CHAPTER 10 #2
He lets the statement hang for a beat, waiting, watching. Then, his jaw twitches. ‘The only problem is…’ His fist flies from the side, cracking against my jaw. ‘I don’t make deals.’
Blood fills my mouth, metallic and warm. I don’t move. I can’t move. Charlie stands up, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck, adjusting the cuffs on his shirt to their rightful position like nothing happened.
‘Mr Lewis is a reasonable man, Charlie. I’m sure we can work something out.’
‘Last time we spoke, he went all gob-shite on me, didn’t he? Spat out some half-baked drivel about my family, and called me a greasy, Guinness-guzzling felcher.’
‘That was ten years ago,’ I sigh.
‘Tell me,’ he gestures. ‘What should I do with my bonus?’
‘Well,’ I begin, ‘killing me? That’s a message, but keeping me alive? That’s an opportunity.’
Charlie steps forward.
‘You think I care about opportunities?’
‘I’m assuming you care about efficiency. Right now, I’m worth more alive than dead.’
Charlie rolls his shoulders, flexing his fingers. ‘You talk too much.’
‘And yet, here we are. Me talking. You listening.’
Charlie exhales. It’s long, slow, like he’s debating whether to break my nose, and if it would even be worth the effort.
‘What a good idea. Keep talking.’ Charlie nods to the hooded man.
His face is unreadable, just a slight smile curling at the sides.
Charlie reaches between my legs. ‘Sitting comfortably?’ he asks before pulling my cock free from my trousers.
‘You’re quiet now,’ he murmurs, rolling heavy-duty cables between his fingers. ‘Funny that, huh?’
He leans towards my face, close enough I can smell the brandy on his breath. Then – snap – crocodile clips, sharp and metallic biting onto bare skin. My body tenses as the tremor of electricity crawls through my body.
‘You see, Sal,’ Charlie continues, almost conversationally, ‘you get two choices right now. You can start talking – or I start turning the dial.’
But what Charlie doesn’t know is pain was never the enemy. It snakes through me, curling in my muscles, and pulses through my cock like fire.
And I enjoy it.
Charlie’s watching me. Waiting. Expecting… something. Fear, maybe? Desperation? Instead, I laugh – it’s a rough sound.
‘You’re supposed to beg,’ he says.
‘Turn it up,’ I murmur, leaning forward.
‘As high as it can go,’ I tell him. With a twelve volt battery, the current wouldn’t be lethal, but it would still be intense.
As the circuit joins, a sudden jolt shoots through my body like an involuntary twitch.
It’s violent, like my spine’s being ripped into static.
My nerves spark in panic, limbs jerk against my will.
The current sends waves of tingling pain like hundreds of needles driving, simultaneously into my skin.
It’s not constant, it comes in bursts, making my cock spasm as heat builds under the clamps. Then, my heartbeat races.
Hello, old friend.
Pain is meant to be a warning – a signal something is wrong.
That’s how most people see it. Me? I let it in.
The first jolt was sharp, biting, and my body reacts instinctively.
I exhale slowly, rolling my head, absorbing every shock as it came.
I let him turn up the dial. Let him think he’s in control, think he’s breaking me.
He doesn’t understand - I’m already past that point.
Charlie paces, he’s irate, knuckles itching for another swing at my jaw.
I chuckle, the metallic taste of blood still on my tongue.
I can feel my cheek swelling, but I remain positively radiant like I’m just been gifted a fine bottle of whiskey instead of a fat lip.
‘You will talk, Sal. You will tell me what you know about Gabriel.’ His voice is smooth, but rough enough to cut.
Between the shocks, I smile. ‘This, Charlie, this is living. Most people spend their sorry existences trying to avoid pain, drowning it in liquor, numbing with pills, pretending it isn’t knocking at your door. Me? I set a place for it at the table, and shake its bloody hand.’
Charlie scowls, lunging forward. ‘You’ll break.’
I spit blood. ‘You wish I would.’
‘Maybe that little cunt will talk? She does look like she’d have a real tight one, don’t ya say?’
‘Touch her and-’
‘And what, Sal?’
