38. Brody
brODY
Blood. That’s all I taste. There’s no light; I am in the dark, alone with my shattered heart and bruised soul.
I hang forward in the restraints. My ribs are a mess. Breathing hurts, but I savor it. Every goddamn throb, every stab under the sternum, every wet hitch in my lungs.
They want to keep me lucid. That’s the point of it. There’s a puddle widening under my bare feet, reeking of piss, blood.
The door squeaks open and Marcus enters. He brings the cold with him, a drop in the air pressure, like the breath before a storm. He doesn’t sit. Of course not. He prowls. Circle, circle, always to my left, then my blind side, then in front. Black dress shoes echo on concrete.
He pauses and studies me. Not the way a man looks at another man, but the way you’d assess a busted engine or a slab of meat you want to carve. I want to spit at him but my tongue is too heavy, and I know he’ll just have one of his dogs knock my teeth out.
“Disappointing,” Marcus murmurs. He traces a hand over his own cuff, straightening it. “You used to have more fight.”
My mouth jerks into a grin. “Little busy getting my face caved in, old man.”
He ignores the bait and keeps circling. A predator. Above all of this violence, he’s cold and detached. It’s a joke to him. Even worse than my father. He stops directly in front of me, level with my ruined face. My head hangs but I look up through bloody lashes, refusing to drop my gaze.
“Richard sent you. So predictable. I hoped you’d broken free from that pathetic leash. But you’re still a slave, aren’t you?”
“I told you. I don’t answer to him. Not the way you want me to.”
“No, not the way I’d want. But you’re here, aren’t you? And you’re going to tell me exactly what I need.” He signals with two fingers. Guards approach from behind. “Let’s try again,” Marcus says. “What did Richard want from the transfer? Why the intersection at the cabin, hmm?”
I grunt. “No idea. Wasn’t my op. Probably wanted to take your favorite toy away to see what you’d do. Just like you took my mom away from us.”
Wrong answer. A fist slams into my ribcage, direct and punishing. Something cracks. I lurch forward, bile rising in my throat.
He waits and watches. “You disappoint me.”
I spit blood at his shoes. “You’re not used to that, are you? People telling you to fuck off.”
The blow comes harder this time; kidney shot.
My vision blurs, swimming in red. I can barely see Marcus, but I hear his breath, steady and calm.
“Your side is losing,” he tells me. “You’re alone.
Richard’s plan is broken. I know about the file.
I know about the blackmail. But I want to know what he hoped to gain by moving Lola. ”
Lola. The only light that still flickers in the dark. I force the words out. “Maybe she wanted to leave your sorry ass.”
He laughs. It’s cold, dry, and leaves ice on my skin. “She belongs to me. Whatever was between you two, it was a game. A childish distraction. You never had her, Brody. She was always mine.”
I see it in his eyes. The pleasure he gets from saying it. The need to remind me who owns her. The same way he’s always owned everything.
He signals again. Hands grab my hair, jerking my head back.
My throat is exposed, pulsing, vulnerable.
I could bite out my own tongue just to spite them, but that’s not in the script.
Instead, they shove my face toward the plastic tub.
It’s already filled, icy water, the surface trembling like nerves.
I brace as they dunk me under. Shock, cold, burning in my sinuses. I fight out of instinct, sucking water, gagging, spluttering. Countless seconds. I want to let the water fill me, drag me down, but they wrench me back, and I cough blood and snot and spit across the floor.
Marcus’s voice rips through my screams. “That’s enough. Again.”
They do it again. Each time, I claw at the edge of consciousness, never quite falling. They want me awake for this. When it finishes, I slump, vision gone gray at the edges.
Marcus kneels now. Eye to eye. His hand is steady as he grabs my chin. “You’re going to tell me. What did Richard want? What did he tell you about the accident, the transfer, the cabin?”
“Nothing. I swear.”
Lie. But he doesn’t know which part.
He slaps me. Not hard, just enough to humiliate. “You’re wasting my time.”
“So kill me,” I croak.
His gaze sharpens. “No. I want you to suffer. I want you to know, in your last hours, that you failed at everything. Especially her.”
He stands, pace measured. “Let’s talk about Lola. About that last night. The party. The betrayal. You remember that, right? How she let them touch her. How she fucked you over and you ran away like a dog.”
