Gray didn’t answer. He clicked the clippers on and began shaving Kyle’s head. Kyle thrashed and screamed, but Gray worked calmly and methodically. Within five minutes, Kyle was bald, his styled hair scattered on the concrete floor.
Andrew pulled a small knife from his pocket. Kyle saw the blade, and his eyes went wide with terror.
— “No. No, please. I’ll do anything. Money, my car, just take it.”
Andrew walked around behind him.
— “Turn him.”
Gus spun the chair. Andrew touched the tip of the blade to Kyle’s back, and the kid screamed.
— “Quiet. If you move, it’ll hurt more.”
Slowly, carefully, Andrew began to carve a word into the skin of Kyle’s back. Five letters. “COWARD.”
Kyle shrieked, sobbed, and eventually lost his voice. Andrew didn’t rush. The cuts weren’t deep enough to be dangerous, but the scars would be permanent. When he was finished, he stepped back. Gray nodded. It was clean.
Andrew turned the camera back on.
— “Now, Kyle, you’re going to apologize to my mother. On camera, for the whole world to see.”
Kyle, barely able to breathe, wheezed into the lens:
— “I’m sorry, Mrs. Sullivan. I’m a coward. I shouldn’t have done it.” His voice broke as he sobbed.
Andrew leaned in close and whispered:
— “Now, dance.”
Kyle didn’t understand.
— “What?”
— “Dance. Just like you made my mother do. You’re chained up, so just move your head. Give us a show.”
Kyle began to shake uncontrollably.
— “I can’t.”
Gus reminded him with a sharp jab to the ribs. Kyle wailed and began jerking his head from side to side, a pathetic, desperate motion. Andrew filmed it all.
After a minute, Andrew stopped the recording. He put the phone away and looked Kyle in the eye.
— “This is just the start. If you or your friends ever go near my mother again, I’ll bury you. Alive. Do you understand?”
Kyle nodded frantically, sobbing.
— “I understand. I won’t. I swear.”
Andrew nodded to Gray and Gus. They unchained Kyle, but he couldn’t even stand. He collapsed onto the floor, curling into a ball. They pulled his jacket back on him, hauled him up, and dragged him to the van. They drove him to a local hospital and dumped him near the ER entrance. They were gone in sixty seconds.
The next morning, the orderlies found him. Beaten, bald, and branded. He refused to say who did it. The police were called, but Kyle just kept repeating: “I don’t remember. They jumped me from behind. I didn’t see anything.”
The news of what happened to Kyle Miller spread through the city like wildfire. It started as a whisper among the social elite, then hit social media. No one knew the details, but everyone knew it wasn’t a random mugging.
Andrew got the update from Gray on Monday morning:
— “Kyle’s in the hospital. He’s keeping his mouth shut. His dad is losing his mind, demanding the police find who did it, but the kid isn’t talking. He’s terrified.”
Andrew listened in silence.
— “Good. Next is Derek. When are we ready?”
Gray paused.
— “Give it a couple of days. They’re all going to ground after what happened to Kyle. We need to wait for him to feel safe enough to move.”
Andrew hung up and looked at his mother. Vera was sitting on the sofa, drinking tea and watching the news. She didn’t know anything. She only asked:
— “Andy, what have you been up to?”
He replied:
— “Just looking for work, Mom. Everything’s fine.”
She nodded, but he saw the lingering fear in her eyes. She knew something was happening, even if she didn’t want to admit it.
On Tuesday, Lee called:
— “Derek Owens is hiding out. Since the news about Kyle broke, he hasn’t left his house. His dad hired private security—two guys following him everywhere. But I found a weak spot.”
Andrew met him that evening. Lee showed him some photos on his phone:
— “Every Tuesday, Derek goes to see a girl. He rents an apartment for her on the North Side. He goes alone, leaves the security detail in the car downstairs. He’s usually there for two or three hours, leaving late, around ten.”
Andrew studied the photos and the address.
— “Tomorrow is Tuesday. We take him there.”
Lee nodded. Gus and Gray were ready. There was just one problem: the security. Two professionals.
Andrew thought for a moment.
— “We can handle it. We just have to be fast.”
Wednesday night, they arrived at the North Side apartment. It was an older building, nine stories, with a neglected lobby. Derek arrived in his black Range Rover at 9:00 PM. Two guards, both over six feet in black jackets, were with him. Derek got out, said something to the guards, and went inside. The guards stayed by the car, smoking and talking. Andrew sat in the van thirty yards away, watching. Gray was beside him; Gus and Lee were in the back.
— “We have to take the guards out,” Gus said.
Gray nodded:
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