Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Finnic
The next morning, I wake to small strands of light sneaking through the cracks in the warehouse windows.
The building smells like cold metal and damp concrete, the rain from the night before still clinging to everything.
I stand up, stretching as I move toward the hall.
A long yawn comes out of my mouth as I stand in front of her door.
Last night was the most that I talked about her.
Maya.
I remember how my fingers used to be entangled in her coiled curls. The feeling of my lips traveling down her hazelnut toned skin. The way she’d look at me with her honey-colored eyes when I surprised her with dessert.
Every bit of her keeps rushing back into my head since I opened up to Chloe about it.
Why did I say anything to her? We aren’t friends.
She’s a hostage that I’m holding here against her will.
I’m one of the villains in her story. Nothing I can say about my past will make her understand why she needs to concede.
I hesitate to open the door.
It’s immensely quiet behind it and the few morals I have left push me not to wake her just yet.
I glance down at my watch. It’s only 6:03 in the morning. I’d slept for a few hours. But it doesn’t really feel like I slept at all.
A soft sound comes from behind the door and the mattress creaks along with it. I imagine her repositioning herself and stretching, waking to find herself yet again in a bad situation. She’s probably used to waking up in a lavish four poster bed with silk sheets and Egyptian pillows.
Down the hall behind me, footsteps approach. Dante saunters over with a cigarette lit in his mouth and a paper cup of coffee in his hand like this was any other morning. His eyes flick to me, then to the door.
“You look like you’ve been up all night,” he says.
“On and off.”
He takes a sip of his beverage. “That sounds like shit.”
We stand there in a quiet pause, rain tapping faintly against the metal siding outside.
“She talk to you again?” he asks.
“I haven’t went in yet,” I admit. “I just walked over here seconds before you came down.”
Dante’s brow lifts slightly. “Well, let’s wake her up and serve her a royal breakfast fitting for a queen.”
“What do you-”
I don’t get to finish the sentence before he’s opening the door and walking straight to where she is.
An eery smile spreads across his face. “Good morning, Princess.”
With a swift move of his hand, he tears off the lid from the coffee cup and throws the hot liquid in her direction.
Her scream rattles my bones. I’m moving before I realize it, boots crossing the threshold as the cup clatters to the floor, rolling as it leaks brown liquid across the cement.
“What the fuck!” I snap.
She scrambles back on the mattress, body shaking. Coffee soaks through the white fabric clinging to her inflamed skin.
Dante chuckles under his breath as he tosses his half-finished cigarette onto the floor, crushing it beneath his heel. “Relax. It wasn’t that hot.”
Her eyes snap to his form. They are wild and full of fury. If she had a weapon, I was one hundred percent sure she’d use it on him. With an expression like that, I’d definitely bet on her killing him. Maybe even me for just being in the room.
I don’t move. The unease that sparked in me moments before had calmed when I registered how quickly she steadied herself. If the coffee had been hot enough to burn her, there would’ve been screaming and moaning without end. Her skin would’ve already started the process of blistering.
But there is none of that, thankfully.
She releases a few shaky breathes and then looks up at Dante. “You people have a strange definition of hospitality.”
Dante leans against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. He doesn’t speak for a short while and watches her silently.
I can’t tell what he’s thinking. And his silence starts to worry me that he might take it to the next level, but instead he raises a brow and asks, “You ready to talk?”
Her gaze narrows, lips pressing into a thin line. If she was afraid, she hid it well. “Funny,” she retorts. “You assume I have anything to hide.”
That earns her a laugh from Dante. “Did you all of a sudden go blind when I showed you that picture?”
I shoot him a look. “Enough. Let’s just keep asking her questions, eventually she’ll give something up, however minor the detail is.”
He ignores me, pushing off the wall and stepping closer to her again. She doesn’t retreat this time. Instead, she lifts her chin, like she’s challenging him.
Dante tilts his head, eyes scanning over her like she’s a piece on a board he intends to remove. “You’ve got a lot of nerve for someone tied up in a warehouse,” he admits. “Most people are begging by now.”
“From your point of view, I helped my father steal a bunch of money from a top level gangster in New York City. If that was something I did, wouldn’t I be harder to break?” she responds.
Dante’s jaw clenches. I can tell she’s pissing him off. Her sudden calm was denying him the break he wanted.
I shift my weight, my boots slightly scraping against the floor. I look over to her, breaking the uneasiness between them. “You’re not helping your situation here. Don’t you want to go home?”
She tosses a glare at me. “Is that really a possibility? Because you guys seem pretty damn certain that my father is going to be killed in all cases. I can only assume that I’d fall into that bracket as well.”
I maneuver my weight again, stepping a little bit closer.
As I do, Dante takes a few steps back allowing me a moment to speak.
“Listen,” I insist calmly, “You can keep acting like a smart ass, but it’s not going to change the fact that your father’s life is on the line.
And yours, too. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to give us something. ”
Her gaze doesn’t waver. If anything, there looks to be a spark of amusement there now. “And if I don’t?”
I don’t answer immediately. The pause makes her fiddle around slightly. She’s nervous. That small movement betrayed her.