Something buckles inside me. I want to deny it, but the images come burning back.
Lola, sprawled limp and drugged across unfamiliar bed sheets, eyes glassy, mascara tracks running down her cheeks. Hands on her waist, a stranger’s mouth at her neck. Her head rolling back, helpless.
Me, frozen at the window, fists clenched, bile in my mouth. Blind rage.
I snarl. I can’t help it. “You set that up. You fucker. You sick piece of shit.”
Marcus’s jaw tightens. Just a flicker, but I see it. He likes that I remember.
“I orchestrated everything,” he says smoothly. “The drugs. The men. The text. You were always so easy to manipulate. Obsessive. Predictable. Like your father.”
I spit again, blood and hatred. “You had them rape her.”
He shrugs. “Call it what you want. Lola needed to learn what loyalty means. Pain is a better teacher than love.”
My wrists twist inside the restraints. I want to gouge his eyes out. I want to rip out his tongue and make him eat it.
“Fuck you,” I breathe. “You’re dead. I’ll kill you. I swear on her—”
He laughs again, closer this time. “You really think she ever loved you? She was loyal. She stayed. She lets me do whatever I want. You were her distraction. Her toy. She grew bored. She came back to me every time.” My heart is hammering.
I can’t tell if I’m dying or if this is what real living finally feels like.
“She screamed for me, you know,” Marcus offers, voice almost gentle.
“She begged. But in the end, she obeyed. That’s the difference between you and me. I understand how to break her.”
Something tears loose inside. “She’s not broken,” I rasp. “Not for you. Never for you.”
He shakes his head. “Keep telling yourself that.”
He turns to the guards and gives a jerk of his chin. “Again.”
Fists grab my hair. Water, cold and bottomless, floods my lungs once more.
The world shivers and falls away, and only his voice cuts through the dark.
“You’re weak. Pathetic. You let her get hurt.
It’s your fault. If you loved her, you would’ve protected her.
But you ran away. Just like your father. ”
He wants me to snap. To break and spill myself all over his shoes.
I choke. I gasp. I come up drenched and wild-eyed, hate boiling in my chest.
He circles behind me now, pacing the way animals do when they know they own you.
“Richard is a coward. Hides behind legal threats. Files and rumors. But you, your problem is simpler. You want answers. You want to know why I tricked Lola?” I glare at him.
Daring him. He bends to my ear. “She’s an asset.
A resource. She goes where I put her. You could never offer her anything but chaos. ”
I spit, but my mouth is dry. “She’s not yours. She’ll never be yours.”
He shoves my head sideways. “You can’t even save yourself.” Then, softer, “You failed her. She trusted you, and you threw her away.”
The words rake over my flesh, but now the pain is pure. I stop caring about my body. I stop wishing for the end.
I want to burn him. I want to take everything from him. I see it all now. The setup. The drugs. The fake tip. The staged scene. Rape, humiliation, destruction. My arrival, scripted for maximum trauma.
He wanted me out. He wanted her to be obedient. It was never about love. It was about erasure.
Hatred blinds me and I let it. I let it eat away the old ideas. Love, hope, redemption. There’s only one thing now: vengeance. I’ll make him suffer for every second she whimpered, every time she bled.
I promise you, Bambi. I’ll tear out his fucking heart for what he did to you. For what I let him do to you by leaving town.
Marcus comes back into view. He’s holding something—a tablet, black and gleaming. He wipes a fleck of dust from the screen. “I want to show you something,” he says. “Maybe this will encourage you to be more forthcoming.”
He taps the screen and the video flickers alive. The guards drag a chair so I have no choice. Chin gripped, eyes forced open.
It starts with Lola. She’s on the floor, naked except for a torn slip. Her arms are up, blocking blows. Marcus’s voice, calm and measured, fills the speakers. There’s a belt in his hand, striking her again and again. Each hit lands with a meaty thud, and she wails.
I beg my brain to look away. I can’t.
The next clip: different place, different year. She’s tied to a bed, legs forced apart, face swollen and wet with tears. Marcus climbs over her, says “good girl” and “quiet now.” She doesn’t fight. She just cries, quiet and defeated.
Another. Lola pressed up against a wall, Marcus’s hand in her hair, yanking her head back for the camera. She’s bleeding from the lip. He licks the blood off her cheek and shoves himself between her legs.
