The Colt & The Cobra - THE SPECTER SERIES [book six]

Chapter FIFTY TWO

Colt Knox

.. earlier that day ..

"I'm giving you one final chance to tell me where my cousin is, testa di cazzo pezzo di merda! After that, one of you'se fucks is gonna find out what happens when I get pissed.."

So far, my time upstairs in the garage has been every bit as miserable as Oliver had promised. The truest form of torture imaginable.. After what must have been over an hour of dry boarding, my functions are beginning to fail and I am dying.. I am dying, over and over without the beautiful release of death..

But I am ready to die..

Fuck.. Just let me die.

I can feel my body slowly shutting down, each time Vincent De'lucca stuffs the putrid diesel laced rags back into my mouth and binds the duct tape over it, covering my nose so that no oxygen could possibly enter my lungs..

A couple minutes later, the asphyxiation overwhelms me and my chest burns with an angry volcanic heat.. My body jerks involuntary, struggling against the slow suffocation until black begins to choke the periphery of my vision.. My limbs slacken, and death is only a sweet second away..

But then he cuts the tape away, yanking the cloth from between my teeth, just like he did the time before, and the time before that.. Again and again we repeat the sick pattern..

Questions.. Rags.. Tape.. A prayer for death.. And the relief of breath followed by the miserable realisation that I am about to do it all again..

"I can do this all fucking day, white-trash-redneck-figlio di puttana! Where the fuck is she?!" Vinny wanders over to the work bench, rifling through tools, passing over a pair of pliers to select a long steel pipe-wrench, making my internals cringe.

"I ain't seen her.. I dunno.. Man.. Fuck.. I dunno--" I lie, heaving lungfuls of air which is now excruciating to breathe, like inhaling shards of glass.. I desperately cling to the things that might ground me and keep me from losing my mind..

I focus on remembering the sound of her laugh, or the sparkle of her eyes..

The scent of her perfume, or the cute little crinkle between her brows when I'd make her mad..

Anything.. Anything to keep me from going insane and begging for the end..
Anything for Mikki.. I have to hold it together for Mikki..

Vinny evaluates the weight of the wrench in his hands while turning his back on me to bark out an order.. "Marcus, take two of your guys and go get the others, bring 'em up 'ere.."

Marcus nods to the two knuckleheads by the door and together they disappears through it, leaving behind only two of the five men who'd been standing guard around the garage floor..

Vinny strolls casually back across the room, dragging with him a stool to plop down right in front of where I hang, dangling a foot from the ground hooked up to the hydrologic jack-lift, suspended from my wrists in chains that cut deep into my flesh..

The blood from my wrist drips down my arms to splatter over my face and puddle beneath my boots..

"Hey.. Hey! Look at me, Colton." Vinny jives for my attention with a warning snarl..

After an exhausted sigh, I use up too much effort to lift my head and witness his fear.. I can see it in his eyes, like a portal to his nightmares, I see inside the man.. He is terrified that he won't be able to break me, it scares him.. He is lost, adrift in the world he's so desperately attempting to navigate.. And that fear makes him a special kind of dangerous..