This chapter gave me great pleasure to write. It was good to take a break from all the angst for a bit and teach Lester a lesson. I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 11

Tank's POV

A sick sense of satisfaction spread through me at the look on Lester and Greg's faces as they stepped into the private training room down the hall from the main gym. Served them right for disobeying a direct order. I don't know how many times I told all the Trenton men to stay away from Stephanie while we trialled the second phase with her friends and family. I should have known that if anyone was going to step out of line on this issue it would be Lester. He'd always had a soft spot for her and seeing her hurting was doing damage to his already tenuous control. And Greg, while he hadn't be subjected to the same warnings, he should have at least known better than to take Lester's word for it. He gave the man his psych evaluation, for fuck sake.

So yes, I was pleased with the reactions the setup of the room prompted in the men. Maybe, if this worked, they'd think twice before doing something so stupid behind my back next time.

I'd already spent forty minutes yelling at the pair upstairs in my office, but I couldn't be sue that they – Lester especially – hadn't simply zoned me out and starting thinking about ponies or whatever. So I'd instructed them to meet me here in thirty minutes, and dismissed them.

The moment the office door swung closed behind Greg I had my phone in my hand, calling the twins. They'd been itching to show off their specially set of skills since I'd hired them six months ago. Unfortunately, the opportunity never came up. Until now.

They'd had their boards dragged up from storage and set up in the room within fifteen minutes and then took another five minutes to set out their knives. I'd inspected them closely to be sure they weren't using gimmicks and was surprised to find that the knives they'd selected were actually military grade. A smile twitched at the corner of my lips just thinking of Lester's reaction as Jim and Tim left the room to "find their centres" or "get in the zone" or whatever. I didn't question them. The idea was to scare the men into shitting their pants territory, not accidentally nick and artery and send them to hospital. What they needed to do, they could do it.

"I thought you were calling me to the mats," Lester said, eyeing the round boards that had been erected at one end of the room.

"In the private training room?" I questioned, one eyebrow raised.

Lester shrugged, giving the wheel an experimental shove to see how easily it moved. "You haven't really called anyone to the mats since you lost your arm," he pointed out, moving to the second board and running a finger along a stain that could only have been caused by spilt blood. "I just figured you didn't want an audience.

"No," I said simply, shaking my head. "But I'd love an audience for this. Maybe I should get the control room to record it so we can play it back at the Christmas party this year." That sounded like such a great idea, in fact, that I did just that.

"You're seriously going to throw knives at us?" Greg asked in disbelief, testing the point of a knife he'd picked up.

"Not me," I countered, and as if on cue, Tim and Jim entered the room, grinning from ear to ear. I had to do a double take because of what they were wearing, but managed to keep my surprise hidden as I added. "Them."

Greg appeared suitably perplexed by the whole situation, since he had yet to meet the twins, but Lester just groaned and shook his head.

"I think the lycra short are punishment enough," he mentioned, gesturing to the lime green tiger print shorts that clung to the pair's muscular legs. "Was the matching animal print really necessary?"

Tim grinned, cracking his knuckles. "Adds to the flare," he explained nonchalantly, crossing to the table where Greg still stood holding the knife he'd been examining. He took it from the man and tossed it in the air absently.

"Get's me in the right mind set," Jim added, pulling a red balloon from somewhere – and I didn't want to know where – on his person and blowing it up to almost full capacity. He then attached it to one of the wheels and repeated the process.

"That's true," Tim agreed, glancing over his shoulder to where Jim was working. "You should see him try to do this without the lycra." He shook his head and chucked the knife over his shoulder, like he was discarding it and it flew straight to the balloon Jim had just pinned to the wheel, missing his brother by less than an inch. "Lives have been lost."

The twins paused in their work and lowered their heads as a sign of respect for the dead, but I knew for a fact that they were referring to war criminals and other such scum that the government had deemed unfit to share our earth. They could hit the jugular every single time, no matter the distance.

"I'm not sure I understand," Greg announced from his position by the wall where he'd retreated when Tim started juggling three knives in one hand while straightening another on the table.

"Tim and Jim-."

"Jim and Tim," the twins corrected Lester in unison.

"Jim and Tim grew up in the circus," he explained, joining Greg at the wall. "They specialised in Impalement Arts."

