Chapter 20 - Mark
MARK
The man tied to the table is too weak to struggle against his bindings. It’s to be expected since he’s been tied there, fed paralytics, and tortured for five weeks. I have a saline drip with nutrients and electrolytes to keep him alive. Much like if he were in a coma.
It’s important that he’s not in a coma, though. I want him to be aware of what I’m doing to him—a living cadaver.
After hitting me upside the head with a rolling pin, it’s the least I can do to repay his invasion of my home and subsequent attack. While Auden hasn’t said anything to make me believe so, I think it was probably only a matter of time before he killed me had Auden not intercepted him when he did.
The man is a senator from Kentucky. A man who’s not only been spearheading hate in the state, but someone who has been doing far more than that out of the public eye. There’s a notch on his bedpost for nearly every gross thing you can think of doing to another person.
Most of which, we hadn’t actually known about until I’d been torturing him for two weeks. No one has ever asked him what he’s done. We didn’t ask for a confession. No one has spoken to him at all, in fact. As he pleads for his life, he confesses his sins.
We’re not only talking about his sins, but he’s been giving us names of other politicians and big-money criminals.
Crime rings. Corruption. Drugs. Smuggling.
Rape. We have a series of addresses and locations to access evidence of such accusations as well.
Voss has already confirmed at least two of the more than a dozen different operations that this man has confessed to being involved in.
“Please,” he croaks. “No more. Just kill me. Kill me.”
I don’t answer. Where I’m positive he can see it, I hold up the syringe of paralytic and squirt just a bit into the air, making sure there aren’t any air bubbles.
He instantly cries and begs for mercy.
He hasn’t shared anything useful in the past week.
I think we’ve reached the end of the information he knows.
The end of his long, ugly list of transgressions.
Today will be the last day I play with him.
We won’t go so far as to say I forgive him now that he’s suffered—especially considering all the heinous things he’s confessed to—but my anger at what he’s done to me specifically has faded.
My headaches have stopped.
I’ve learned a lot about the human body in this process, which is why I asked to play with him.
I inject the paralytic into the port, and it joins the saline drip.
He’s far too weak to actually move or thrash around at this point.
Our goal isn’t to keep him strong but alive and able to feel the pain I inflict.
Torture. He needs to feel the torture, as he’s made so many others suffer in his past.
After I dispose of the needle, I stand back and watch the drip.
The body has a way of thrashing and jerking all its own to protect itself from injury and inform the brain that there’s pain.
That’s what paralytic is for right now. To eradicate some of those reflexive motions.
I want him to be conscious. I want him to feel what I do to him.
I just don’t want him to thrash around and make me accidentally nick something vital so he bleeds out before I’m ready.
He’s not allowed to take my toy away until I’m finished playing with it.
No matter that he’s the toy in question.
This is the man who shouldn’t have survived the hunt that Rhodes went on the day before he attacked me in the cabin.
However, when Rhodes made it to the coordinates, he didn’t find this man.
He’d found the man he’d run off the property in the past. Rhodes wasn’t given any information other than that the man should be killed slowly and painfully.
There wasn’t a name attached to these orders.
There wasn’t an image of the man. Nothing more than the whereabouts to find this man.
While his pack was messing with the somewhat innocent trespasser and providing an image too mangled to identify that this wasn’t the same man that the triplets dropped off, the actual target was making his way through the trees toward Auden’s house.
We’ve gathered that it was chance that he was heading in that direction. He didn’t know that someone lived there. He had no idea he’d come across the cabin. It was all happenstance.
A miscommunication is the reason I was nearly killed.
I often wonder why Auden didn’t shoot him to kill him. He shot the guy in his shoulder, and he fell, slamming his head on the edge of a bookshelf on his way down, knocking him unconscious. I imagine Auden then turned his attention to me, perhaps believing that the man was dead.
Once I’m relatively certain that the paralytic has worked through his body well enough, I pick up a scalpel and begin carving into his chest. He screams. His body twitches but doesn’t move otherwise.
