A Chip and a Chair (Seven of Spades, #5)(64)

He absorbed as much information as possible, but he could only remain motionless for so long. Eventually, the misery of his bonds forced him to shift, searching in vain for a less excruciating position.

The movement caught the attention of one of his captors, who swung around toward him. “Look who’s awake.”

These men were the same Nazi prick template copy-and-pasted onto bodies of various heights and builds, with little to distinguish them from one another. The one who’d noticed Levi’s return to consciousness had a giant tattoo covering his upper left arm, a glaring bald eagle perched on a Christian cross. Tasteful.

Tattoo approached Levi’s chair, accompanied by two buddies-one with a wispy goatee and another who’d been recently sunburned. The rest of the men remained at the folding tables.

Levi abandoned all pretense of unconsciousness and lifted his chin, staring straight ahead.

“Nothing to say?” said Tattoo.

Levi met the man’s eyes but kept his mouth shut.

Goatee stepped closer. “There’s a bet going about who’s going to be the one to kill you, you know. Hatfield wants the whole thing filmed, but he hasn’t decided who gets the honors.”

Clenching his jaw, Levi rode out the surge of panic that coursed through his body. “Is that why you’ve been trying to take me alive?” he asked when he could speak without inflection. “Seems like a bad idea.”

He’d rather provoke them into killing him here and now than have his murder put on the internet for Dominic, Martine, and his parents to see.

Goatee snorted. “Worked pretty well. Nobody knows where you are, and nobody’s gonna find out. Except maybe the Seven of Spades-but we’re counting on that.”

Levi frowned as the men snickered and exchanged self-congratulatory looks. “You’re . . . using me as bait?” He couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice, though it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. Utopia had always had a hard-on for being the ones to take out the Seven of Spades. They believed-not without merit-that doing so would vault them to the highest levels of status and intimidation.

“We heard the Seven of Spades is that prettyboy defense lawyer. Everyone knows he’ll try to find you. And if he manages it . . . well.” Sunburn mimed firing a gun with his fingers. “We’ll be ready.”

“I’m sure your friends in North Las Vegas thought the same thing.”

Goatee lunged forward and backhanded Levi across the face, whipping his head to the side and splitting his lip.

Worth it.

He ran his tongue over his bloodied lip and smirked as he raised his head. “The Seven of Spades has slaughtered more than fifty people by this point, and you want to lure him right to you? How stupid can you be?”

“Watch your mouth, cocksucker.” Goatee gripped both sides of Levi’s jaw, yanking his head up; the other two assholes crowded closer.

“He’s going to kill you all,” Levi said, with far more bravado than he felt. There were too many variables. If Sawyer was the Seven of Spades, if enough time had passed for him to be released from custody, if he cared enough about Levi to risk himself, if he was able to slip his police detail, if he could locate this safe house . . .

Goatee gave Levi’s head a hard shake. “You wanna be gagged, is that it?”

Taking a page out of Utopia’s playbook, Levi spat in his face. Goatee jerked backward, crying out, and scrubbed at his face way more frantically than was necessary-probably desperate to fend off those gay Jew cooties.

Tattoo replaced him, grabbing Levi’s throat instead and squeezing until Levi grunted. He tipped Levi’s head back and eyed him speculatively. “Maybe we should give him something better to do with his mouth.”

Levi didn’t understand what he meant until Sunburn shot him a disgusted look and said, “You queer now, too?”

The ice-cold realization made Levi jerk back instinctively, but Tattoo only tightened his clutch on Levi’s throat. Levi breathed shallowly through his nose.

They couldn’t be serious. Neo-Nazis were too homophobic to even consider sexually assaulting a male captive.

Weren’t they?

“Hell, no,” said Tattoo, in answer to his friend’s taunt. “But how different can one mouth be from another?”

Sunburn’s disgust didn’t fade, but Goatee narrowed his eyes. “You seen that giant animal he gets on his knees for? Bet he learned real quick not to choke on a horse-cock like that guy’s probably got.”

“That true, bitch?” Tattoo put more pressure on Levi’s throat. “Pervert like you must love sucking cock, huh? Don’t even matter whose it is.”

Levi shuddered, swallowing a whimper that wanted to escape. He’d never felt this brand of sick terror. Even when he’d been attacked in college, those men hadn’t threatened him with sexual violence.

He felt a healthy amount of fear when his life was in danger-he wasn’t crazy-but that fear was always tempered by experience, by confidence in his abilities, by the knowledge of how much damage he could take and keep going. This, though? This was a different monster entirely, and he had no defenses against it.

“Stop fucking around,” Sunburn said. “He’d bite your dick off before he’d suck it.”

“I don’t think so. Not if he knew we’d go get our kicks with his pretty piece of jailbait in Henderson instead.”