Greg nodded, eyes wide. "I see." A long pause stretched out and I thought he was going to leave it at that, but eventually he worked up enough courage ask the question on his mind. "So the deaths you mentioned just before…?"

"Relax," Jim said finishing up with the balloons on the first wheel and moving on to the second. "We've never killed anyone during a show."

"Or in practice," Tim added.

"Then…"

"Oh, the government likes our skills a lot," Jim explained. "Started noticing us when we were still in basic."

Lester shook his head. "How exactly does one go from the travelling circus to the military?" he asked.

"We got bored," Tim said with a shrug.

"And the military gave us access to a whole new set of weapons," Jim chipped in. "We've expanded our act a lot since we were eighteen."

"We suggested that Tank let us demonstrate our skill with rifles instead," Tim continued. "But that would take more space and time to set up, so we had to stick with plain old knives for today."

"Booooooorrriiinnnnngggggg," they droned together.

"Everyone understand now?" I asked, stuffing my hand into my pocket. "Do you need a demonstration of their skill?"

They shook their heads no. Greg pointed out, "Tim already has."

"Rightie-o, then," I said, leaning back against the wall. "Jim, Tim, get to it."

Grinning at each other, they each seized the other's fist, using the hold to pull themselves together and butt heads. I'd seem them do this on several occasions right before they wreaked havoc on some poor unsuspecting FTA. It was like in that head butt, they transferred thoughts so that they each knew exactly what the other had planned. Twinepathy or whatever. They broke apart and turned their sadistic grins on their victims, gesturing for them to stand in front of wheels they'd just finished setting up.

"Alright," Jim started, reaching behind the wheel Lester was stood in front of and switching something on the back. Tim did the same on his own wheel. "What we're gonna start off with is something nice and simple. Stand exactly where you are. Let's get a parade rest going on, yeah?"

Obediently, Lester and Greg tucked their hands behind their backs and distributed their weight on spread feet, staring straight ahead.

"Good, good," Tim jumped in flicking an imaginary piece of lint off Greg's shoulder. "So Jim and I are gonna head over to our little table over here," he explained, doing just that and picking up a knife. "You were inspecting these knives when we rocked up, were you not?" he asked Greg, pointing the knife in his general direction. "You're satisfied that they are, indeed, real knives, capable of cause very real bodily harm?"

Greg nodded.

"Lester, you trust Greg's judgement? Or would you like to inspect a knife yourself?"

Rather than reply, Lester asked, "What's with all the yammering? You're not in the centre ring. Just start throwing already."

Jim and Tim shared a glance. "Lester," Tim said sternly. "We specialise in Impalement Arts. Not Impalement Method. We took an oath to be entertaining. It just doesn't work without the talking. You need to understand exactly what it is we're about to do."

"You're about to chuck knives at my head," Lester scoffed.

I'd had enough. "Shut it, Santos. You're ruining the atmosphere they're creating."

Jim and Tim grinned again and began juggling the knives between them. "See, the thing is, Lester," Tim explained. "We're not going to hurl knives at your head. For now we're just gonna hit those little red balloons on the wheels. Sound like a plan?"

This last was directed to me over Jim's shoulder, they were still juggling. I simply shrugged. "It doesn't seem very impressive," I pointed out.

"We'll get to impressive in a minute," Jim assured me and without even missing a beat, they were suddenly tossing the knives in the direction of the two men on the other side of the room. The only sound in the room for a few seconds was the rapid popping of the balloons.

When all the balloons were popped, and silence reigned but for the very audible breathing coming from Greg, I stepped forward to check out their work. There were a total of ten balloons on each wheel, and no more than ten knives sticking out of each. Precision.

"Good work," I complimented, stepping back.

"Yeah," Lester agreed, sounding sarcastic. "Good work. None of those balloons were anywhere near me."

Greg, on the other hand, looked like his eyes were about to fall out of his head.

"The man doubts our skill," Jim said to his brother.

"Strap them up," Tim replied.

Several minutes later, Lester and Greg were strapped to the boards and Jim was placing the tied end of a balloon in each of their hands. They stood back, grabbed a couple of knives off the table and, without preamble this time, threw all four knives at exactly the same time. Greg flinched as the knives neared his hands, but remained uninjured as the shreds of latex floated to the ground.

