Chapter 31
Colt
Blood, thick and coppery, was collecting in the back of his throat. He longed to spit it out but knew that wasn’t a smart choice. He swallowed thickly instead, shuddering at the taste. He was pretty sure his nose though swollen and throbbing, wasn’t broken, but with his hands zip-tied behind his back he had no way of checking.
Propped against the wall beside him was John, a thin stream of blood running from eyebrow to jaw. Colt had no idea what happened to him but assumed that like himself he’d been king hit without warning.
Sleeping with a concussion was fucking dangerous, everyone knew that, but again he was in a limited position to do anything about it.
“Buddy,” he hissed for what felt like the hundredth time. “John?”
Again, for the hundredth time John didn’t respond. If it wasn’t for the pulse Colt could see flickering in his neck he might have actually started to panic.
“For the millionth time I’m not telling you shit.”
Daniel’s voice reverberated around the surveillance quarters. Walshaw had cranked up the volume especially; just like he’d made sure every one of the twenty screens showed her bound to one of the high-backed chairs in the dining room.
“I don’t see that you have a choice,” Elkin replied. She was sitting across from Daniel drumming her nails against the glossy Cherrywood dining table. “We’ve captured your men and if you’d like to see them again, alive that is, you’ll tell us what you know.”
“Why don’t you go fuck yourself instead?” Daniel suggested. Brave words but her hands were visibly shaking and she kept smiling at odd intervals.
Don’t laugh, Colt urged her image. Keep breathing, stay relaxed. The last thing we need is for you to have another panic attack.
Walshaw tapped the nearest screen with a thick, fat finger. “Look at her nipples. They’re hard as diamonds. Do you think being tied up just gets her horny or is she that way all the time?”
Colt entertained a brief but powerful fantasy of tearing Walshaw’s carotid artery open with his teeth. The asshole had been saying shit like this for the last half hour, ever since Colt had woken up, bound and bleeding in the room where he used to drink coffee and watch Daniel shower.
“Nothing to say, big boy?” Walshaw said. He clicked the mouse and the cameras zoomed closer and closer so that Colt was looking at twenty pairs of Daniel’s nipples distending through Seb’s thin cotton t-shirt. “What about now?”
Colt locked his teeth together so tight his jaw clicked. Don’t, he urged himself. Don’t fucking let him win.
It had become instantly clear to Colt that while Walshaw was guarding them for Elkin’s purposes the fat little fuck would love, absolutely fucking love to shoot him. His watery blue eyes were begging him to do something worthy of a bullet in his guts. Why, Colt wasn’t sure, but if he didn’t play it smart it wouldn’t matter. With a snarl of frustration Walshaw turned up the monitor volume even louder. Elkin and Daniel’s argument filled the room.
“Daniel, you won’t see any of my employees until you—”
“They’re not your employees, you miserable old bag. You’re fucking them over just like you’re trying to fuck me.”
Beside him John groaned, his head drooping onto his shoulder. Colt stared at him, willing him to open his eyes but he stayed immobile.
“Yes,” Walshaw said, circling a fingertip around the image of one of Daniel’s areolas. “If I’d been in your position I’d have had my cock between those tits every minute of the day. Tell me, do they feel as good as they look?”
“Fuck you,” he said without thinking.
Walshaw grinned, pleased to have finally gotten a response. “You want to be more polite, Stone. It’s thanks to me you got that oversized cock of yours inside that Yid cunt.”
“The hell are you talking about?”
Walshaw revolved in John’s desk chair so they were face-to-face. “Didn’t you wonder why we hired three unmarried men to watch a lone female? And don’t let this go to your head, Stone, but good looking men at that?”
Colt’s stomach churned, blood and bile mixing. “You wanted us to fuck Daniel?”
“Essentially,” Walshaw’s self-satisfied smile grew wider. “As I’m sure you know Schwartz is a strange breed of female. Highly suspicious, unable to be bribed or tortured—”
“You tortured her?”
Walshaw waved airily. “Only a bit. Had almost no effect. Ordinarily we’d have found someone she loved and tortured them until she complied, but Schwartz is an orphan, her brother’s dead, her close friends are under the protection of that ridiculous organization, and her half-sister despises her.”
“Daniel’s got a half-sister?” Colt said weakly. “And she’s a twin?”
“Was a twin,” Walshaw corrected. “Perhaps if you’d spent less time with your donkey-sized cock in her mouth you’d know that.”
