Chapter 22 #2
My finger caresses the trigger of my rifle but I wait.
My breathing is easy, slow, and steady. Movement in the dark room is the moment I’ve been waiting for.
My finger pulls the trigger. Rhett, the cold bastard, doesn’t even flinch as the bullet sails by him, inches away from his head.
I hit my target, though I’m not sure where.
All I know is that he staggers back, further into the darkness before everything goes still.
Rhett slips into the room and shuts the door behind him.
I make quick work breaking down my gun and tripod. I’m in the truck heading for the motel in less than four minutes.
I’ve barely parked outside the motel room when the door swings open. Jumping out, I hurry over and together Rhett and I carry the bound man out of the room and shove him into the back of the cab. A plastic tarp is laid out on the seats to keep the blood from leaking over the material.
The drive home is nearly silent. The only sound made is when Rhett pulls out his lighter to light another cigarette.
When we get back to the cabin, Blair and Santi are still not home.
Rhett frowns at the empty space where Santi usually parks beside the house. I see it, but don’t say anything. I’m not one for emotional conversations. Besides, I’m in no state to give any sound advice to anyone.
“What are we doing with him?” Rhett asks as he reaches for the door handle. “Chipper?”
I shake my head. He’s not turning into wood chips just yet.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it from here,” I tell him as I climb out of the truck.
Rhett doesn’t object but he does watch as I pull the semi-conscious hitman from the back seat to throw him over my shoulder and walk toward the house. He follows.
“I’m sure you got it, but I’m bored tonight,” he says. “So, you’re stuck with me until this is done.”
I trudge through the house, toward the basement door. “It’s your stomach.”
He chuckles darkly. “You know I’m not squeamish.”
I don’t bother objecting. Rhett can be part of this as much or as little as he wants but I’m going to see it all the way through. I need to figure out why there are still people after Blair and how this one in particular knew to settle here.
In the basement, I walk over to the far wall where a thick metal bookshelf sits. There’s survival equipment and boxes of ammunition on it but I don’t grab any of it. Instead, I use one hand to unlatch the hidden lock and shove the entire unit to the left.
Behind me, Rhett lets out a low, impressed whistle. “Secret room in the house? Creepy but also kind of cool I guess.”
I chuckle. “It’s not a secret, Wes knows about it.”
Rhett only hums in response, distracted as he steps in.
I turn on the singular light in the room.
It’s not a large space. Probably not much bigger than any of the bedrooms on the second floor.
But it’s definitely not as cozy as those rooms. Down here, the walls are made from cinder block and the floor is made of cement.
There’s a drain but it’s set up closer to the tall, human size cage rather than in the middle of the room.
The singular metal chair in the room sits beneath the hanging industrial light and the stainless steel table—the only other furniture in the room—sits against the far wall.
I carry my hostage to the chair and dump him into it.
Rhett’s already there, removing the ropes around the guy’s wrists only to re-use them to tie his hands behind the back of the chair.
The man groans, probably from pain due to the bullet wound in his gut, but is ignored.
I leave to grab my bag of interrogation tools from the main basement space on one of the shelves.
When I rejoin Rhett and our new guest, I find the latter lifting his head to look around.
“Ah,” he mutters as his eyes land on me and my bag. “So it’s to be like this then.”
I don’t say anything. Instead, I let the man stew as I walk over to the table and open my bag.
“You don’t have to use any of those, I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” the man offers, conversationally. The fact that there’s no panic or fear in his voice tells me that he’s been in this position a time or two before. If he’s escaped before, then he probably thinks he can do it again.
Rather than reply, I begin to pull out my instruments.
When everything is laid out in front of me, I pick up a pair of pliers.
When I turn around, I find Rhett leaning against the wall by the door with his arms crossed over his chest, watching the man intently.
He lifts his gaze to mine and nods his head for me to continue. He’s not going anywhere.
I make my way back over to my victim and stand there before him.
“You’ll talk?” I ask, clarifying.
The man looks up at me, eyeing me curiously.
He’s probably trying to see if I’m full of shit when it comes to torturing a human being or not.