"How was that?" Tim asked.

"Close enough?" Jim enquired.

Greg nodded, his chest rising and falling rapidly with his slightly laboured breath. I guess he didn't see a lot of action. I'd have to ask Diana about that next time we spoke.

Lester, on the other hand, looked almost bored. He jerked his hips back and forth a little, like he was testing the balance of the board, or the strength of his straps. "Isn't this thing supposed to spin?" he asked, looking from twin to twin. "This is supposed to be the Wheel of Death, right? Spinning."

"Oh, you want the spinning?" Jim asked. He turned to his brother. "Lester want's the spinning, Tim."

"Let's get the spin happening, then, Jim," Tim replied, and the pair moved forward, reaching behind the boards once more to the switches that must have been there. I hadn't realised the boards were motorised, but they must have been to keep spinning at that steady pace while Jim and Tim stood back to start explaining their next trick.

"Can I just say," Greg requested, speaking up for the first time since he was asked about the knives "That I did not want the spinning?"

"You don't get motion sickness, do you?" Tim asked, sounding concerned all of a sudden.

"No," Greg replied. But I had a feeling that could change in an instant.

"Good," Tim said. "So the idea here is, we're gonna aim our knives as close to your body as possible without hitting you while you're spinning around."

"Have you ever accidentally hit a person during this trick before?" I asked, scratching the chin.

"Tim has," Jim supplied after a moment's consideration. "But in his defence, he was drunk at the time."

Tim shook his head in denial. "No idiot, that was you."

"Oh right," Jim agreed. "It was."

I allowed them to perform the Wheel of Death, as they called it, just once with Greg. He was letting out these little whimpers that were completely unmanly, and looking a little green around the gills by the time they stopped throwing the knives. Lester, though, was still not impressed. He was pretty much laughing at them as they collected their knives.

"Is that all you have?" he asked while Jim was setting the knives back on the table and Tim and I were assisting Greg over to the chair in the corner. "You're going to let me off that easy?"

"Oh no," Tim assured him, joining his brother's side once more while I made sure the trash can was within Greg's reach in case he needed to hurl. "We're not done with you."

"Have you heard of the Double Ladder of Death?"

Lester shook his head.

"That's where we both throw our knives at you," Tim explained taking a step to the side and swinging his arm like he needed to loosen his shoulder muscles. "The idea is, I am for your left side, while Jim here," he tapped his brother's shoulder, "Aim for your right side. And we ladder the knives up each side of your body."

Lester nodded his understanding. "So your throws will be crossing," he surmised.

"Exactly," Tim said.

The strapped man shrugged as best he could. "Okay."

Jim rolled his eyes, balancing a knife on its tip in the centre of his palm before tossing up and catching it by the grip. "Thing is," he mentioned lazily. "We think that's a little tame."

"Yeah," Tim agreed. "We thought we'd attempt it while you're spinning instead."

Lester's brows drew together at the wording, and I could understand why, the word attempt did leave an element of doubt hanging in the air. "Attempt?" he questioned, a few beads of sweat finally appearing on his upper lip. "You mean you've never tried it before?"

"Nope," Jim confirmed.

"Never," Tim added.

"It'll be fun," they said together.

Cutting his eyes to me, Lester seemed to be silently asking if I was really going to let the twins experiment with his life. I felt bad for him, really, I did. But he had to learn to follow orders. He'd never been this brazen when his cousin was in charge, so why should I have to put up with it? Maybe this little scare would do him good. After a few more moments of Lester's ridiculous pleading eyes, I beckoned the nearest twin, Jim, over and we had a quick whispered conversation which ended in him nodding and returning to his place.

"I'm just gonna type out a quick text to Bobby so that if anything goes wrong all I have to do is hit send," I informed Lester calmly. I had every faith that we wouldn't need him though. According to Jim they'd done this trick a million times. "It should be fine though, right Tim?"

"Right," Tim confirmed, over by Lester once more. "But just in case, the safe word is…" He glanced over his shoulder to Jim. "What's the safe word again?"

Jim screwed up his face. "I could never pronounce it. It starts with G, though, doesn't it?"