‘I’ll make sure you fucking die this time.’
Charlie roars with laughter, and belts out a tune.
It’s something old, he’s off-key, but there’s a rhythm to it.
When people laugh like that it isn’t joy, it’s a warning.
Twenty years is a long time, it’s long enough for wounds to scar over, but never long enough to forget.
Last time, Charlie was left breathing, now there’s no room for second chances.
I took Stella because it was necessary. I’ve kept her alive because letting go wasn’t an option.
But now? Now she’s something else. I can’t define it, and I can’t control it.
She’s sharp, relentless, refuses to be tamed.
She makes me second-guess everything, makes me want to do things I’ve spent the last decade avoiding.
I should cut her loose; remind myself she was never mine to keep.
But when she looked at me with that fire in her eyes, when she says ‘Sal’ like it belongs to her, it’s over.
She stopped being just a job the moment she made me forget why I started this in the first place.
She’s the crack in my armour, that loose thread I should have cut long ago.
She’s not just a complication as Mr Lewis had put it; she’s the fire I keep walking into knowing damn well I’ll burn.
Then a scream tears through the air. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. Just tilts his head, slow and deliberately, like he’s listening for the next one. It’s as if chaos is a lullaby, and he’s heard this familiar song before.
‘Well, that’s bloody inconvenient.’
Another scream. Louder this time.
Charlie sighs. I don’t react, but he leans in anyway. ‘You heard that, right?’
I stare back.
Of course I heard it.
The air smells thick with damp and dust – that typical warehouse smell you’d find in the middle of nowhere. I’m wondering if Charlie is enjoying the game more than the prize as I answer him. ‘Yes, Charlie. What do you want me to do, cry?’
‘Ah, the bravado. Let’s see how much fight you have when the lights go out.’
The roar of the chainsaw echoes through the walls, and my heartbeat slams against my ribs.
He smirks, savouring the moment. I hear the chainsaw’s teeth clattering hungrily, and the screams get louder.
The moment it roared to life, it wasn’t just a sound, it was a physical force that rattled through the walls, it vibrated in my bones.
My ears ring with the mechanical sound as the violent clash of metal teeth spin too fast to comprehend.
It’s high-pitched, relentless and hungry.
At first, my brain struggles to accept what’s happening, clinging to the hope that maybe it’ll stop, maybe it’s just meant to scare me, but the truth is it’s none of those, because Stella is in there.
The girl I was meant to kill, quickly, efficiently, is now dying a slow, torturous death.
The dread is thick and suffocating, and my pulse throbs against my skull.
My throat tightens, every muscle screams at me to move.
But I can’t. The sudden rev, an aggressive surge of power makes my whole body jolt.
Acid claws up my throat, my body is rebelling, and I lean forward, gagging because the fear is so intense it makes me wretch, like it’s trying to purge the panic.
This I cannot hide, it’s visibly and violently so.
The sound that makes Charlie back away isn’t loud at first. It’s subtle, almost easy to ignore. It’s a faint tap-tap-tap against metal, and then comes something guttural and unnatural. He stiffens. His head tilting as he listens to the hum-turning into a distant rumble.
‘What the fuck is going on?’ he asks, rhetorically, as he turns and vanishes through the doorway, leaving me and the hooded guard behind.
Now we’re alone, it’s time to get out. The guard watches me, unmoved by the atmosphere and whatever it was that sent Charlie running.
I stare at the floor. Thinking. Hard. Every option, every escape plan flashes through my mind.
Then, something snaps. I throw strategy aside, any logic ebbs away.
For the first time in ten years my breathing becomes ragged.
Words spill from my mouth too fast – I’m bargaining, pleading.
My voice cracks between rage and desperation.
I lunge forward, my eyes wild. I know I’m a man unhinged – slowly unraveling, breaking free from his cage.
I’ve spent years mastering restraint. Composure, that’s what Mr Lewis’s father taught me.
He pulled me from the fire before I burnt everything in its path, because before that, I was on a path that would have destroyed me.
Because someone I loved died. And when she was gone, the anger, the violence, it became all I knew.
He saved me from that - showed me another way.
