This must be an observation window, like they have in police stations. I release a shuddering breath, relieved they can’t see me and they don’t know I’m here.
“I can do this all day, Sergei. And we know enough to determine the Irish are meeting your Bratva bosses,” Ben says, rolling his sleeves to his elbows as he stares at the man strapped to a chair in the middle of the room.
Although calling it a room is a bit of a misnomer. It looks more like a dungeon or a torture chamber. The bare brick walls and concrete floor are spattered with dark stains, and various hooks and chains dangle from some steel contraption secured to the ceiling. A trickle of urine leads from the man in the chair to a large vent in the floor. That explains part of the woeful smell. The man is naked, bound at the ankles and wrists to the chair with silver cable ties. He has several lacerations across his arms and his chest and a deeper gash in his thigh. Blood drips onto the floor from his shredded skin, yet he spits at Ben in defiance, spouting something in a foreign language. Given his name and Ben’s mention of Bratva, I’m guessing it’s Russian.
Bright strip lighting grants me a prime view of the proceedings, and I watch the scene unfold in a state of dazed numbness. It’s almost like it’s not real. Like I’m watching a movie or show and these are just actors playing a part. That’s not real blood. And it’s not my baby daddy getting ready to beat a man bloody.
My heart is lodged in my throat as I watch it go down.
Ben coolly removes a set of pliers from a steel unit wedged against the wall. Both shelves are full of weapons and instruments of torture, all clean as if lovingly cared for. The pulse in my neck throbs when Ben turns around and I see the front of his shirt for the first time. His pristine white shirt is now smeared with blood, and it turns my stomach. “I won’t ask you again. This is your last chance, Sergei. Why were you meeting McDermott? What business do the Russians have with the Irish?”
“Fuck you, Mazzone, and your dead whore mother.”
Ben’s sinister smile sends chills creeping up my spine. I expect him to lash out at the man for the comment about his mother because I know a little of the history there. But he is the epitome of cool, calm, and collected as he applies the pliers to the man’s hand, breaking his fingers, one at a time.
Panic is racing around my chest as I watch the man I crushed on as a kid slowly and methodically remove each one of Sergei’s fingers. Gargled sounds escape the man’s mouth as he grinds his teeth together. Blood spurts from his stubby hands, and I’m rooted to the spot again, staring in horror as Ben sets the pliers down on the table, picking up a bloody knife this time.
“You know, I’m building a new organization. Changing the playbook,” Ben says. “It’s not too late to change allegiance. We could use another couple of spies within the Bratva.”
“Fuck you, Italian scum bastard.”
Ben shrugs before gesturing to Leo. Leo grabs the man’s head, forcing his mouth open. Sergei thrashes on the chair, refusing to do this quietly, until one of the other men presses down on the oozing wound in his thigh, stalling his movements. Piss leaks from Sergei’s flaccid cock, soaking the front of Ben’s pants.
Ben looks down in clear annoyance. “You will pay for that.” His voice is monotone, devoid of any emotion, and he barely looks human with the dark glint of mad rage glittering in his eyes and the complete lack of decency.
It’s clear Sergei is not getting out of here alive. He could shoot him. There are several guns on the table, but Ben is choosing to torture him.
I don’t understand why I’m still here. I’ve seen enough to know I’m not letting this man anywhere near my baby. But I can’t make myself move. Stunned into watching this play out by some morbid fascination.
Ben slices Sergei’s tongue off in one fast motion, flinging it across the room. Nausea swims up my throat, and I clamp a hand over my mouth to stop myself from puking. Ben looks every bit the monster as he lays into the man. He slices Sergei’s skin with the knife, over and over, until his chest is a bloody mess, his internal organs hanging out. I gag as I struggle to hold on to the contents of my stomach.
The man yells in agony when Ben slices his dick off, and the moment he shoves it in Sergei’s mouth, I wake the fuck up. I can’t witness any more of this brutality, and I need to get out of here before I’m the next person strapped to that chair.
I no longer trust Ben to keep me safe.
I’m in a shocked, terrified daze as I get out of there, but I haven’t lost all sense of reality, carefully edging out of the room and tiptoeing up the stairs so I’m not heard. I concentrate on the rapid thumping of my heart to keep myself grounded, barely hearing the gunshot as I ascend the stairs and open the door to the main room.
Which is now strangely empty.
Fueled by a fresh injection of anxiety, I race across the main room, desperate to see the back of this place. I burst through the front door hyperventilating as I stagger to the corner of the building and puke my guts up.
A hand covers my mouth from behind, as I straighten up, and I swing my arm around, lashing out with my stilettos, ready to inflict damage, when a familiar voice says, “Don’t scream. It’s me.”
I slump against Tony, and the dam breaks. Strangled sobs leak from my mouth as I turn around, flinging my arms around him, so grateful he’s here.
“Are you hurt?” He holds my face firmly in his cold palms, jerking my head up.
“No,” I pant over a sob.
“We need to get out of here.” He grabs my hand. “You didn’t leave anything inside, did you?”
I shake my head. I’m still clutching my purse and my shoes for dear life.
He tugs me around the corner of the building, clamping his hand over my mouth again when I move to scream at the sight of the five bodies piled on top of one another at the back of the yellow taxi.
“Don’t make a sound, Sierra,” Tony warns. “Not if you want to live.”
I stare at him in shock, and he lifts me over one shoulder, racing through brush at the back of the building toward the rental, which is parked at the corner of a back alley.
He places me in the passenger seat before getting behind the wheel and flooring it out of there.
We don’t speak for ages.
I’m not sure I have the ability to form a coherent sentence or a coherent thought. Tony is tense, glancing in his mirrors constantly, checking to see if we’re being followed. Every so often, he casts a fleeting look in my direction, his expression troubled. He doesn’t stop his incessant monitoring until we are out on the highway, heading toward JFK.
Pulling my knees to my chest, I look sideways at him, wondering if I know who this man is at all. “You killed them,” I whisper. “Why?”
“I couldn’t leave any witnesses. No one could know you were there.”
I stare at him numbly before mumbling, “I don’t understand.”
Traffic slows down until it comes to a standstill. Tony turns to me, keeping one hand on the wheel. “What did you see in that building?”
“Monsters.” I look him dead in the eye. “I saw monsters.” Ben might have been the one doing the torture, but it was clear from the state of Sergei’s body and the smells clinging to the walls that he had been there for some time. Ben just finished what the others started.