I try to guess his age. He’s probably in his sixties, which is pretty good for those in my line of work.
A lot of us don’t make it past our prime.
Old age means that we begin to slow and grow complacent which, in turn, is a death sentence.
“Yeah…” he drawls slowly, a half smile pulling at his lips. “I’ll talk.”
“Why are you here?” I ask him.
“To see a contract through,” he says with a shrug. “I assume you’re here to do the same?”
My smile isn’t half-hearted like his, it’s full blown and colder than ice. “Maybe. Who’s your hit?”
“Probably the same as yours.”
“These aren’t answers,” I tell him. “So if you’re looking to get out of this with all your fucking digits, I suggest you start talking.”
The man sighs, his eyes rolling slowly and dramatically. “I’m here for a girl.”
“Who sent you?”
“My handler.”
I scowl. “Where do they get their information?”
“The same way they always do, I suppose.” The man shrugs. “But how am I to know that?”
It’s not too far-fetched to believe he doesn’t know all the details.
The few guys I know in this line of work that have a handler don’t ask many questions.
They simply accept or refuse a job and that’s it.
But given that this man is after Blair, the daughter of one of the most infamous hitmen alive, I have a feeling the handler would’ve shared more information than just the bare minimum.
I glance over at my spectator. “I think this is going to be our first kill together, Rhett.”
“About damn time. I’ve been waiting to see you in action,” Rhett replies, his tone suggesting his boredom. His face, however, brightens a bit at the prospect of a kill.
“Hold on a minute,” the man pipes up. “Now that I think about it, I think my handler knows the girl.”
I sigh. “That’s not good enough.”
“Well—”
Before he can finish whatever bullshit he was going to spew, I grab his jaw and jab the pliers in my other hand forward, straight into his eye socket. His screams are ignored, his thrashing useless. It’s not until his eye falls to the ground that I step back.
“I want real, detailed answers from here on out,” I tell him as I wipe the blood from the plier on my pants. “Your handler—what’s their stake in this? How do they know about this girl?”
My captive breathes hard as blood drips from his empty eye socket. His face has gone pale and his shoulders heave.
“I… I don’t know,” he wheezes out.
“Well, I’ll tell you what. There were only two people in existence that knew about Blair up until recently. One’s standing in front of you, and the other helped bring her into this world,” I explain darkly as I turn and head for the stainless table.
I drop the bloody pliers on top and reach for the bolt cutters next. I pick them up, savoring the weight of them in my hand. Turning to speak over my shoulder, I say, “Someone’s found out about her and I want to know how.”
The man swings his head from side to side.
“D-don’t know,” he rasps out.
I walk back over to him slowly, taking my time, to enjoy the fear gathering in his expression as he realizes what I’m holding. When I stop in front of him, I kick his shin with the toe of my boot. He grunts but otherwise remains silent.
“You don’t have the foggiest idea?” I press curiously.
Again the man shakes his head. “No.”
“I think you’re holding something back.”
I don’t let him voice any objection or attempt to fight.
My bolt cutters fly through the air and slam into his jaw.
Blood and spit go flying. I do it again and again, until his skin splits and his cheek bone becomes visible.
I stop to give him some reprieve, waiting for the flesh to swell and grow more tender.
As I stand there, staring down into his pathetic face, I think of all the work that had to go into keeping Blair safe. Anchor… his poor fucking soul. If our job hadn’t destroyed it, the lengths he went to protect his daughter certainly did.
“Did you know that her father made it look like she died back when she was seven years old so fuckers like you would never get their hands on her?” I tell him in a voice so low it’s hardly audible.
“Do you know how he did it? I asked him about it years later, and you know what he said? He’d unearthed a little girl’s body who had died only a few weeks prior from her gravesite.
That fucker carried that corpse around with him for over two weeks; just waiting for the opportune moment to replace Blair with that corpse.
When he shot her uncle and set the house on fire, he took Blair and left that little girl’s corpse behind. That’s fucked up.”
The man in the chair only breathes heavily and trembles from the pain I’d inflicted.
“After he’d taken his daughter, do you know what he did?” I ask, my voice wavering with fury and disgust.
Again, the man shakes his head.