Cade

“I should have listened to my gut when you asked to meet at your home instead of my office. You don’t even look like a Carl. You do look like a sick twisted fuck though; you won’t get away with this.” The fear in the man’s voice causes eagerness to jolt down my spine.

I can smell his near death in the freezing air. It’s a desirable high like no other.

“Sick and twisted, damn straight I am. Carl, I’m not. That was my dad’s name, so unless you want me to carve your lips off your face, I’d shut the fuck up. Gotta hand it to you though, didn’t think you looked like a murderer either, but you are. Isn’t that right?” Watching the man’s face go pale, a speckled expression of remorse streaming across his features before it’s gone as quickly as it came sends my chaotic mind into a frenzy.

Clay Irvine is the first victim on my road to vengeance. He’s trapped on his hands and knees, naked as the day he was born on a wooden table in the middle of a room in an old run down decrepit house. The only occupants that have lived here for years are the spiders that have laced their webs around the cracked spindles of the stairs and dead rodents that have dropped their smelly shit everywhere. The windows are busted out, segments of ceiling hang lifeless in the moldy air. Pieces of faded drywall lie over a damp raised coupled hardwood floor. The cold wind and snow filter through the rotten and blistered window frames. It’s the perfect place to put a match too. Dry and coated with dust. It won’t take minutes for it to go up in flames.

I stay hidden in the shadows to let Nick have his fun before I make an appearance that’s sure to give the squirrelly balding friend of my brother’s a heart attack before I test his ability to pain.

At the moment he has no idea where he is or who clocked him in the temple. Then cloaked his head with a black hood after he stepped out of his car where he thought he was meeting a prospective client looking to get a divorce. The idiot made our job easy by showing up to a multi-million dollar home that’s been on the market for years. Gives the cops good reason to investigate elsewhere. Don’t give a fuck if the bastard who owns the place goes down for a crime he didn’t commit. It ain’t my problem.

“I don’t know what you are going on about. I’ve never killed anyone. You need to let me go before someone finds out I’m missing.” His shoulders shudder, skin breaking out in goosebumps. And not the pleasurable kind either. His body starts to twist and thrash about on the table. Bastard might want to look down to where his dick is within an inch of being caught in a trap we designed and rigged to slice it off. Dumb fuck.

“Keep struggling, and soon those chains are going to squeeze all the air out of your lungs, and the contraption around your shriveling dick is going to cause you all kinds of pain. You’re trapped, motherfucker. Every move you make pulls those chains a little tighter which causes the clamps to shut. Might want to believe me when I say they are sharp. Take a look, man, they are less than a few inches from your balls. Hate to break it down to you this way, only one who will realize you’re gone are the men you’re in business with. Believe your partner's name is Drew, correct? The cops, man, they don’t give a shit about you. Not to worry though, will make sure they find you. Sorry. Not sorry that you’ll be fried to a crisp by the time the firemen get here. You’ll be a cold case left unsolved. Just like the people you killed.”

Shock. He doesn’t wear it as well as he did the expensive suit we stripped him out of.

I smile. I can smell his fear before he tilts his head down to take a look.

My twitchy trigger finger is aching to put a bullet through his skull. Yet the need for vengeance embedded in my skin holds me back just a little longer.

“Jesus Fucking Christ. What the hell? Fuck, you crazy son of a bitch. I’ll die before I admit a damn thing to you.” His body starts to shake. Muscles are working overtime to keep him upright. Won’t be long until the freezing air has him shivering so bad he’ll be whimpering.

“Cool with me, man. Either way, you're about to die.”

There’s my cue. The word die.

As revolting and warped as the scene before me is, the word die is one of my favorite words. That and, hope. Because even a man like me, whose blacked out soul doesn’t stand a chance to live a normal life, has hope swelling inside of me. Hope that Ivy didn’t betray me the way these heartless fucks did.

I haven’t been back to their house in several days. I drank my birthday away and barely slept knowing tonight was drawing closer. Still, the desire to see her up close mulls on my mind. I tried with every fiber in me to forget her. Not sure if I can’t because she’s the only good thing left of the man I used to be or if it’s because the hate I’ve tried convincing myself I have for her is actually love. Don’t really know what to think anymore except I have this bad vibe in my gut that tells me something isn’t right with that marriage, and I’m not resting until I find out what.

Whatever is happening with her, I'll deal with later. Right now, I’ve waited for a long time to kill this slimeball.

Placing my pipe in my mouth, lighting it up, and taking a long sip. I walk out slowly to allow the fragrance to reel in his senses. The smell of this particular nicotine is rare; it’s my dad’s personal blend. Rich fire roasted Cavendish mixed with undertones of vanilla.

I puff, inhale and exhale. The wind carrying the smell directly to him. He sniffs several times before his mouth drops open and recognition hits. Closing my eyes, I inhale again, filter the toxins through my body and blow the smoke as I lower myself so he can see my face.

“Don’t cough, Clay. Your tiny little weenie will be gone before I have my fun.”

\He sputters. Face turning red. One shocked gaze he gives me before dropping his head between his slumping shoulders. “Fuck. This cannot be happening. I should have known.” I’d chuckle at his choice of words if I had a sense of humor. Can’t recall the last time a genuine smile lifted my mouth. Suppose I could, but thoughts of Ivy are diminished for the time being.

