“Do you think I wouldn’t have someone watching the jail?” I stared at him incredulously. “My guys saw you go in. Want to tell me what the fuck you were doing in there?”
His lips curled into a smile. “What do you think I was doing?”
I lunged for him, but Kodiak was quick to intercept, slamming his hands against my chest and shaking his head. “He’s not worth it, brother. Remember the plan.”
My body vibrated with rage. I wanted to wrap my fingers around his throat and wipe that smirk off his ugly mug, but Kodiak was right. We had a plan. The only way to save Birdie was to follow through with the plan. I closed my eyes and dragged in a breath before I took a step back.
“I’m good.”
“Let’s get him into the bathroom.” Kodiak nodded.
“I’m not going anywhere with you two fucks—”
Brentwood’s tirade came to an abrupt end when I jammed the needle into his neck. For a moment, his eyes widened with fear, and then he collapsed onto his living room floor.
“What do you think it is?” Kodiak asked, eyeballing the syringe we’d pulled from Brentwood’s stash.
“No idea.” I shrugged. “But I guess we’ll find out what it does to him.”
We hauled his limp body into the bathroom and undressed him while he slipped in and out of consciousness. As tempted as I was to throw him around like a sack of potatoes, we had to take care not to leave any bruises.
Kodiak set up the electrodes, securing them to his skin with a grimace. Once he was satisfied with the placement, I filled a cup with cold water from the sink and threw it on Brentwood’s face.
He snapped to attention, his arm flopping around as he tried to reach for his weapon, only to realize he was in his bathtub. I crouched down beside him and tilted my head to the side, examining the delusional fucker who thought he could ruin Birdie’s life.
“In my mind, I’ve already murdered you in a thousand different ways,” I told him. “Fortunately for you, there’s only a small selection of torture that doesn’t leave a mark. But rest assured, I am intimately acquainted with it, and tonight, you will feel my wrath.”
His mouth flopped open like a fish, but I wasn’t interested in what he had to say. I pressed the button on the small remote, activating the TENS unit attached to his ball sack. Almost instantly, his body started to convulse as he fought to curl into himself. But whatever concoction he had in that syringe seemed to paralyze him, at least temporarily. But for someone who couldn’t move, he still had a pair of lungs on him. He screamed and cursed until his voice was raw, and then proceeded to vomit and defecate all over himself.
“Would you believe it doesn’t even leave a mark?” I mused. “We can do this all night long, and nobody will ever know.”
“You… goddamn…motherfucker,” he slurred between jolts. “I will make you suffer for this.”
“Not likely.” I shrugged. “We still have a long night ahead of us.”
“I think he wants a break, Ace.” Kodiak kneeled and removed the stopper from the drain before he turned on the cold water. “What do you say? Should we give him one?”
“Sure.” I grabbed the cords attached to the electrodes on his balls and gave them a quick yank, ripping them off with all the delicacy he deserved.
“Motherfuck!” Brentwood roared. “You can’t do this. I’m a fucking cop!”
“Some cop you are.” I grabbed a rag and draped it over his face. “Did that badge mean anything when you were destroying Birdie’s childhood?”
“You don’t know anything.” The cloth puffed with each word he heaved. “You’ll never have what I had with her. I took her first.”
I turned on the shower and yanked the detachable head from the wall. “And I’ll have her last.”
Aiming the spray at his face, I blasted the cloth and watched him squirm as he slowly suffocated. It wasn’t until Kodiak stepped in to remind me of the end goal that I finally relented, allowing him to choke in air for a minute before I started the process all over again.
And so the evening continued. When the waterboarding grew tiresome, we folded Brentwood into a human pretzel and poured drops of capsaicin down his nose and throat. Throughout the night, just for the hell of it, we’d make him kneel and place the cool barrel of the .45 against his head. It was amazing how such a simple threat could break his spirit and renew hope when it never fired.
Whenever he started to regain movement in his limbs, we shot him up with another syringe, which he later admitted was a paralyzing agent he’d used on several women. For sixteen hours, we tortured him until his spirit was so broken, he actually started to beg for death. Being the merciful man I was, I told him I would give it to him, just as soon as he confessed all of his sins on paper. And confess he did. When I wrapped the noose around his neck, his eyes were as empty as his vacant soul. But before he left this earth, I had one last parting gift for him. So between the long sessions of choking him into unconsciousness and stirring him to life again, I revealed the information I knew would never allow him to rest in peace.