what you’ve done and come for me.” There is trepidation in his voice. I can tell what he says and what he worries will actually happen are two different things. Good. He should be scared shitless, because I don’t plan to let him out of this basement alive.
We have spent hours torturing him meticulously. Finally, he is starting to break. He is crumbling like any man—no matter how strong willed they are—would after the things we have done. There is more to come, though. Before we are finished here, he will give me everything I want.
“Clue in, Sandoval. We override anything the cops want to do. I have a clearance that rivals the Vice President’s. There are very few people in this country that have power over me. Doesn’t matter if I slit your throat in front of the chief of police, not one of them could touch me.”
His eyes go wide in surprise as the realization of his predicament dawns on him.
“That’s right, fucker; we aren’t your regular motorcycle gang. I’m a Harley ridin’ deliverer of death. I could pick up the phone right now, call the Presid
ent of the United States, and tell him that I’m going to cut you into tiny pieces and spread them over the ocean for the fish to eat. And he would tell me to go right on ahead.” Little does Sandoval know that scenario is not too far off from what I will be doing to him.
“You tell me where the other girls are stashed, and I’ll introduce you to the hell you’re heading to quickly. The longer you take, the longer I’ll take. Either way, today is the day you die.”
Our captive does his best to straighten his back, and what little pride he thinks he has left shines through his eyes as he answers me. “If you plan to kill me, why should I tell you anything I know? Perhaps I shall take my secrets to the grave.”
He won’t be taking anything to his proverbial grave except that black soul of his. Although, I have to admit, I once again see why he was able to build his small empire. Here he is, bruised, bleeding, and death invariably breathing down his neck, yet he sits there with the sort of proud presence of a king instead of the defeated scumbag he really is.
Time to change that.
“Coal, hand me the blow torch and set this asshole on his back. Let’s see how long he can last before he starts crying like the little bitch he really is.”
My VP hands me my torch, and I let Sandoval see it before Coal tips his chair back and lets him harshly fall to the floor. A small shout of pain escapes him as his head cracks open on the unforgiving surface, giving him yet another wound from which he starts to bleed.
As I turn on the blow torch, he raises his head and looks at me defiantly. I let a ruthless smile spread across my face while I watch sweat beading on his forehead. He is about to do a fuck of a lot more than sweating.
Bringing the blow torch down, I hold it under the soles of his dress shoes and watch as the bottoms start to burn and melt away. Sandoval begins to struggle against his bindings as he feels the heat, although we both know he is not going anywhere. The flame disintegrates the bottom of his shoe in seconds, and then the man who raped and tortured numerous women, making them scream in pain, is the one who is screaming.
I start at the top of his foot and move my way to his heel, ignoring the smell of burnt rubber, leather, and human flesh. Moving over to his other foot, I repeat the process. His voice is already hoarse from his pained howls, and by the time Coal and I are done, his vocal cords will probably be ruined and bleeding.
He deserves every second of this agony. I have no qualms about dishing out his punishment.
When Sandoval passes out from the pain, I pull the blowtorch away from his foot. Turning it off, I tell Coal to sit him back up. Once he does, I give my man his next directive.
“Slap that little bitch back to consciousness.”
Coal’s lips tip up on one side in a vicious sneer.
The first slap makes Sandoval shake his head incoherently. The second slap has him crying out yet doesn’t bring him fully around. Instead, he is in a state of semi-consciousness. The third slap finally brings him back to awareness, and the once proud man is now sobbing in pain.
“Where are the women?”
He doesn’t answer me, only continues to cry.
I motion for Coal to grab the large bucket of cold water we had ready against the wall, and I point at our prisoner. When the water hits Sandoval in the face, he sputters and shakes his head in shock.
Looking up at me, he sees the fiery weapon I kept in my hand and begins to shake from head to toe. His gaze travels upwards to lock on to my own determined eyes, and a new wet spot starts to spread across the crotch of his pants, a small stream falling to the floor.
He has every reason to piss himself. I plan to ruin him like he ruined the countless women who have crossed his path.
“Where are the women, Sandoval?”
His breath starts to saw in and out of his chest in small, panicked puffs of air. However, he shakes his head again, refusing to say a word.
“You give me an answer, or I turn this blowtorch back on. Only, this time, I won’t stop at your feet. I’ll burn my way up your legs, over that small excuse you call a dick, and I won’t stop until I get to your eyeballs. So, I suggest you start talking before I start barbequing your ass alive.”
I know the look on my face conveys exactly how serious I am about carrying out the deadly promise, and he must realize it, too, because he hangs his head in defeat.
“Many of them are gone or dead, sold off to other powerful men overseas: foreign politicians, sheiks, and crime lords throughout Europe and the Asian countries,” he blubbers.