Dante walks over to the door, opening it wide. “You want to test us?” he dares. “Fine.”
She watches him as he saunters out of the room. I don’t know what he is up to, but it has a high probability of being bad.
Her eyes find mine and we study each other quietly.
I can feel her fear. She doesn’t know Dante like I do, but she’s starting to notice his unpredictable behavior. She at least knows that he’s planning something unpleasant.
Our eyes break away one another as the door behind me slams.
She quickly scrambles backwards on the mattress, breaths coming out fast. Her green eyes are locked on the chair that he drags in behind him. In the other hand, he holds a bucket full of water.
“No,” she exclaims, shaking her head hard enough that her hair sticks to her face. “No, you don’t need to do this. Please, I swear I don’t know anything.” Her voice breaks on the last word, panic showing in every breath as she pushes herself farther back.
Dante doesn’t rush things. He drags the chair forward inch by inch, letting the wooden legs of the chair scrape against the floor.
He then sits the bucket down beside it, the water sloshing over the side.
He turns to face me. “Grab her.”
Her frightened eyes find me. They’re pleading for a second chance before it goes too far.
“Please,” she begs, crawling away until her back connects with the wall. “Don’t let him do this. I’ll talk, I’ll try to remember something. Just please, don’t let it go any further.”
I do my best to ignore her. My muscles tense as I walk over and roughly grab her arm.
She fights like a stray cat that’s just been caught by their scruff.
Nails rake across my wrist, her body twisting violently as she tries to wrench free.
Her tears run down her pale face as she mumbles the same beseeching pleas over and over in a frantic mess.
Dante moves in from the other side, pulling her backwards until her ass falls into the chair.
She screams, “No, no, no. Please stop!”, as we zip-tie her to the chair with her hands behind her back.
The chair almost falls back as she bucks trying to escape us.
Dante plants his weight behind it, stepping on the bottom piece to hold it steadily to the concrete below.
“I want you to hold her still while I finish this,” he snaps.
I don’t give myself time to hesitate.
She cries out as I pitch forward, hands clamping down on her shoulders, driving her back into the chair to keep her restrained until Dante is finished zip-tying her lower and upper arms to the wooden brackets.
“Please,” she cries, tears streaking down her face. “I’ll do anything. I’ll call my father. I’ll find out whatever you need to know!”
Dante stands behind her firmly after finishing the restraints. He then tosses a nod over toward the water bucket beside the chair. “Your move.”
With that, my hands leave her shoulders. His hands replace mine, but instead of going back to her shoulders, they go to her hair. He grabs it all in one swift notion, wrapping it around his hand. Her head darts backwards as he grips it tightly.
She chokes out a sob, hands pulling uselessly against the restraints as I lean over to grab the bucket from the ground.
Before I can reach it, she starts to buck crazily again. She kicks me one good time in the shin causing me to grunt and buckle slightly.
Dante lets out a loud chuckle. “Did you really fucking forget to restrain her legs?” He kicks the remaining zip-ties on the floor over to me.
My eyes roll in annoyance as I grip her left ankle, pinning it to the chair’s leg. After grabbing the zip-tie, I secure it firmly around that ankle and repeat it with the other one as well.
This is the first time I’ve ever had to do this to a woman, and I truly did not like the feeling of committing this act. I don’t even want to be here, but fucking Dante had to skip to this shit.
I know she would fall apart with just a few simple threats. We don’t actually have to follow through with physical assault.
But we are.
Dante stands behind her, waiting on me as he holds her in place.
With a faltered breath, I take the rag from the side of the bucket, tossing it onto her face. That helps the guilt I feel since I won’t be able to see her expressions as we do this to her.
With that, I lift the bucket up above her and tilt it forward, dumping water slowly over her face. She gasps instinctively.
I’m sure her lungs are seizing and fighting for air. She coughs violently as she thrashes against the chair. Dante doesn’t let up, his knuckles turning white as he clings to her brunette hair, holding her head back firmly.
Her cries dissolve into gurgling wet sounds, her whole body jerking in place as she battles for a breath.
“Ready to talk?” he asks calmly, lifting her head back up. I pull the bucket back to stop the flow of water as he does.
She shakes her head, continuing to cough roughly.
She wanted to talk moments ago just because of the fear of being suffocated by water, but now she isn’t wanting to budge at all.
Dante looks up at me from her, before nodding his head in approval to continue.
We do this over and over. Each time having to go and fill up the bucket, just to come back and restart and do it all over again.
She is now barely holding herself upright. Her head is lolled to the side, hair plastered to her face, chest heaving in uneven breaths. Water pools in her lap, the dress creating a sort of layer between her and the ground.
Dante straightens and then glances over at me. “Leave her.”
He walks away without another word.
The silence afterward is suffocating. Fitting considering what I had just done.
I now stand here, frozen and unsure of what to do with myself.
She lifts her head just enough to look at me as water inches down her face. Her eyes are inflamed and glassy.
“Coward.” She whispers.
There is nothing I can say to that.
I had just become the thing I hate the most.