Disclaimer: found in part one.

"Well, well, well is this really my rat bastard, stepson," the sadistic voice seemed to explode into his mind with a cruelty that even Ezra had never before had the displeasure of experiencing. "As much the weakling as you ever were, I see," the man continued tauntingly.

Outwardly, it appeared as if Ezra were simply continuing to apply pressure to Buck's wounds, almost as if he were ignoring DeCapri. However, inside him was something completely different. Inside a tulmit of emotions and feeling were shooting through his mind. Painful memories, cooped up fear, and long held in anguish coupled into one brutal emotion that, although outwardly his calm façade showed no signs of it, inside the raw pain of hearing that terrible voice was bringing Ezra to a near catatonic state.

"Come on, Boy," Carlton DeCapri continued to taunt beginning to get upset, having expected some outcry, or retaliation, or anger, or at the very least a response from the man. "Answer me, talk to me, or are you to stupid to even do that you dumb little son of a bitch,"

As Ezra listened to his words trapped within himself as the emotions continued to rampage through him though, now they had no meaning. It was as his conscious mind had callused over and no longer held thought. While only his unconscious self attempted to deal with the terrifying and unexpected emotions that fired throughout him.

Carlton DeCapri held a polished wooden cane and once he sat in the chair the guard had been sitting in he twirled in his withered fingers. "You little peace of shit, yellow peace of shit, I should say," as he continued his anger mounted. "Come on you scum sucking bastard," his rage mounted. "Say something, even yellow-bellied scum like you usually has something to say," with no response forth-coming his rage at Ezra spun out of control (as it always did) and taking the cane he had twirled between his fingers, he hit Ezra with it. It struck him in the back of the neck effectively knocking back into something of normal conscious thought. It was at that precise moment in time that the grown man in Ezra struck out at an old man named Carlton DeCapri.

~*~

The plan was very simple, so they were sure it would be effective. All it was was to give Carlton DeCapri what he wanted, at least for a minute. Maude would show up, alone, as planned. Then when DeCapri was all puffed up and proud, as a man of his total insanity would no doubt be at finally getting what he wanted, they would strike. The five of them would head in a designated entrances rescuing, first Ezra and Buck and then Maude (this was by Maude's request). Oddly enough (or maybe not), Maude had asked them to let her take care of DeCapri herself. More then one of the men had thought to argue with her about them, but from the look in her eyes they got the feeling that there would be no debate over that aspect of the rescue mission.

They were at the manor now. At this point there was nothing left to do but wait for the perfect moment to execute their plan. It wasn't that they were waiting for a sign. As a group they had decided that, since they didn't now what DeCapri planned to do with Maude when she arrived, they would simply wait an allotted amount of time and then storm the place. They had decided to make so that they arrived approxemently ten minutes before Maude and sneak into their specific positions outside of Carlton DeCapri's home.

Now they were in their positions. As they waited for Maude's arrival, to be followed by the rescue of their kidnapped friends, Vin could no longer hold in his fears.

"You think this'll work, Chris?" He asked in a whisper.

"It better, Josiah," Chris spoke sourly. "Truth is though, I don't know that I can think of a better plan, in this situation. Ezra and Buck are safest this way, aren't they?" Chris asked as worried for their friends as Josiah. Although the plan seemed good it was clear, from the letter and what Maude had told them that they were dealing with a lunatic. Who knew what the man would do? He really hated relying on their guesses of how a total lunatic would react to save their friends. Then again, what choice did they have, really?

"I don't know, Chris," Josiah commented in his deep baritone as unsure of the safety of their friends as Chris. "What keeps nagging me is, they may be safest this way for escape but what kind of condition are they already. I mean when we were following the trail we knew that Ezra got beat and Buck got shot. We also know, according to DeCapri's letter to Maude that they've beaten Ezra again at least seven times. Who knows what condition Buck and Ez are already in?"

"You're right, Josiah. They're probably already hurt but there really isn't anything we can do about that. I just hope we've picked the right way to handle this now," Chris was about to continue when he heard the stagecoach rolling up. Chris watched closely as Maude stepped out with her single bag, which he knew contained a gun in its hidden compartment. He continued to watch as the stagecoach rolled away and she headed swiftly to the manor with long determined strides. Chris couldn't help but have a little more respect for the con-woman. He knew for a fact that she was terrified of going in there and facing that man. However, she would not be deterred. There was something about her ability to face that which scared her that he couldn't help but respect, even if he wasn?t a big fan of her as a person or her mothering skills. Although in the past half-hour he had learned a lot more about Maude Standish, the real person, and had decided that maybe she wasn't so bad after all. At any rate, no one could say that she didn't have grit.

