Back upstairs, I faced a concern I had thought I'd dealt with; Diego had come back in, with two heavies armed to the teeth. Of course they had tried to "get the drop" on Lance at the door, and been surprised that a four-sided shield of plastic had dropped around them in the entryway.

Surprised, that was, until one of the goons had fired on the plastic, figuring it to be too light to stop bullets. Oops, his bad. My shield, made of Dyneema SB61, a new formulation from the Netherlands, is harder than steel. The bullet had bounced off, returning a rather painful gift to the sender... but now we had a standoff going. Lance needed to raise the shield to let in the paramedics, but dare not for fear of danger to our guests and staff.

I walked into the middle of this, and went directly to the computer terminal connecting to the wireless speaker inside. "Diego, what the fuck is wrong with you? Didn't you get the message earlier? Now put your weapons on the floor next to the pool of blood, or I'll leave the shield down until you run out of oxygen!"

He apparently did not believe me, and prepared to fire another round, aiming at the same spot the other bullet had hit. Another 'bang', and this time the other goon got it, but only in the arm. At that, Diego laid down his gun, as the others had already dropped theirs. Alerting Jim and Lance (and Mom, of course), I raised the shield.

Gotta hand it to Diego for boldness; he waited until the paramedics had stopped the bleeding and gotten his assistants moved to the ambulance before he pulled his backup and got back inside. Mom was ready, though; she had faced Diego before. Our 'ultimate defense' flechette gun mounted with the entryway ceiling cam fired a cloud of little darts in his direction; he went down to the anesthetic they were coated in.

A neat little weapon, the flechette gun, made by Skoda in the Czech Republic, fired anesthetic darts which pierced the skin, then dissolved in the body. The sleepy-drug could be had in varying strengths, and I had chosen one to just knock him out a few minutes. By the time he woke up, Lance had him bound naked in one of our 'detention rooms' in the hidden part of the basement, while Jim had gotten rid of the paramedics and cops.

I confronted him as he awoke, showing him the pile of hardware we had stripped from him as we took his clothes off and bound him to the vertical rack. "Diego, you idiot. Did you think I would not expect a 'hold-out', knowing you as I do? But seriously, '5' hold-outs? You were really out for blood, eh?"

"You son-of-a" was all he managed to utter, as I gagged him tightly.

"Shut up, asshole. 'The Don' told me you weren't happy with our arrangement, and led me to expect you might be coming; we've been ready for you for months. So the money I've been bribing you with hasn't been enough, eh? Well, old son, let's see how you like some of these bribes instead." He had me pissed; invading my castle? Threatening my family? No fucking way!

A little softening up with a cattle-prod got his attention. He was shaking his head like crazy, and babbling what he could through the ring-gag. Drool ran down his chin and chest. A touch to his belly first, set on "1", then one on his thigh. I turned it up to "2" and hit him on his anus, followed with one at "3" in an armpit.

"OK, Diego; that was the "3" setting... on a scale of 10. The highest will stop your heart if I apply it to your left chest, but I won't kill you. You may WISH to be dead however! I'm planning to use every implement I can think of to cause you pain, whips, canes, presses, clips, weights, even my ball-crusher. When you leave here, it's likely you will require medical attention from the University Hospital... but I'll be dropping you off at the Don's business office instead. Get ready to scream, now!"

I worked on him for almost two hours, using canes and crops and a single-tail, but never made good on the 'ball-crusher' threat. By the time the Don's boys arrived to crate him up (literally!) and take him away, he was crying with fear and had wet and shit himself repeatedly. The guards hosed him off and nailed him into the crate before taking him away, out the delivery door. And just in time, as my host-duties at the conference were coming due. I ran upstairs to catch a shower and change, so I could look decent to introduce 'Master X."