“You see that hook over there, angel?” Jax asks me, ignoring Ed’s noise and nodding toward a huge steel hook beneath his workbench.
“Yep.”
“It goes on that beam there, see?” He nods now to one of supports that runs across the roof of the shed, and which has another thick metal chain dangling from it.
“Okay,” I nod my understanding and grab the hook before fixing it in place.
All the while Ed watches me. He’s stopped crying now and instead I think he’s paralyzed with fear. I mean, we both know where he’s about to go, and the thought of what Jax might do to him while he’s hanging like a pig on a butcher’s hook has me feeling a little queasy too.
When his wrists are securely bound, Jax carries Ed to the dangling hook and hangs him from it. It’s at the perfect height for his toes to just about reach the floor.
Jax picks up a knife with a serrated blade from his tool box and holds it to Ed’s chest.
“P-please don’t,” Ed snivels.
“Oh, I’m not going to cut you with this,” Jax says with a scowl. “It’s far too sharp and that would be way too easy.” He pops one of the buttons off Ed’s shirt with the tip of the blade. “This is just so I can do this,” he adds before he starts to cut off Ed’s shirt, pants and socks. Once he’s done that, he takes hold of the waistband of Ed’s briefs.
“No!” Ed wails, twisting on the chain like a fish on a hook.
“Yes,” Jax snarls as he cuts them in one swift slice of the blade. He looks down Ed’s flaccid dick, which is shriveled in fear. “I hope you’re a grower not a shower, Ed, because there’s not much meat for me to work with there.”
I snigger at that but Ed just keeps crying. His wailing has turned to soft sobs now. It would be pitiful if he wasn’t such a piece of shit.
Jax picks up a huge pair of shears and hands them to me.
“Now, here is how this is going to go,” he says to Ed, his tone calm and steady now. “I’m going to ask you a whole heap of questions, and if you don’t tell me the truth, I’m going to tell my girl to cut off a body part. Okay? I mean she’s a nice person so she probably won’t start with your cock. But your hands are pretty high for her to reach, and you only got ten toes.”
Ed nods his head in understanding.
“You okay there, baby?” Jax asks while keeping his eyes fixed on Ed.
“Yep,” I say as my heart races while adrenaline thunders through my veins.
“Now don’t worry, Ed. I’m gonna start with the easy stuff first. Like how long have you been following me.”
“I haven’t,” Ed mumbles.
“For fuck’s sake,” Jax hisses and then he turns to me. “Pick a toe, baby.”
I take a step closer and fix the tip of the shears around Ed’s big toe because it’s the easiest to grasp as my hands tremble slightly. Then I feel Jax’s strong hand on the small of my back. Reminding me that I got this. This man tried to destroy us.
“Wait!” Ed shrieks but it’s too late.
I clamp the shear tightly shut and Ed’s toe pops off like a soda cap. Wow, these things are sharp. Ed howls in pain as blood spurts from the wound.
Jax slaps Ed’s face so that he stops focusing on the pain in his foot and looks at him, again. “You see how this is gonna work now?”
Ed nods his head.
“How long have you been watching me?”
“Only while you were here on honeymoon,” he sniffs.
“But the photograph of me and Shannon? That was from way before that?”
“The photograph of you fucking my wife?” Ed says, as though suddenly he has a little fire in his belly.
“She wasn’t your wife then,” Jax snarls. “You two weren’t even together.”