Chapter 60
M“Where the fuck am I?” My head is spinning, and my throat is sore. This feeling is something I haven’t experienced, ever. Usually, I would be doing this shit, not the other way around. I open my eyes, and the first thing I notice is that this place is unfamiliar.
Completely unrecognizable.
What the fuck is going on here? And why are my hands bound together?
I try to wiggle my way out of this position, with no luck.
I’m tied to a metal chair that is chained to the floor.
Even when I’m in danger, I appreciate the craftsmanship and the planning behind all of this.
The people who took me put a lot of thought into abducting me.
Probably because they knew it would be fucking difficult to take down a motherfucker like me.
That also means that these people were fucking dangerous and smart as hell. All of that brings me down to one fundamental question: where is Lana?
“Where is she?” For the first time in my life, I’m desperate. I’m hung up on not being able to see her, and it is making me angry. The room I’m in is probably isolated, and even if I screamed, nobody would hear me.
“Come on out, I’m not fucking afraid of anybody who is behind that door!” My voice is getting louder by the second. The room I’m in is recreated to look like a standard hospital room—a bed, a chair, a small cabinet on the right side, and a fucking crib. What the fuck is happening here?
“Volim te najvise na svijetu.1”
I stop breathing, and my eyes are darting around the room. Where is this shit coming from? I instinctively start pulling at my wrists and ankles, like I want to run toward the sound.
“My beautiful son.”
I push my heels into the floor, and my spine goes rigid.
“Mama?” I ask, like my mother is still here. Fuck, I’m not normal in the head. That can’t be my mother’s voice. Just by hearing her voice, my eyes are filling up with tears. I miss my mother so much.
This right here is the definition of torture.
With physical torture your body can brace itself for impact, but with psychological torture it’s a whole different story.
The predictability is removed and your mind takes over and it starts torturing itself.
And the worst thing? Your tormenter doesn’t even need to be there for the infliction of pain.
And I need to fight this.
“Stop this madness!” I scream, now even louder than before. The dread that is coursing through my veins is fucking me up in the worst ways. I would rather take a full-on beating than experience this fucking shit.
The door of this make-shift hospital opens and a tall man appears. Why is he is so familiar? My mind is still foggy from being drugged, so I can’t remember everything immediately. The man sits on the hospital bed and doesn’t say anything for the first few minutes.
He is testing me.
“Lovely hospital room.” The man breaks the silence by looking around, a pleased expression on his face.
“It is. I wish I understood the significance of it, though.” I’m baiting him to give me a straight answer. He looks at me and smiles.
“Asking you if you remember this would be futile. You were so,” he slowly looks at the crib and then back at me, “young.”
Hell no.
The man presses a button, and my mother’s voice appears again.
My mother’s voice. The crib. The hospital room.
“I was born in this room.” It wasn’t much of a question, but I’m hoping for some confirmation because I’m losing my mind.
“Not really. We just had it remade into the room you were resting with your dear mother.”
“How the fuck do you know that?”
“Your daddy dearest put up cameras in your mother’s hospital room and recorded everything. Probably for security measures.” He shifts onto the bed. “And the stupid motherfucker stored everything on his computer.”
“I didn’t know about that.” The man stands up and slaps me across the face. When I look at him, he is still fucking smiling.
“Lies won’t be tolerated here, M.”
“I’m not fucking lying! And who are you?”
“Oh, you don’t remember me? I’ll give you a hint.” He produces a pen and paper from his back pocket and stands before me with a fake smile.
“How can I take your order?” My blood runs cold as all my memories rush back.
“Emin?” I ask him, although there is no question behind it. He throws the pen and paper onto the floor and stands before me. Emin holds his finger up before I can even ask my question—why?
“My master asked me to be there for Lana. And my master obtained the footage of the room from your father’s computer, where your mother was resting with you,” he says to me matter-of-factly. I straighten myself as much as I can and cross my legs.
“Your master should come out here and face me himself,” I tell him.
“Our master will.”
“Emin, tell me, why did you betray Lana?”
“I betrayed many people.” He goes to the side cabinet and gets a gun from there. He walks back to me and points it at my forehead. “But today is not about me, it’s about you.”
“What the fuck did I do?”
“Stop lying. My master has had a hunger for you for many years.” I blink to process this information. Throughout my life, I have accumulated many enemies, but none have been fixated on me for long.
There is being mad, and there is one state stronger than all of them—revenge.
“I don’t have time for these games, and if you have read anything about me, you know that I could break out of here in a matter of minutes.” Emin’s smile falters, and he lowers his gun.
“We thought you might say that, and that’s why—” Emin looks at what’s probably a hidden camera, and motions with his hands, “—we have leverage.” After a couple of minutes, the door opens, and two men walk in with Lana.
