Chapter 20
20
TATUM
S omething’s in my mouth, rotten and dry. I try to spit it out, but I can’t move, my hands are tied behind my back. My eyelids flutter open and I’m consumed by darkness. I grunt, trying to move, but end up knocking my head against something sharp.
Goddamnit.
Blood trickles from the wound on my forehead, and I groan lowly against my mouth restraint.
Fuck.
Fuck, where am I?
Suddenly I feel the rasp of an engine starting, the crunch of tires.
I’m in the trunk of a car. I can smell the exhaust wafting up toward me, can hear the rumble of music. What the fuck is that?
I strain my ears and make out some kind of horn. Are they listening to ska?
Jesus, I think as I let my head thunk down on the cold metal beneath me. As the car moves forward, I’m jostled back and forth, my stomach roiling from whatever they gave me.
Shit. What did they give me?
Must have been something injected into me, a sedative. My breathing grows labored, and I try to calm myself, but it’s hard to even attempt. I don’t know where I am or where they’re taking me.
What are they going to do to me? Being in the trunk of a car is never a good sign. Don’t people usually end up dumped in a lake when they’re toted around like this?
Oh my god.
How did this happen?
I try to go over the events of the night, but I come up with nothing. Anthony spared no expense on security at his house. He doubled his guards. This shouldn’t have happened. And yet it did.
Somehow they got in. They found me. And now I’m here.
I could be fish food soon.
The thought causes my chest to clench and my mouth to go even drier than it already was. I hear my muffled sobs behind the rag stuffed in my mouth, and in this moment, I feel small and pathetic. A soul easily snuffed out by something evil.
I’ll be leaving so much behind, so much potential.
Friends. My parents. Anthony .
My hands strain against the bonds and yet they don’t break. They just continue to dig into my skin, chaffing my wrists until I lie there defeated. There’s nothing I can do but wait.
Suddenly, the car stops and I roll forward, knocking my head once more against the sharp protrusion I can’t see. I hold my breath, eyes wide when I hear the trunk pop open and light filters through. I blink against the shadowy figures leaning over me.
“Well, hello there,” a dark voice says. I can hear the slither of evil, the way he hates me and yet has never even met me.
I blink up at him, never having seen him before in my life.
He has a neatly trimmed graying mustache and white hair, tattoos crawling up his neck. He looks stern and weathered, as if he’s seen more than his fair share of life, and I wonder how that plays into my fate.
Who the fuck is this? I rack my brain but come up with nothing.
“Get him out. Put him in the cellar,” he barks and then two meatheads grab on to me, their beefy arms hauling me up. I knock against the trunk door and cry out as pain explodes down my temples and into my neck. But they don’t hesitate, even when I writhe and kick, fighting to escape even though I have nowhere to go.
I have no way to get out of here. Unless someone comes to rescue me.
He’s going to come rescue me, right?
He wouldn’t just leave me.
You’re mine. Mine.
My feet drag down stone stairs and then I’m pushed forward, falling onto my knees, feeling the skin peel back beneath my jeans. I let out a small sob, trying to be brave for Anthony but failing miserably. I’m not good in an emergency. Not at all.
I hear the men laugh before the door shuts loudly and I’m left in the musty cellar. I shuffle forward, trying to figure out where I am, but it’s darker here than in the trunk. I can hear the scuttling and squeaking of mice in the corners. Or fuck, maybe they’re rats.
Oh my god.
Oh my fucking god.
I hate those little shits. They are small and beady-eyed with sharp little teeth. What if they bite me? What if I get rabies? I could die from that in a few years. I looked it up once.
It could happen.
I try to stand to get off the floor and manage after a few failed attempts, my legs cramping. They wobble as I take a few shuffling steps forward, wanting to see if I can find a way out. But I just run into walls and barrels of something.
I wish I could fucking see.
My eyes adjust to the darkness slightly, but still, it’s just walls and wooden barrels and the occasional scurrying of creatures I can’t see. I make my way up the stairs, turning around and grabbing on to the handle with my tied hands. But the door is locked so I just move back to the floor and stand there, feeling dehydrated and faint.
I want to sit, sleep, shower.
I want Anthony to come and hold me, to whisper that he’ll burn the world down for me.
But he’s not here.
He will be. I have to keep faith in that. He’ll come for me.
He has to.
You’re mine.
He doesn’t come for me.
It’s been hours. Days? I don’t know, but everything hurts. I’ve taken to sitting on top of a barrel, my arms numb as they stay tied behind me. For a quick hopeful moment, I thought I could escape, that I could saw my bindings off with some kind of metal and be free, but no.
This isn’t like the movies.
I’m just sitting here. Waiting.
For what, I don’t know.
I can hear them above me, stomping around. But no one has come to check on me, feed me, or give me water. My throat burns and so does my stomach. I feel like throwing up and yet there’s nothing there. And even if I did, I couldn’t get it past this gag.
I shudder at the thought, pulling my knees into my chest to stop the shiver moving through me. Everything seems hopeless.
