Chapter 40
CADE
I grunt as another booted foot lands a kick into my chest.
Pain radiates out like heat.
Another kick connects, and I have to grit my teeth to stop myself crying out.
Someone grabs my hair and punches me in the face. The crunching sound and the pain make me think my nose broke.
Agony sears.
I try to curl in a ball, but it hurts. So, I lie there, unable to do anything, barely able to breathe.
Every time I draw in air, it burns.
I’ve had beatings before. I’ve been in fights where I wore the brunt of it, often deliberately so. But this is new. This is a whole other level of devastation and hurt.
I’m nauseous and this time, right after yet another kick lands with a sickening crunch, my breath rattles, and breathing becomes an actual fucked up chore.
They’ve probably broken some ribs or cause internal bleeding. Maybe both.
There are three of them, taking turns and working together, beating me.
Sometimes, they have a break. Other times, they come at me with so much intensity I’m positive the world wavers on its axis.
It’s been hours.
And hours.
Shit, I don’t know.
A few times, I’ve blacked out from a well-directed blow, other times, I think I’ve passed out from the sheer intensity of the pain. Only for more pain to bring me back.
One of my smart ass comments started it, or maybe this was coming either way.
Ivan strikes me as a man who likes to make his point.
I gasp in a breath, twitching from the pain, and as I crack a swollen eye, two sets of feet move away.
Another kick lands. Lower down, to my back. Kidneys now.
I should move. Fight back. But I’m not sure I can move. I’m shocked I can even twitch.
As for fighting back?
Fuck. Another kick.
And how long until they go too far and kill me?
Shit, maybe it’s the plan. Maybe his talk of me owing him meant my life.
I don’t know what any of this means because if he wants my help, breaking me so I need full body plaster and ICU is fucking insane. If this keeps going, I won’t be able to do whatever it is he needs from me.
I grunt and cough up some blood, the taste of it thick in my mouth.
Those two sets of shoes return and join the one that never stopped.
I’m only holding on for Vi. If I have to, I’ll crawl a bloody trail to save her.
I don’t know how, and I don’t care about the details.
Right now, the name of the game is surviving long enough until I can go get my girl.
“Enough for now,” the third guy who’s been entertaining himself with my kidneys says to the other two pairs of shoes. “Ivan wants him alive.”
Oh, goody, he wants me alive.
I’m not in any shape to work out what that means other than he wants me for something.
They leave me there. All three sets of shoes stomp out, and a door shuts and locks.
I lie there.
The ground is cool. Smooth. Maybe it’s wood, maybe it’s stone. I don’t know.
It’s ground, and it’s solid, and this is where I’m going to try and blink blood from my eyes and attempt to stay alive.
Wood is warmer, isn’t it? And not gray.
This is gray.
Concrete?
Cement.
I close my eyes, unable to move, clinging to that one word.
Cement. Vi’s word. Pretty Vi. Lovely, sweet, filthy Vi.
What have I dragged her into?
My entire body pounds with the beat of pain. Each thump of my heart increases it.
I think my eyelashes hurt.
The hairs on my arms might be broken.
But I don’t think my arms are, or my fingers. It’s either good or bad, depending how I look at it, and I could welcome oblivion right now. It seems the obvious choice. The path of least resistance.
The coward’s way.
No. I can’t die. Not yet.
But I can sleep.
My lids are heavy, and I keep breathing as shallow as I can as I drift in and out of the shadows of consciousness.
I’m going to pass out on cement.
On her safe word.
And I almost laugh.
But I don’t. I can’t. Laughing might kill me.
There’s nothing funny about this moment…because where is Vi?
God.
The room blurs and my last thought drifts and sticks.
If they touch Vi, if they hurt her, I’ll fucking kill them all.
I wake.
Cold.
Agony bursting everywhere and breathing difficult.
And those three sets of shoes.
Terror grips me, white and icy.
Are they here to finish me off in round two? If they start in, I’m not even sure the thought of saving Vi can help me hang on.
But they don’t start beating me. Instead, they haul me to my feet. And I almost crumple to the ground when they let go, agony shooting up through my legs.
A gun shoves me in the back, and there’s one trained at the side of my head as I have to be half dragged up some stairs and down a hall, into that giant study.
“The guns are overkill,” I manage to push out.
Ivan shrugs. And he smirks. “Have you learned your lesson yet? Because they can have another go. More comments like that, and I’ll let them beat you more.”
I grunt instead of respond.
“I have a deal for you,” Ivan says. “Interested to know what it is?”
I sway on my feet, looking at him as best I can from my swollen eyes, and I wait.
“Help me. There’s a reason your arms and hands were not crushed. There’s a reason you’re not dead.”
“Which is?” I manage.
But I know what he wants. And if he’s willing to risk taking my girl, willing to risk the wrath of the people I work for, and of my clients, then it must be big. It must be bad.
And it might help start some kind of war.
I don’t know.
Every instinct I have screams, “No, don’t help.”
“If you use your hacking skills to do a job for me, I won’t kill your girl. I think that is a reasonable deal, don’t you?”
My hands tighten into fists.
“So, what do you say, Cade? Are you willing to risk her life?”
TO BE CONTINUED