Her screams. They’re the soundtrack. Not even words, just these soft, helpless mewls that sound nothing like the girl I loved. Not screams of pleasure, the kind she does for me. No, these are screams of terror. Fear. The kind you do when your life is on the line.
I sob. It comes out ragged. I try to jerk my head away but the guards hold me fast.
Marcus narrates the whole thing. “See how easy she breaks? All it takes is a little finesse. I secretly recorded all of my interactions with her. To look at later, or use if needed.
The next clip is worse. Marcus is on top of her. Hitting her. Choking her. She’s screaming. Her legs kick him. She tries to get up. He’s stronger. He takes her body and throws her across the floor. He slaps her again, drags her up by her hair, and pushes her over a desk. Bent over, barely standing.
He takes her from behind. Pinning her neck down. Holding her wrists behind her back. She’s screaming and crying.
Stop it! Please! It hurts so much. Please stop!
Marcus hits her every time she resists.
Something primal erupts inside me. Rage, guilt, horror. All of it. Without thinking, I thrash. I snap the plastic chair and try to slam my head into the guard’s face. I scream Marcus’s name. I curse him, vow I’ll kill every last one of them.
They pin me, giving me a blow to the gut, the ribs. Something in my shoulder tears. I keep screaming. I want it to hurt. I want it to matter.
The video keeps going. Lola, more recent now. She’s older, quieter, but the suffering is the same. Marcus takes his time. Choking her, using objects, humiliating her for the camera after each cut. Sometimes she doesn’t even make noise, just folds up and takes it.
He’s right. He recorded every bruise, every rape, every time he punished her for being too alive.
I want to chew my own wrists off, just to get to him. I want to cut out my eyes so I never see her like this again.
Marcus watches me. He watches every micro-expression, the way my jaw clenches, the way I shake with hate and loss and disgust. “I told you. She was always mine. All of her. You were just a spectator.”
He leaves me like that. Tied up, bleeding, the video still looping. Lola’s cries echo off the cement, burrowing under my skin.
All I can do is watch.
I’m so sorry, Bambi. You were right. I didn’t believe you. I let him do this. I failed you again and again.
But never again.
Now there’s nothing but the promise. My promise.
Marcus, you’re a dead man. For every second she whimpered, for every bruise, every shiver of dread, every lie you ever spun, I will see you shredded. Kneeling. Begging.
I’m coming.
The chain creaks as I strain against it. Muscle tearing, something in my arms giving way. My vision goes black at the edges, I don’t succumb to looking away. Not even when the pain becomes everything. Not even when my body collapses and I’m left gasping on the floor, eyes glued to the screen.
The screen keeps going. Lola’s voice—her screams—are the only sound in the world. They loop, over and over, stitched into my muscles, into the marrow of my fucking bones.
I want to die. I want to kill. Which comes first, I don’t care.
Lola’s body on that screen twists, folds, submits. Sometimes she tries to fight, and that’s when it’s the worst. That’s when Marcus hits her harder. That’s when she cries out for help—my name, almost, sometimes, before it’s choked off. I failed her. I failed her even when I wanted to be her savior.
I see her flinch, shatter, go silent. I see her dead inside, long before the bruises fade. The pain inside me isn’t human. It’s something older, blacker. I want to tear free. I want to rip my own arms off if that’s what it takes. The chair groans under my weight as I thrash.
Her screams never fade. They’re everywhere. In the walls. In my chest. In my head. I can’t breathe.
I’m sorry, Bambi. God, I’m so fucking sorry. I should have believed you. I should have come sooner. I should have burned him the first time I saw you cry.
The video jumps. Lola’s knees buckle. Marcus drags her up by the hair again, again, again. I can’t look. I can’t look away.
My body shakes, convulses. The restraints bite deeper. The video loops again. I focus on the screen, memorizing every detail. I want this pain to last. I want to carry it into the moment I rip his heart out.
“I’m coming, Bambi,” I whisper, voice turned to gravel. “I swear to you, I’m coming.”
Your world is ash, Marcus. I’ll watch you choke on it.
Lola’s cries fill the air.
The hatred for Marcus keeps me alive, and the need to see Lola again, so I can show her how fucking sorry I am.
Darkness closes in, and I fall into it.