Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
The punch should’ve hurt Isaac, but he was beyond the point of feeling.
His right eye was swollen shut, and he was sure he probably had a broken eye socket.
His left cheek bone was more than likely, also fractured, and it wouldn’t be long before his left eye ended up as swollen as his right one.
It was becoming difficult to breathe as his ribs crunched from yet another heavy blow.
His arms were trussed up above his head, and it took all his willpower and strength to keep his head up and not flop down against his chest like he wanted to. To do so would give them the satisfaction of knowing they were breaking him.
“Do you know why you’re here?” Viktor Koznovi? asked.
The Russian mobster had been in the human trafficking business with Gomez Ramirez, the business Isaac had a hand in dismantling before it could fully take off.
Although he doubted that would’ve stopped Viktor, the Russian would have numerous other associates that could fulfil his needs.
“No idea.”
Viktor walked up to him, dismissing the men who’d beaten him with a wave of his hand.
He waited until they were alone before he dug a knife into the fleshy part of Isaac’s thigh.
He cried out as red-hot pain coursed up and down his leg.
“You’re being very stupid Javier Cortez, or should I say Samuel Rodrigo or maybe Isaac Warner.
” He pulled the knife out, and Isaac bit his lip until he tasted blood to stop himself from crying out again and giving Viktor the satisfaction of acknowledging how much it hurt.
“I don’t know what to call you. You seem to have so many names.
So who are you? What shall I call you?” He wiped the bloody knife with a white handkerchief.
Isaac kept his mouth shut. He’d been trained to withstand torture. He’d also handed out his fair share of it as well, but he was almost at his limit and he had to hang on for a little longer.
He believed with everything in him that Marie would’ve called the emergency number and had gotten someone from Alliez, most probably Cass. The computer whiz would be doing everything in her power to find him.
However long that took he would make himself last. He would deal with every punch, kick, or knife wound Viktor wanted to inflict on him, because he had someone to fight for. Someone to hang on for, and he had no plans to let Marie down. He wanted a life with her and he was going to have it.
The fact that Viktor knew his Samuel alias, confirmed that somehow, some way, Alfredo Vargas was involved in Viktor’s organization, whether it be supplying him with drugs, or young women.
Quite possibly Alfredo was doing both and had informed Viktor that he was alive.
Some way Alfredo must have recognized him, even though he looked completely different from his Javier Cortez persona.
Unless he cornered Alfredo, he wouldn’t know what gave him away, but when he got out of this, he would find a way to make Alfredo regret that he had.
Isaac grunted when another blow landed in the middle of his stomach. “I asked you a question!”
For a man who ran a large human trafficking ring, Viktor lost his temper quickly and easily. Maybe that was what made him so successful, people were too afraid of the consequences of making him angry, so they did what he wanted.
“Does it matter?”
This time instead of a punch to the gut, or knife to his other thigh, Viktor chose to strike him across the face. Blood from his bitten lip flew out of his mouth.
“Do you know how much you cost me? How hard I had to appease the clients who were disappointed they weren’t going to get their merchandise?”
The urge to tell the guy he didn’t give a fuck was high, but Isaac kept his lips pressed together.
He wasn’t going to feed the beast, and answering back would be doing exactly that.
Besides, given the fact that Viktor was wearing a five-thousand-dollar custom made suit, Isaac would hazard a guess that his business was doing just fine.
“But that wasn’t enough for you was it? You had to go and interfere again.
You had to ruin my brilliant plan, one that had been working so well.
But this time you failed to keep yourself hidden.
And here you are, my number one guest.” Viktor laughed as if he’d told the funniest joke in the world.
“I planned to kill you immediately, but I admit this is way more fun. But believe me Isaac, you are going to pay for what you’ve done.
And it’s going to give me immense joy to watch your last breath stutter out.
” Viktor stuck his finger into the knife wound.
Isaac was unable to hold back his cry of agony as Viktor twisted his finger before pulling it out. “This is just the beginning.”
The door slammed shut behind him, and Isaac succumbed to the pain, dropping his head as the desire to give into it and fall into the black abyss that called to him was getting harder and harder to resist.
But resist it he did, because Viktor had said something that he knew was important. Something about him interfering again.
What was he talking about?
None of the cases he’d worked with Alliez, none of the assignments he’d consulted on with Julian were connected to human trafficking.
At least not directly, but perhaps indirectly.
Or was it in his former life as an undercover operative that he’d passed associations with Viktor. That made more sense than anything else
“Think, Isaac, think,” he mumbled to himself. What was he missing?
If he closed his one good eye, he’d pass out, he had to keep it open so he could focus. The connection was there if he could just bring the threads together. Through the maze of his jumbled brain a memory finally stood out. The memory of Marie’s car being trapped. Gunmen coming for her.
That had to be it. Viktor must have been targeting women who’d called for the service that Marie had used.
But why didn’t anyone report the women being taken?
How many had gone missing? The sidewalk outside the Alliez office was busy, people would’ve noticed the fact that a woman had been forcibly taken out of the car.
Unless this was the first time they’d tried to take someone on a busy street. His head thumped, begging for a reprieve from the work he was making it do. He ignored the pain because this was important.
The more he ran through this scenario, the more it made sense.
Somehow Viktor had gotten his description from one of the kidnappers who Isaac had thwarted, or like Alliez, he had access to CCTV footage and had seen him rescue Marie.
However he’d done it, he’d spotted Isaac and made the connection with what Alfredo had told him about seeing him in San Carlion.
How many other women had been taken?
Obviously the channel to move people through Gomez had been thwarted when he’d passed on the information to save two women who’d worked with Teresa. It had not stopped Viktor though, no matter what he was saying. He was still trafficking and successfully too.
He had to remain resilient and strong against whatever Viktor was going to throw his way. He had to hang on for as long as it took for the team to get there and for him to get home to Marie.