Once I can peel the skin back, I use the scalpel to cut through the tissue and muscle around one of his ribs.
Careful. Like I’m pulling the meat away to eat.
The thought makes my stomach churn. Okay, no. I’m just harvesting a bone. That’s what I’m doing.
That’s exactly what I do. Once I get most of the rib bare before me, I switch to an electric saw.
The guy is already screaming as I hit the button and watch the little blade spin.
I bring it to the rib and cut it away from the sternum before cutting it nearest where I pulled the skin away.
Once it’s free, I hold it up for the man to see. Then, I lie it across his forehead.
I debate leaving the wound open. No, I don’t want to kill him. I’ll let someone else do the honors.
A simple bone removal seems lazy for today, so I move to his other side and perform the same meticulous rib removal, this time from under his nipple. I lay it with the other, crossing the first on his forehead.
I close him up neatly and then turn for the door while he whimpers.
I stop in the lavatory and strip out of my robe, gloves, mask, and booties, disposing of them and washing my exposed skin thoroughly. There’s an observation room just beyond the lavatory, so I push the door open and find Jalon watching the senator on the table. He meets my eyes when I walk in.
“I’m done with him,” I tell Jalon. “Someone else can have a turn if they want.”
Jalon inclines his head. “I’ll let Ellory know. Though I think Rhodes wants a turn at him. He’s upset that they killed the wrong person and that the target he was supposed to kill hurt you.”
I smile, nodding. I know he is. I’ve come to realize that all the Van Doren men don’t let go of self-blame easily.
None of the events that took place that day was anyone’s fault.
Auden didn’t know that the man he’d caught on the security feeds previously had returned.
He’d somehow slipped in between coverage areas—something Auden has remedied in the weeks we’ve been at the Estate.
Rhodes didn’t know anything except the coordinates. Hell, Auden didn’t either.
Half a dozen men now feel guilty because of this man hitting me with a rolling pin. None of them is willing to accept that it was an accident.
“Auden is waiting for you outside,” Jalon says.
Now my smile feels genuine. “Thanks.”
“Do you have to be somewhere?”
I meet Jalon’s eyes. He doesn’t generally wear a readable expression, so I’m not sure what he’s thinking right now. “No. I don’t believe so.”
“I’ve been debating how to talk to you about this. Please know that you are always my first concern.”
I grin. Seeing Jalon struggle with words and squirm is fucking epic. Once in a lifetime. “Noted.”
“Auden didn’t know who to call when you were unconscious.”
“Ah, you’re asking about a successor.”
Jalon inclines his head. “You, your father, your grandfather before him—all have worked with my family for generations.”
“And I don’t have a child to follow in my footsteps.”
“Don’t take this the way it’s going to sound, but you’re not a spring chicken anymore, Mark. I don’t want you working until you’re eighty. You deserve to retire and enjoy life. You deserve to enjoy life now and take time off if you choose.”
For just a moment, I let Jalon squirm a little more. I’ll likely never see it again. “Don’t worry. The Markaniches are still going to serve this family. My niece is just finishing her undergrad. She’s already been accepted into the same medical program that my family has all attended.”
“Your niece,” Jalon repeats.
“Molly. Westly’s daughter.”
“Westly.” He shakes his head. “Fuck. I forgot you had a brother.”
“I have a sister too.”
He almost visibly winces. “Wow.”
“They didn’t come to work with Dad because they didn’t have an interest in medicine. I doubt you could pick them out of a lineup.”
Jalon sighs. But I also see the weight of worry releasing from his shoulders. “Molly.”
“Yes. She’ll be finishing med school in a few years, go through some rotations, and then she’ll be my shadow. In seven, maybe eight years, you’ll introduce the fourth-generation Markanich to the Van Doren clan. Just in time for the baby boom.”
He smiles. “Thank you. Please understand—”
“I know, Jalon. You weren’t asking selfishly.”
“I kind of was,” he admits. “But not entirely. I don’t want you to work until the day you die. I want you to enjoy life.”
“Like you?”