“Admitting it won’t save your life. You will tell me which one of you raped and shot Rachel before shooting my parents, then torching my house.” As much as I tried to forget the visuals of someone doing that to her, they still wake me in the dead of night. At the time, I was too shaken up to recall which one of them made a comment about how tight she was, how she fought and called out my name before he gagged her and fucked her virginal body. Not anymore though. I remember his voice as clear as crystal and the sound of it now is like gasoline being poured over the fire that’s been smoldering in me for years. It roars through my veins. Igniting.

More shock, this time it’s turned him as white as the freezing snow. Eyes widening, he inhales before lifting his head to glare fearfully into my dark eyes. His entire body rattling the chains.

“Cade. Shit, I always wondered if you made it out alive. I… Please man, it wasn’t me. I didn’t touch Rachel. I didn’t want to do it. Your brother, he forced us. Swear to God he did.” The high volume in his tone lifts a corner of my mouth. Fury pulses through my veins. I don’t care who forced who to do what. All I care about is extracting every last one of the men involved from this earth.

“Keep moving, and you’ll be bleeding out. Rats will be sniffing. Ain’t no telling what they’ll do to your dick and balls. A dick you raped my sister with before you shot her. The last thought she had was of you violating her with your dick. Consider yourself lucky I don’t chop it off and stuff it in your mouth.”

I back-hand him across the face and began to pace. Seconds pass as I fall further insane, yanking on my hair as his pleading echoes.

I need to kill him in a hurry; it’s the only way to stop the unleashed raging beast that has been waiting to get this started.

“You see me, Clay? Do I look like a man who gives a fuck whose idea it was? Over the years I’ve been taught a lot of things. One of them is when people lie. I’ve been waiting a long time for this. Your death is going to hurt like a bitch. Might want to hold still, Clay. That clamp is about to pinch your balls.” I take a puff of my pipe, the sweet burning sensation curling down my throat and lungs. The smell piercing its way to my head.

Sweet fucking torture.

It ain’t easy standing next to this piece of shit, look him in the eye and recall how my brain bounced back and forth with each laugh, each word they said as I laid low in the grass. My stomach churning, mouth-filling with bile. How the pain of what my sister must have felt scorched through my skin and took away every feeling of safety she ever had. She trusted them. Hung out with them as much as I did and they killed her spirit before she took her last breath.

Faster than a speeding bullet, I pull two knives from my back pockets, stab it through the back of each one of his hands, lodging them into the wood.

One for each filthy paw that touched her.

His shriek of pain, gasping and choking, the gears in his head trying to tame down his shaking is an adrenaline shot straight into my brain.

A goddamn motherfucking buzzing bleeding high.

Blood gushes out of his hands.

I crave the sight of it.

“You are c-c-crazy. Drew always promised us there wasn’t a chance you got out. He doused your door with gasoline himself. Look, I ca-can’t bring your family back, but I can give you half of the life insurance. It’s yours, Cade. Take it, and I’ll disappear. Swear it.” He stutters. Teeth are chattering and lips turning blue.

“I’m not my brother, motherfucker. I don’t want the money. I want you dead. You can beg and plead all you want. Bet it sounds familiar doesn’t it? Did Rachel beg you to stop when you tore through her body? See that’s the kind of crazy that’s eaten away at me all these years. Wondering how it felt for my family to watch their son and his friends they treated like their own hurt them. Ever wonder what inhaling smoke does to the body? How about the smell of flesh burning, ever smelled it? I have, and it is the worst smell. It stinks like fucking bullshit.”

It takes mere seconds for Clay’s body to tremble into uncontrollable shudders, his body locking up, his face contorting in pain as the clamp squeezes the fuck out of his balls and the sharp blade slices off his flaccid dick.

I’ve never seen so much blood ooze out of a person in my entire life. It’s pouring out of him like water from a broken hydrant. Squirting in every direction. My stomach nearly lurches up and out of my throat, his loud, shrilling screams ring in my ears until Chaz walks over, stuffs a rag in his mouth to stifle them.

“You raped my sister, asshole. Now you suffer.” I’m done talking to him for now. As Nick said, his confession wouldn’t save his sorry ass regardless. I move around the room. Taunting and teasing as I waft the last of the nicotine into the air. I want that and his smell of fear to be the last thing he inhales before the smoke suffocates and collapses his lungs.

His eyes bulge when I lift a couple of cans of oil from under the table and kneel on the floor in front of him. “You’ll probably die before the fire reaches you. Then again, maybe not. Once the flames hit your oily skin, you’ll sizzle and fry,” I say with no empathy, no emotion at all.

“How does it feel to be tortured? To know you have no control over the people who have you trapped?” His answer is a whimper.

His body continues to shake as I pour the oil over his skin.

“Goddamn, you’re fighting to be free of these restraints. Your skin is going to itch here in a minute, muscles will cramp, and your arms and knees will give. I’ll be seeing you again, Clay. In hell where we’ll do this all over again.”

I don’t look back as I make my way to the rickety door where Chaz and Nick stand waiting. I bend, flick my lighter and watch the gasoline we previously poured make its way around the room.

His pained yells fade the farther I walk away.

I can only hope the screaming I never heard from Rachel will do the same.