That was the second mention Walshaw had made to his dick and Colt was beginning to sense where Walshaw’s animosity was coming from. Some straight men were like that he’d learned at first college then the military. They saw what he was packing and they never stopped talking about it, joking about it, bringing it up no matter who was around. It wasn’t sexual, just weird competitive male fascination. He suspected it was strongest in guys who were lacking in the trouser department themselves. Against all the odds, Colt found himself grinning.
“What are you smirking about?” Walshaw demanded.
“Oh nothing,” Colt said, unable to tamp down his smile. “What were you saying?”
“I was saying that the only reason you got to meet your cunty little girlfriend is so we could torture you until she tells us what we want to know.”
Colt’s grin slid right off his face. “What?”
Walshaw rolled his eyes. “Christ you’re thick. We couldn’t access people Schwartz cared about so we decided to make some more. That’s where you came in, big boy. You and blondie and that weird looking cunt over there.” He nodded towards John.
Colt remembered the weird thing Daniel had said to him while she had a panic attack. ‘You only like me because of computers.’ “You hired us because you thought Daniel would be attracted to us?”
“Bingo,” Walshaw said with a mocking smile. “Of course we thought she’d just choose one of you but we weren’t aware of your penchant for sharing women. Is it a military habit? Or do you all secretly wish you could bum one another?”
The guy guarding the door chuckled and Walshaw looked ridiculously pleased with himself. Colt barely registered the insult. He felt as though he’d turned a bizarre, complicated painting the right way up and discovered it was a cat wearing a bow tie. This explained everything—the pay, Elkin’s willingness for them to sleep with Daniel. Everything. “We were so fucking stupid,” he said.
“Yes you were.” Walshaw yawned, his jowls flattening like furry tubes. “In less than thirty days you burrowed yourselves into that girl like ticks. It was marvelous to watch. Of course Rhodes and Blackwood are the ones she’s really interested in. You’re more of a large hobbyhorse she can ride when she’s bored but no doubt you’ll do your part in bringing her to her knees. So to speak.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Walshaw cackled like this was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “I wonder if she’ll even beg for your life, Stone. Maybe she’ll just ask us to cut off the most useful part of you for keeps, you know what I mean?”
This time Colt was in no mood to smile at Walshaw’s obsession with his cock. “She won’t talk, no matter what you fucking do.”
“Oh yes she will,” Walshaw said. “She went to pieces at the mere idea of you idiots not being bestest fwends. Can you imagine what she’ll do when we beat your blond boy to death in front of her?”
“Seb?” Colt hadn’t wanted to think about where he was, already fearing the worst. “He’s alive?”
Walshaw beamed like a horrible Santa Claus. “For now. Like I said, he’ll be first and if he goes before she talks we’ve still got two more men to work over. That’s the beauty of this entire arrangement. That and all the wonderful recordings we’ve made of the three of you together. Schwartz is much more flexible than I gave her credit for.”
“You fucking animal.” Colt jerked so hard against his restraints he almost toppled over.
“Steady yourself.” Walshaw rolled backward in John’s chair, looking amused. “I wouldn’t want to have to put you out of your misery ahead of schedule.” But I will, his watery eyes said. God I’d fucking love to.
“Schwartz…” John’s head rolled from one shoulder to the other. “Schwartz.”
Colt shoved himself up against his friend so he wouldn’t collapse. “It’s me, Colt. I’m right beside you.”
“Colt?” John sat up a little straighter and finally, finally opened his eyes.
“Shit,” he said, swallowing thickly as he took in their surrounds. “Where’s Schwartz? Is she okay?”
Colt felt a hot rush of anger at the way he kept calling her by her last name. “She—”
“I can help you there,” Walshaw interrupted. “Look up at the screen, Blackwood.”
John raised his bloodshot eyes to the monitors where Daniel was bound, naked but for Seb’s Blackstone t-shirt and his expression went utterly blank. “You,” he said flatly. “Are gonna pay for this.”
Walshaw glanced nervously at the bearded man by the door. “Threatening me won’t do you any good.”
“It’s not a threat. I thought I’d killed my last man but I’m gonna make an exception for you Walshaw. You and your fucking boss.”
“Oh really?”
John bent over coughing violently but before Colt could ask if he was okay, he straightened up and spat a mouthful of blood and saliva on Walshaw’s ugly brown wingtips. “Really.”
Walshaw stared at the burgundy splash in utter revulsion. “You…You just…”
The dried blood on Colt’s cheeks cracked as he grinned. “Don’t worry, it’ll come off. Though why you’d wanna keep ‘em I have no fucking idea.”