I’m seeing red, and my blood is boiling—Lana has a bloody nose, her hands are tied, and she is scared out of her mind. Her eyes are looking for mine, and once we lock eyes, I start moving in my seat. They make her sit in a chair.
Without taking my eyes off her, I address Emin. “If any of you try to hurt her, God wouldn’t be able to stop me from the carnage I will instill.” My words are cold just like the atmosphere in the room. These guys are professionals, but so am I.
Whatever information they want, I will give them.
“Where is your father?” Emin asks me. That question breaks the eye contact between Lana and me as I look at him.
“You fucking heard me. Where is your father?” he repeats his question, as if I didn’t understand it the first time.
In all other scenarios, I would have said something back or killed him, even from this position, but I don’t have that luxury now.
They are using Lana as bait, and if I don’t take it, they will murder her.
“Listen, I don’t know where my father is,” I answer as honestly as I can. My mind is thinking through what I should say to get Lana and me out of here, and Emin picks up on it.
“Don’t try to lie to us, otherwise she,” he points his gun toward Lana and looks back at me again, “and your entire team will die.” Emin is not fucking around. Honesty is the best policy, as they say.
“Emin, I really don’t fucking know where he is.”
“Have it your way then.” Emin takes slow, deliberate steps toward Lana, turns the chair so Lana is looking at him, and then does something that makes any word stop in my throat. He points the gun toward her heart. No, no, no.
No.
“Emin, don’t fucking do this. You worked with her!
Whatever her father pays you, I will pay you a hundred times more!
” I’m pleading as tears are streaming down Lana’s face.
She is sobbing and mouthing a silent prayer.
There is no possible way for me to escape from being chained to this chair, with three heavily armed men in the room.
I mean, I could escape, but that would put Lana and my entire team in danger.
I don’t know if these men are looking at them.
If they are as good as I am, they would.
“Just tell us where your father is! Otherwise, Lana dies in the room where you were born as a baby!” Emin’s voice is filled with hatred, and he is growing impatient.
“M, make them stop! Just tell them!” Lana’s short, trembling inhales cut through her words, making her sound fragile and broken. I’m shaking my head, and I feel hopelessness taking over me.
“Little hummingbird, I will get us out of here!” I scream. Emin cocks his gun, and I’m getting sick.
“Tick…” he begins as he lets his finger hover over the trigger, and my anxiety is rising. I’m thrashing harder in my seat with no fucking luck. The air is sucked out of the room as Lana looks at me.
“I love you,” she says to me as if defeat is upon us already.
“I love you too!” I scream back.
“Tock…”
“Emin, no!”
“Tick…”
“Let her go, kill me!”
“Tock…” His finger is now fixated on the trigger. My heart is pumping fast because I’m out of options.
“M, please, please, please!” Lana screams at me as she closes her eyes. Another guard approaches me and places a bag over my head. Now I’m totally cut off from her.
“Lana, no!”
“You don’t deserve to look at her anymore because you failed her, and now.” I hear Lana’s sobs increase. “Your little hummingbird is all sung out, and you are the reason for her downfall.”
Click.
No sound. No movement. No thumping heartbeat.
The only reason I know I’m alive is because of the two hands holding my shoulders down.
Lana is dead.
Lana is dead.
My little hummingbird is gone.
White-hot rage surges through me.
“You are going to pay for killing her,” I tell Emin with an icy tone that even makes me quiver. I haven’t felt this much rage, well, ever. I will taste their blood and rip out their throats once I’m out of here.
“Fuck this shit.” Someone removes the bag from my head, and I’m met with a horrifying sight. Lana’s body is lifeless on the floor, with her back turned to me.
“I love you.” Her beautiful face flashes before me, and her words are etched into my brain. Emin grabs my hair and makes me look at her. He forces me to go through my personal Hell.
“We didn’t kill her, you did. You just needed to tell us where your father is.
” I want to fucking kill everyone in this room.
No matter how mad I am, I don’t react. A “no” forms on my lips, but no sound leaves me.
The scream that is lodged in my throat never makes it out—it tore through my chest, and it died there.
I try to turn my head away, but Emin doesn’t let me.
Fuck what I said earlier, this is torture. Blood is pooling around Lana, and this is the first time in my life I despise seeing it. Every second that passes with me looking at her body adds another ounce to a weight that’s about to overflow. My jaw is so tight because I’m gritting my teeth.
My reason to live is gone. The only good thing that was left in this world has been taken away from me.
I manage to utter a couple of words as my eyes are fixated on Lana’s body.
“Once I break free, I’m going to murder everybody here.”
“I don’t think so.” I feel the butt of a gun against the back of my head before everything turns black.
1. "I love you the most in the whole world" in the Bosnian language.