I’ve never felt this way in my life, not even at the bar when I was getting the shit kicked out of me. Because I knew he was coming for me. But now, I don’t know.
I don’t fucking know.
He may never find me.
I hear a hinge creak and then see a flash of light as the sound of footsteps move down the stairs.
“Get him, bring him up,” a deep voice says.
Two men, different from before, grab on to me and yank my arms, making me fall to my knees once more. I grunt as they shuffle me up the steps and into the brightly lit room. My head throbs and I sway slightly, trying to take in as much as I can. But there’s not much to see. It’s barren, old, and dilapidated. Like an old ruin in the woods.
The one thing I do know is that it’s day now. It’s been at least twelve hours since my kidnapping then.
“Put him here,” the man with the gray mustache and white hair says. I’m shoved onto a chair and a hand slaps me across my face.
God, that was uncalled for. I mean, really.
My eyes sting and grow wet, the pain sliding up my cheek and down my neck. I breathe deeply through my nose and blink wildly to keep my tears at bay.
After a few seconds, I finally manage to turn my gaze back up to the man and narrow my eyes.
Fuck you , I think, trying to remain calm. I haven’t managed to do it successfully yet, but I can redeem myself. I can prove that I’m strong. Stronger than they think.
“Oh, so the little slut thinks he’s brave? You think you’re a big man, now?” the man says, leaning toward me and grinning wryly. “I promise you won’t be. Not when I’m done with you.”
I roll my eyes, and he lets out a dark laugh.
I swallow as his grimy hands grab on to my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Have some respect, boy. Do you know who I am?”
His fingernails bite into my skin, and I try and wrench my head away, but he won’t let go.
“I’m Douglas Kennedy. Yours truly.”
I don’t know who the fuck that is, and he must know this because he grins wide. “I run the Fallen Aces. It’s you I have to thank for all the closures and arrests that have been made against me, I’m sure. You’ve been pulling the strings.”
I pull zero strings when it comes to Anthony, but for some reason, he seems to think I have that kind of power.
“You’re the reason I lost twenty men in that bar up on Creek Road. But then again, you sure are pretty,” he says with a dark laugh.
I try and wrench my face away once more, but he keeps it turned toward him, my jaw aching from the hold he has on me.
A flash of metal appears from his pocket and he holds a knife up to my lips. “You know, your man is called The Silencer, right? He loves to take the tongues out of people’s mouths. Perhaps we could send yours home to him. Let him know what he’ll be missing.”
I writhe in the chair, trying to kick my legs out. But they only tie them down, rendering me unable to move.
The knife pricks the skin of my cheek, and I feel my eyes widen. They won’t really cut out my tongue, right?
“He’s scared. Good. Send Anthony a picture. Show him what his little pet has been up to.”
I glower at him, trying to look unafraid when the flash goes off.
God, Anthony is going to lose it when he sees this. Oh fuck.
He better not get hurt because of this. Because of me. I’d rather die.
“Shit. My finger was over the lens,” the man with the phone says, and Douglas groans.
“Take the picture right the first time, you piece of shit.”
“Yeah, okay, sorry. I got thick fingers. Can’t help it.”
Another flash and this time, I most likely look confused. Which I am. Apparently Douglas hasn’t employed the smartest people. Which is an advantage Anthony has over him. At least the people in his employ are smart, cunning even.
“He’s gonna be so angry,” a big man says, his head disproportionately smaller than his body. I wish I could tell him that, that he looks like a grape on top of a basketball. But I can’t. My mouth is still gagged. But if I could, I would. I’d sneer and mock him relentlessly.
“He will be. And then maybe he’ll give me what I want.”
Grape-head glances at him and asks dumbly, “And what do we want, Boss?”
Douglas sighs, putting the knife away and pinching his nose. “We want his shipping ports and we want the cocaine.”
“Yeah, that’s right. I remember now.”
Douglas’s jaw clenches and he glances down as he grabs a pair of garden shears.
“Maybe we should send Anthony a little present, something to commemorate this little get together.”
He draws closer, and closer, and then he stops directly in front of me.
“He’s not going to find you, you know that, right? I’m going to take you apart piece by piece. By the time he figures it out, there will be nothing left.”
I can’t help the fear that flares through me. Oh my god, I’m going to die. I’m going to fucking die.
“Untie his hands and tie them to the chair. Now.”
Grape-head moves slowly, lumbering toward me and doing as Douglas asks. Once more, I strain against him, trying to fight, but grape-head has something I don’t. Strength.
I squirm when the shears press into my knuckle, the ring finger on my right hand. “Please don’t do this , ” I plead unintelligibly through the gag . Please don’t.
“Tatum, I want you to know this. You won’t be found. We’re somewhere Anthony doesn’t know about. Even his little senator and friends in the FBI have no idea this place exists.”
He presses the shears deeper into my skin, blood pooling to the surface, and I squirm harder, trying to fight, but all I do is hurt myself more.
And then he snaps his teeth, the shears opening ominously.
“I think Anthony will really enjoy this, don’t you?”
And then he grabs on to my finger, lifts it slightly, and cuts it right off.