“You little—”
“I’m sorry,” Colt interrupted. “I thought you were all caught up in how big I am.”
Walshaw’s face went the color of bad cheese. “You dare- you can’t…”
“You want me to do something, boss?” The security guy by the door asked.
“No!” Walshaw snapped. He pulled out the Beretta at his side and held the barrel up to Colt’s face. “Say that again.”
Colt fell silent, trying to bring his expression back to a neutral plane. Walshaw’s hand was shaking, he was clearly not a marksman, but at this range, he didn’t have to be. If his finger so much as kissed the trigger his brains would be plastered all over the wall.
“That’s what I thought,” Walshaw hissed. He stepped sideways so he was standing directly over John. “Did you know we had an office pool, Blackwood? I won fifty euros when Rhodes fucked your little whore first, but I’m sorry to say you lost me a hundred. I thought you were going to slap her before your contract was out.”
John’s face paled. “I’ve never hit a woman. Never.”
“Of course not,” Walshaw said in a mocking voice. “You just like humiliating girls, do you? Torturing them? Beating them down and calling them names?”
John hung his head.
“Don’t listen to him,” Colt said. “He’s fucking with you.”
“Taking his side, Stone?” Walshaw asked. “This morning you were gonna beat him to a pulp for calling her, what was it again? A worthless bitch?”
Colt felt another burst of anger, this time aimed squarely at John. After Daniel had collapsed there’d been no time to discuss what happened but he hadn’t fucking forgotten the way John had her kneel on the cold hard floor servicing him like a beat-down hooker. “You shouldn’t have done that, John.”
“Well there you go,” Walshaw said delightedly. “He agrees with me.”
“It was a game,” John said, staring at the ground. “It’s what I like. Schw- Daniel knew that. I wasn’t trying to hurt her.”
Colt shook his head, painfully aware that Walshaw and the guard were watching. “You shouldn’t have done it behind our backs.”
“I know.” John’s voice was low, less than a whisper. “But I care about her. You know I do.”
Colt remembered the look on John’s face when Daniel collapsed. The way he’d held her, so fucking gently, even when she was clawing at his shoulders. “I know.”
“If I could take it back—”
“Don’t worry about it now,” Colt muttered. “Bridge over the water.”
John hesitated. “You know that’s the wrong way around, right?”
“If you say so.”
For a second he and John smiled at one another, their enormously fucked-up situation somehow forgotten, then they remembered where they were and what they were doing and he looked away, embarrassed.
Walshaw threw himself back into his office chair. “Well that was anticlimactic.”
“Fuck off,” John said, like Walshaw was some drunk who thought the Mets were better than the Yankees.
Walshaw’s smile vanished and he raised his gun. “What was that?”
John sneered up at him. “We both know you’re not gonna shoot me before Elkin’s done with us so stop fucking around and put that away.”
Walshaw held the gun up obstinately, as though needing to prove John couldn’t tell him what to do.
“Um, boss, Mr. Walshaw sir,” the security guy said. “Maybe you should…”
“Fine.” Walshaw tossed the gun onto the nearby desk with a clatter that made everyone else flinch. He began tapping at the keyboard. “Either of you boys in the mood for some entertainment?”
Colt rolled his eyes at John. “Whatever you say—”
A familiar giggle filled the air. “No, I’m not ready yet!”
Colt’s heart all but stopped dead in his chest. All three of the monitors were now showing the same thing. Daniel on her side in bed, sandwiched between himself and Seb.
“Come on baby, you’re in safe hands,” his on-screen self said, kissing Daniel’s neck. “Isn’t she, kid?”
“Turn that off,” John said, his expression livid.
“No, I don’t think I will.” Walshaw increased the volume, so that the sound of Colt sucking Daniel’s nipples filled the room. “Anyway, why are you protesting, Blackwood? As I recall, this is one of your favorite recordings, nearly worked yourself blind watching it.”
Colt felt his face grow hot as he realized what Walshaw was implying. He glanced at his friend, hoping to offer some kind of support but all the light had gone from John’s eyes. He’d shut down in the way he’d always been so good at in Forces. Become nothing but a meat suit, breathing, taking in nothing. On-screen Daniel squirmed as he nuzzled her breasts. “You ready to come like you’ve never come before, princess?”
God it sucked, listening to his sex voice at a time like this.
“I think so.” Daniel touched her lips to his. “I’m a little nervous.”
“Don’t be. We’re gonna take good care of you, I promise.”
“Promise,” Seb echoed, stroking down the column of her spine. Colt’s guts twisted. Where was he now? Was he conscious? Was he okay?