Now that seems like a distant memory. Charlie took Stella.
My toy. And now they’re hurting her. Or worse, he’s already killed her.
Something inside me snaps. The guard is watching me, unaware he’s standing in front of a man who no longer cares about reason.
‘Do me a favour would you, and remove these clips off my cock.’ Being tied to a chair makes persuasion harder, but my words have presence – they’re still weapons. I lick my bottom lip. ‘You saw Charlie run. He knows what’s coming. You think you’re safe just standing there like some goon?’
Silence.
I exhale slowly, my eyes purposely flicking past his shoulders to the doorway. His eyes shift like he’s listening. His breathing hitches, but still he doesn’t react, apart from a slight shift in his posture. Doubt.
I lean forward as far as the restraints allow, my voice dropping to a whisper.
‘You got family?’ he stiffens, but doesn’t answer.
‘Do you really want to be the guy who hesitated while something swallowed this place whole? I know men like you. You follow orders, do what you’re told, then end up the patsy.
Do you want to be the person that’s taken advantage of?
Manipulated and cheated? I wouldn’t have thought so. But right now, you’re at a crossroads.’
There’s a tense silence.
‘You feel something coming, don’t you? That’s why the chainsaw stopped. They’ve all left. You’re just standing here, wasting time, and pretending you’re the one in control.’ The guard shifts his feet.
Uncertainty.
‘Let me go. You do that, and you walk out of here still breathing.’
The guard hesitates, but I continue. ‘But wait too long…then neither of us will make it out.’
The guard exhales. He steps forward, his fingers hovering over the restraints – but he hasn’t moved yet. I narrow my eyes. One more push. One final trigger. He tilts his head, then I whisper something quiet, something chilling. ‘Don’t make me ask twice.’
The guard’s breathing falters, it’s uneven and shallow. His fingers curl tighter around the knife tucked into his waistband, trembling, and the tiniest veil of hesitation. Then, without warning, he moves.
His blade slides under the ropes, fibres pulling tightly for a second before they snap, unraveling from my wrists. I should be feeling relief, but I don’t. Not yet.
He hesitates as he cuts the rope binding my ankles like he’s second-guessing himself.
I don’t rush him, despite the urgency of the situation.
Freedom is close, almost tangible and close enough to taste.
As the last restraint slips free, he steps back, his gaze locking on mine.
For a suspended breath, neither of us moves, but something passes between us, unspoken and absolute.
The second I’m free feels like my lungs expand for the first time in years.
My chest fills so deep, so wild, it feels like my first breath as every muscle coils, charged with something odd, something untamed.
I stand, and the guard’s hand is shaking, the knife clutched like a lifeline.
He’s still deciding whether or not he just made a huge mistake.
I watch him. But I don’t react. Not in the way he thinks I might.
I roll my shoulders, and crack my neck. Freedom tastes like fire in my lungs.
I nod. I’m a man of my word. He’ll walk out of here still breathing.
His breath catches like he wasn’t expecting me to walk away, like he was thinking the second he freed me, I’d lunge at him like some wild animal.
Not today.
My fingers graze the indentations on my wrist, and without another glance, I leave.
For years, I was the man they called when silence wasn’t enough – when a mess needed cleaning before it bled into scandal.
That’s who Mr Lewis needed me to be. That’s who his father molded me into.
Calm on the outside, calculating on the inside.
A man who solved problems before they became liabilities.
But before that? I was something else entirely.
A blade unsheathed. I didn’t negotiate – I devoured.
My name, Salvador, once held weight in every corner it was spoken.
Now, I don’t know what it means anymore.
Only that it used to mean everything. Then I let it go – all of it.
The fury, the history, the wreckage I used to be.
I buried it so deep beneath rules and order that even I started to believe it was gone for good.
Control became my weapon. But Charlie…The moment that blade roared to life, something in me shattered.
Not loud – more like the split of ice before it breaks.
And in that instant, I remembered. I’m not just the man that closes deals in glass towers with a handshake and a stare.
I was never just a man in a suit. I was the storm that made others beg for cover.
I was the monster they thought they’d tamed. And he’s not buried anymore.