Tim shook his head. "I was pretty sure it started with a K…"

"Can we just make it pineapple?" Lester asked. "Pineapple sounds like a great safe word."

Jim and Tim exchanged a look and shrugged.

"Pineapple works," Jim allowed. "So if we hit you, or you've had enough, just yell pineapple and we'll stop. Got it?"

Lester nodded, eyes widening as he began to perspire in earnest. "Got it. Pineapple."

Tim reached behind the wheel and flicked the switch to start the spinning once more, and everyone in the room noticed that it was at least twice the speed of the last trick. Greg let out another whimper at the very thought of rotating that fast and I was pretty sure he would be eternally grateful for the fact that I'd spared him this particular experience.

The twins took a moment or two to get in position before their rapid tosses began and I had to marvel over how perfectly synchronised they were. They'd used up all the knives on the table bar one working their way up the outside of Lester's legs and either side of his torso. Tim pressed the tip of the last knife into his finger tip and tilted his head, contemplating the end result. "There's one left," he mentioned, just in case Lester hadn't noticed. At this point, Jim leaned over and whispered my earlier request in his brother's ear. The shit eating grins that spread across both their faces was worth any and all complaining I would have to endure from Lester about this in the future.

"I know where it needs to go," Tim informed Lester. And without another word, he hurled the sharp implement directly at Lester's crotch, slicing a nice clean hole in the black fabric of his cargo pants as the tip impaled itself into the board.

"PINEAPPLE!" Lester screeched. "PINE-FUCKING-APPLE!"

*o*

I'd just settled back in my chair after shooting the specs of the upcoming tech upgrade to Hector and Hank to see if we could get away with not hiring someone external to do the job this time around when my desk phone started ringing.

"RCM Security, Tank speaking," I greeted.

"So it is still RCM Security then?" Diana, the manager of the Miami branch, asked on the other end. "I was a little concerned by all these Tankman references in Greg's check in email. Thought you'd let the power inflate that bulbous head of yours."

I shook the head in question, wondering if it did, indeed, appear bulbous when I shaved it. "It's Lester," I explained. "He's convinced that giving each branch a nickname based on the manager's name is more efficient."

She tittered out an indulgent laugh. "Well, it might be," she agreed. "If he actually told everyone before he just started shooting the terms around."

"That's Lester for you," I shrugged, switching her to speaker so I could click through the multitude of emails that had accumulated in my inbox during my two hour absence. "Inefficiently efficient."

"That he is," Diana agreed. "So are your tech guys good with that upgrade I sent through last week?"

As if on cue, an email appeared at the top of my inbox from Hector. I opened it and quickly scanned through the short, Spanish message. "Hector says he needs more training before he'd be comfortable executing something of that scale and complexity," I translated. Frankly, I was surprised. Hector was a tech genius. I'd never seen him stumped by anything, but if he was turning this job down, he must have good reasons.

"Okay," Diana said simply, sounding slightly distracted. "I'll send my guy up."

"Do we need to trade?" I asked, knowing these tech upgrades could sometimes take weeks and that Diana only really had one tech guy of any use on staff. I didn't want to leave her short-handed in case something went wrong with her systems in the interim.

"No, no," she said. "We'll be fine. What's this about Greg being strapped to a spinning board and having knives thrown at him in rapid succession?"

I groaned, leaning forward to hit my head against the desk. Of course Greg would tell his boss. "He didn't think to check Lester's story and potentially set our operation back a couple of months," I explained, hoping to avoid one of Diana's phenomenal rages. She was fiercely protective of her crew. "I had to make sure my message got through to Lester and decided it would be easier to just lump them both together. I'm afraid Greg didn't fair too well."

"Hey," she said, sounding surprisingly casual. "No complaints here. I'm actually a little jealous, to tell the truth. I can think of a few men I wouldn't mind giving the same treatment." She paused just a moment before adding. "Do you think I could borrow Tim and Jim some time?"

"Jim and Tim," I corrected her automatically. "They like it alphabetical. And I'm sure the twins would love a trip to Miami. Just tell me when and I'll send them right down."

"Excellent," she murmured, sounding more like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons than I'd ever heard, and then, she was gone. I shouldn't be surprised though, Diana wrote the book on abruptly ending phone conversations.

~T~

Who's your favourite? Jim or Tim?