His smile is back to its usual, amused but thoughtful curve. “Yes. Like me.”
“Noted.”
“One more question. This time, all work aside. I’m asking as a friend.”
“I’m listening.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. It’s been a week since I had a headache. I’m not going to be doing anything strenuous for the foreseeable future, but I’m absolutely fine. I’ve also realized that you need the names of physicians you can trust in situations where I’m not available.”
“That won’t happen again, Mark.”
“I was talking about vacations and such.”
We both know I wasn’t, but he doesn’t say otherwise.
“Are you happy?”
I’m not entirely sure how that relates to the conversation, but as I look at him, I think that maybe he’s asking for other reasons. Auden is waiting for me. I sigh. “Yeah, Jalon. I’m happy.”
He nods. His hand rests on my shoulder for a minute. “Good.”
I leave Jalon and find Auden in a truck outside the building. We’re on the Van Doren Estate, but deep within the woods, holed up in the underground of one of the garages hidden in the trees. I climb into the nondescript white truck and settle in.
“Everything go okay?”
“Yep, this’ll be my last trip.”
“Rhodes would like to pay him a visit.”
“Jalon is aware of that,” I assure him.
Auden nods. We drive slowly along the bumpy ground for a few minutes before he stops the truck and kills the engine.
His hands remain on the steering wheel as he stares ahead.
Minutes pass. When he speaks, he doesn’t look at me.
“You know, I’ve always thought it a little aggressive how obsessive Loren is over Oakley.
Even watching something more close to home, like Rhodes going off the deep end with his concern for Bennett’s safety.
Then there’s Voss, who’s far more reasonable than anyone else I’ve ever met and is borderline obsessive with Brek’s safety. I never understood it.”
I lick my lips as I listen to Auden process.
“I get it now. When you’re out of my sight, I feel neurotic and ready to lose my shit. It doesn’t matter that I know you’re fine. I know where you are. I know who you’re with.” He meets my eye. “I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“It looks good on you.”
He rolls his eyes, and I grin because he relaxes a little. “When we get home, I want you to move your things into my house. You’re not staying in the cabin anymore.”
Once more, I lick my lips. There’s no reason for me to go back to Oregon. Rhodes and Bennett have vacated. Bennett’s cast is off. He’s finishing physical therapy now.
I don’t say any of this. I don’t point out that my presence makes more sense here than there. Babies are coming. Three more in the next year.
“You know what I appreciate about CEOs?” I ask.
Auden raises an eyebrow. Likely because of the sudden change in topic.
“They aren’t restricted to a single location to oversee their companies, nor do they need to be committed to a nine-to-five set schedule, so if someone needs to be in a place where the majority of their patients and services are needed, CEOs have the freedom to travel while they work.”
His eyes bore into mine. We remain trapped in each other’s gazes.
His hands are still glued to the steering wheel.
And then they’re not. The seatbelts are undone, and he’s slid us both to the middle of the bench to pull me haphazardly into his lap as best we can in the tight space.
His mouth is on mine, demanding, claiming.
There’s no room for anything around me but his possession.
“Your things move into my house,” he repeats.
“Yes. You go where the patients are when needed.”
“Yes,” he parrots. “Fine.”
“That might mean more time in Arizona than Oregon. This family has begun breeding… uh… or something.”
Auden laughs. His teeth sink into my bottom lip, making my dick jump. “They are.”
We hungrily kiss each other for several more minutes until a truck coming in our direction struggles to get around us. Auden waves at the unfamiliar face of a Van Doren staff member, who smiles in amusement. It’s enough that I get back into my seat.
Auden starts the truck again, and we drive through the trees.
“One more thing, Auden.”
He glances at me. “What’s that?”
“I’m ready to play again.”
Auden visibly shivers. “Are you?”
“Yes, same rules. Same game. All of it.”
I don’t miss the hungry smile. Neither does my cock. Five weeks. It’s been five weeks since he properly fucked me. Since we engaged in our game of predator and prey. I’m ready.
“I bought some new rope,” he comments.
“Can’t wait.”