“How can you promise?” Daniel asked Seb. “It’s your first time too.”
Seb kissed her shoulder. “I won’t ever hurt you, darlin’. You know that.”
“How endearing,” Walshaw whispered, and Colt realized he was pressing a hand against the crotch of his slacks.
“Jesus,” he said. “Can you not jerk your dick in front of me to videos of me? I’m not a fucking pornstar.”
Walshaw removed his hand, his fat cheeks burning red. Colt knew he was going to pay for that and he was right. Walshaw stood up. “Ronald. A lesson please?”
The bearded guard by the door stepped forward. “Brace yourself,” he said, then he kicked Colt square in the chest with what felt like all the force in his asshole body. He doubled over, every muscle in his body drawn tight.
No snap, he thought dumbly. No broken ribs. That’s good, that’s good, that’s fine, that’s workable.
His guts heaved, his stomach rigid with nausea and spasming muscles. On the monitors he could hear himself going down on Daniel, hear her whimpering melding with the slick sounds of his tongue moving through her pussy. His cock stirred against his leg and the need to throw up increased tenfold.
God this was fucked up.
“That’s better,” Walshaw said, wiping the shoe John had bloodied on Colt’s shoulder. “Make another sound and it’ll be a bullet instead of a boot. Got that?”
Colt nodded, his breath coming out in phlegmy rattles. To his right John stared ahead with blank unseeing eyes.
“You’re so beautiful,” Seb’s voice announced, his body braced at Daniel’s back. “You have the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.”
Daniel turned her head to kiss the kid on the mouth. “You’re beautiful.”.
“Okay that’s enough,” Colt’s on-screen self protested. “Less soppy declarations, more anal.”
The three of them laughed. Colt closed his eyes and the recording stopped.
“Stone, if you don’t watch I’m afraid Ronald is going to give you another warning,” Walshaw said in a sing-song voice.
So even though every ounce of his body was flooded with bile Colt watched. It was harder than he could have ever anticipated. Not because he was watching himself have sex, not because Walshaw was there, but because of how fucking joyful it was. All three of them smiling and laughing as if they were in their own little world. Like they weren’t on camera. Like this wasn’t a big fucking joke at their expense. They were fucking, no, making love to Daniel in a safe little bubble, thinking no one else was watching.
Walshaw leaned closer toward the monitor. “I can’t tell if the boy’s in her arse or not. That’s the problem with surveillance footage. No close-ups.”
Colt’s face burned. He tried to drown the noises out like John but he’d never been good as disconnecting himself that way and with every passing second he came closer to snapping his zip-ties and getting himself killed.
“Oh my god.” Daniel gasped her body arching back into Seb. “It feels so nice.”
“I know it does.” On-screen Colt slipped a thumb between Daniel’s lips and she sucked it eagerly. “Wait ‘til you’re ready to take both of us. You’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven.”
“You never did though, did you?” Walshaw said thoughtfully. “Maybe I’ll get my chance once you’re both dead. What do you think, Ronald? Would you join me?”
The big man chuckled. “Wouldn’t say no.”
That was it, Colt thought with the dumb calm of resolve. He could not watch this anymore, there was only so much a man could take. He began twisting his wrists behind his back, forcing the plastic to shift and strain. John’s shoulder shoved his. “No,” he murmured. “Wait.”
Colt shook his head. “Can’t. I’m done.”
If he was going to die and it seemed very possible, he’d kill Walshaw first. He’d kill him before he let him lay a hand on Daniel.
“Boss,” the security guard said suddenly. “Aren’t they supposed to be watching the live feed? Ms. Elkin did say…”
“Shit,” Walshaw said. He began furiously clicking the mouse a couple of times. “Right, look who it is, boys.”
It was the same view as before; Daniel and Elkin facing off on opposite sides of the dining room table, except now a pink haired man was kneeling beside Elkin.
Colt gave a yelp of shock when he realized it was Seb, a Seb that was completely unrecognizable from the man he’d just watched having sex with Daniel. His hair was matted with the blood still trickling from his scalp and out of the corners of his mouth, leaking down his bare chest in a steady burgundy stream. His lips, protruding over a black ball gag, were fat, his cheeks swollen and both his eyes were puffy and purple.
“What the fuck have you done to him?” Daniel demanded, echoing Colt’s exact thoughts.
Elkin ran a hand through Seb’s bloody hair. “I know it’s such a shame…before you get too upset, Daniel, darling, are you familiar with the concept of a whipping boy?”