~*~

The old man was so shocked when he was attacked he had no time to react or to protect himself from the onslaught he was currently receiving. Ezra was straddled over the top of the man, beating him relentlessly with his fists. However, they both knew that Carlton still had the advantage. They could hear the guards he had posted outside, beginning to move around. Beginning to get suspicious, for DeCapri was crying out with the pain his old body was taking and the guards were beginning recognize that these were cries not of a from the one of the young men but from their boss.

Ezra didn't care though, he really didn't. They couldn't hurt him anymore. He was so tired of playing the victim. He really hated it. So he continued, relentlessly beating the man beneath him senseless. Allowing all the anger, pain, penned up for so many years to spill out as beat his tormenter. He wanted the man to beg for mercy. He wanted hear him start screaming for help. Then he wanted nothing more then to continue slowly killing the man until there was nothing left but a dying pulp.

~*~

She was absolutely terrified. Large oafish men had been waiting at the door to bring her in. The moment she walked in she heard the horrible screams. Though they were gut wrenching, she found herself unable to stop from trying to identify their source. At first she had feared that they were Ezra or his friend, Mr. Wilmington's, screams, however as she continued to listen to them she realized that the one making the awful sounds was not a young man, but an old one. A sadistically happy thought crossed her mind, briefly. Was someone finally giving Carlton DeCapri what he so richly deserved after all the pain and suffering he had brought to so many people over the years?

She waited for five minutes. The time though short seemed to span an eternity for her. There were two large men at either side of her, standing there to assure that she went no where. When the screams stopped for some unknown reason her instincts told to be very afraid.

~*~

"Okay, she's in," Josiah said. "Ten more minutes until we get to end this, God be with us and our lost Brothers."

"Amen," Chris said quietly.

~*~

Maude saw a man coming down the stairs. "Ma'am," The large, more intelligent looking oaf, began, "We?ve got a problem," he paused, and smiled hideously. "Actually you've got a problem."

"What kind of problem?" She asked her voice bereft of all emotion.

"Well, ma'am, you know your son is here?"

"Yes," she spoke coldly.

"Well, Mr. DeCapri went in to speak to 'im this morning and your son overreacted." He finished watching her closely, and finding himself quite pleased when she visibly paled.

Maude, however, regained all of her composure rapidly, and asked, "How exactly did my son 'overreact'?"

"He needlessly attacked Mr. DeCapri, I believe you heard the attack as you came in?"

"Oh, is that what that was, well what a pity," She said her voice just dripping with sarcasm, making it clear to all with the tone of her voice that she was actually quite pleased at what had happened to their boss.

The young man talking to her was very loyal to DeCapri and found that he really wanted to just slap her, however Mr. DeCapri had made it very clear that no one but him was to touch her in any way shape or form. So he decided he'd do the next most satisfying thing. "So we were forced to punish him," He told Maude matter-of-factly.

"My son?" she asked quietly knowing the stupidity of the question but feeling the need to ask it anyway.

"Yes," he smiled.

"How so?" Maude again spoke quietly, suddenly felt horrible sadness and weak frailty.

"We shot him, well actually we're about to," he looked up the winding staircase behind him and yelled, "Now, Marks, shoot 'im now!" At that moment she watched in utter horror as the shot sounded from behind her view on the left at the top of the staircase and almost simultaneously, she watched, as blood splattered on the wall on the right side of the staircase.

Maude found that she couldn't help the scream that escaped her lips when the reality of what happened hit her as she watched them drop her son's body. As the blood-covered, badly bruised body rolled down the stairs. She had wanted to believe that it wasn't real that perhaps they were playing some terribly cruel trick on her. That some how some way, it wasn't Ezra that they'd just shot. Anyone but Ezra, she had prayed, as the horrifying events unfolded before her eyes. She could feel tears welling up, although she forced them back wishing for anger not grief and pain. However that's all she felt. She had wanted to advance forward, to reach her son. Unfortunately, realizing her plans, two of the men grabbed her. So, not knowing what else to do she began screaming for help. The men laughed, thinking that she had lost her mind. Thinking that no one would hear her screams they just continued laughing at her and mocking her.