A red haze covers my vision at the thought of all the women I now know I might not be able to track down and save.
“Did you keep any kind of records?” I bark at him, angry that I don’t have the time to spend torturing him, keeping him on the brink of life, before I finally give him death.
His head bobs up and down frantically. “In my safe at the hotel. If I give you the combination, you will let me leave here with my life. I will disappear back to Cuba, and you shall never lay eyes on my face again.” He thinks he now has a bargaining chip to save himself.
He is wrong. I do not negotiate with the sort of scum I will be scraping off the soles of my boots later.
Without taking my eyes off of my captive’s, I answer him ominously, “Did you know that my man here is part Sioux? He may not look it beyond his tan, but his grandfather came straight off the reservation. Want to know one of the things his grandfather taught him? Here, let me have him show you. It’s this old timer practice from back before the English colonized here … called scalping. Show him how it’s done, Coal.”
Sandoval starts thrashing in his chair so hard he tips himself over and falls on his side. Even after the oomph of his fall, he does not stop his wiggling, desperately trying to get away from my brother as he unsheathes his large hunting knife from his thigh.
When Sandoval sees Coal bending over, his hand reaching for his hair, he once again starts screaming bloody murder.
The man does not have a chance in hell of escaping his fate.
Coal grabs Sandoval’s thick, black hair in a tight grip and places his knife against the upper part of our detainee’s forehead. Slowly, as to drag out the misery of what is about to happen, Coal makes an incision. Then he drags the knife to the back of Sandoval’s neck and around again to his original incision at the man’s forehead, taking his slow, sweet time while our victim screams hoarsely in agony. Finally, my brother puts his foot on one shoulder, bracing his calf on the back of the chair, and pulls the Cuban Don’s hair off with both hands, from front to back.
By the time Coal is done, Sandoval’s voice is almost gone, and he is weeping uncontrollably. My VP tosses the bloody scalp on the floor and then tips the chair back up to sit on its legs. Rivers of red run down Sandoval’s face, dripping on his pants legs as his head hangs down until his chin is touching his chest.
“Give me the combination to your safe, and then give me the location of any women you still have hidden away. You do that, and your pain ends.”
A silent moment passes before Sandoval’s defeated voice finally croaks, “Thirteen, twenty-three, ninety-six.”
“And the women?”
“Bahamas. Andros Island. I own a large compound on the south part of the island.”
“Anything else you want to tell me?” I ask, done with the man in front of me and anxious to leave to check on Brooke and Madyson.
“If you let me free, I will give you every cent in my bank account,” he feebly pleads.
A booming laugh escapes me, making him flinch. “One of my men has already seized your accounts, all six of them, you sly bastard. You’re already penniless.”
Standing up, I look one last time at the man who used to be known as the Cuban Terror. He is now a shell of a man who knows his last breath is near. “Cut him up into pieces, and then call Dwayne over at the Everglades. Go out with him on the airboat to Gator Island and feed this prick to the ’gators. I’m goin’ to call Lucas, let him know we got justice f
or his two men that died because of this fucker. They also have to get their shit together now. The Ex Ops Team is going to have to track down and rescue any of the women that can be found from the records in the safe. Overseas is beyond our territory, capabilities and pay grade.”
Giving Coal a chin lift, I pull out my cell phone, preparing to dial Lucas’s number. “Let me know when you’re done getting rid of the trash.”
As I turn and walk away, Lazaro Sandoval asks me what will be his last question. “Will you kill me first?” At my continued silence he begs. “Please!”
Turning my head to look at him, I note his bleak look of acceptance as I ask back, “Did you spare any of the women you kidnapped any pain?”
His head drops to his chest again.
“That’s what I thought. Coal there is going to give you as much mercy as you gave those woman—none.”
With that promise, I leave my brother to finish the job, satisfied that justice has been served and Sandoval will soon be taking his final breath.
The screams start before I close the door behind me.
Chapter
19
Morgan
Three Weeks Later…
“You need anything before I head out?” Coal asks from the doorway of what is temporarily my sister’s room. He has been a rock solid support for us.
I have stayed here with Madyson through the slow detox process: the vomiting, the chills, the sweats, the pain, and the nightmares she can’t remember when she wakes. Through everything she has endured, I have remained steadfast at her side.
Ice hasn’t been around much. He has called here and there, but I haven’t seen him. For a few days after we arrived here, Coal didn’t come home at all. Now we have found a routine in being here. Coal checks in, and we have formed our own friendship. He never comes close to Madyson, though; never comes inside the room, only stands in the doorway.
“No, Coal. Thank you for everything,” I reply as he looks over at Madyson’s peacefully sleeping figure.
“How is she?”
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