As he heard the men's mocking he gathered enough strength within himself to ask the men to help to the stairs. "I must see my newest possession!" He?d spoken happily through bruised, broken, bloody, and swollen features. As the men more or less carried him, Carlton DeCapri asked, "So they killed the little brat?" They told him, dutifully, that they'd shot him and now Maude was watching her son die.

"And she thinks someone will answer her cries?" He laughed.

"Apparently," One of his most trustworthy guards answered.

"Stupid wench," He shook his head, "She always was a screamer," he spoke angrily.

~*~

"You hear that?" Chris asked his stomach rolling inside him as he listened closely to Maude's screams for help. He could only imagine what was happening to make her scream like that. More then anything he wanted to go in and end it then and there. However there was no way to change the plans now. The whole thing worked on the timing that everybody went in at the same time. He knew the time must be near he forced himself to endure whatever was left of the wait.

"Yes, Chris," Josiah answered fearfully. "It must be Maude." He said even though he was well aware that that fact was rather obvious to them both. He feared what could possibly make a woman like Maude Standish scream like that. He feared what they would find when they went in.

"Yeah," Chris said. "Is it time for us to go in?"

"Why yes, Brother, I believe it is," Josiah said, happy that they could act. Form the sound of those horrible screams it was none to soon.

With the two massive men towing him they reached the stairs quickly. "My dear, how good it is to see you after so many years," when he finished he smiled evilly at her, as if daring her to retort.

However she just continued screaming and did her best to look at neither her son nor Carlton DeCapri.

"No one will help you, no one can hear you. No one ever did and no one ever will, bitch."

"That's not entirely true," Chris Larabee's ice cold voice broke through with such quiet, menacing rage then not even the insane DeCapri knew what to say, right away.

"Who the hell are you?" DeCapri asked, then as if it had suddenly come to him out of no where he answered his own question. "Ah, wait now I remember, you're the fearsome Mr. Chris Larabee. You 'work' with my little sonofabithch stepson, correct?" He enunciated the word work, in a way of mocking what the men did. "My, my Mr. Larabee I am impressed that you managed to find us, or did my bitch here tell you to come. My dear, dear Maude," He spoke fearcely as he addressed her, "You didn't disobey me did you?"

"Fuck off," She spoke rather levelly for the first time since Chris' and the other's appearance, excluding her screams of course. She sounded completely drained, as if she had no spirit left at all. That was fairly obvious for anyone who cared to notice.

"Well, that is a truly lovely come back, my dear, just lovely," Carlton said every word dripping with some hideous, twisted form of affection for her as he continued to mock her.

Maude really couldn't care less anymore. As much as she didn't want to look, she couldn't pull her eyes away from her son's broken form, which lay only feet away at the bottom of the stairs where it had unceremoniously landed after being dropped. She couldn?t tell whether he was dead or alive. While the waiting to find out was killing her, so to, she thought, would be finding out if all she had left was dead.

"DeCapri, if I were you I'd be shuttin' up real soon," Chris remarked with a snide expression that belied the terror he felt when he saw Ezra and the pain that came with the thought of losing the sly gambler.

"Why is that?"

"'Cause if you don't, there's a whole lotta people who're gonna blow you brains out," Chris commented looking for the insane man's reaction.

"Well, Mr. Larabee, I have one question for you," DeCapri began mockingly.

"Oh, what would that be?" Chris asked menacingly, having expected some type of wise ass retort from the bruised old crone that stood before him.

"Where are all of these men who plan to blow my brains out if I don't shut up?"

"Howdy."

Vin's voice answered the man's question. Then one-by-one Nathan, Josiah, and JD stood up making eye contact with DeCapri as they did so. Now it was Vin who spoke, "Except now we ain't gonna shoot ya if ya don't shut up, I'm gonna shoot ya anything ya do." With that Vin cocked his sawed-off Winchester and took his deadly accurate aim and fired. The bullet hit the old man square in the left quadrant of his chest causing his heart to explode and killing him instantly. The room seemed completely still and quiet as the old man fell to the floor. It was as if time just stood still for a moment as all the eyes in the room were on the dead man falling to the floor. However the moments of calm ended quickly. As soon as Carlton DeCapri's corpse hit the floor all the men on the floor moved to action. The fight that ensued was bloody and fatal for the employees of the deceased.

To be continued...