Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
GHOST
After securing Brett in the passenger seat of the truck, I head back into the basement where Jim is crawling on his belly toward the torture table. I scoff, rolling my eyes as I stalk toward the useless lump of human refuse. His eyes scream for mercy as I reach into my jacket pocket, then harden with resolve as I plunge the sedative into his vein. In a few moments, his eyes roll to the back of his head, and I grunt in disgust as I sling his body over my shoulder.
The truck bed dips as I throw Jim’s body inside, and Brett looks back in alarm. I give her a little waggle of my fingers, then secure the tarp over Jim’s body.
Brett’s hand finds mine as I pull the truck out onto the main road, her dark blue pools filled with worry as she sneaks little peeks at my profile. She wants to know my plan and why I’m taking Jim with us. Truthfully, there’s only one reason. Usually, I would kill him here and be done with it, but he hurt Brett. My Brett.
For that, I’m going to make his death nice and slow.
Drip… drip… drip…
Jim’s eyelids twitch as his brain fights to regain consciousness, the steady drip of water on his forehead the catalyst.
While he fights against the sedative coursing through his system, I take a moment to admire my handiwork. Jim is currently tied to a chair with his head tilted back, the contraption above him slowly dripping ice water onto his forehead. It’s a form of white torture—and though it’s not painful, it does have the capacity to drive someone mad.
“Wh… where am I?” Jim’s mouth fumbles around the words, wounding like he has a wad of marbles stuffed in his cheeks. He attempts to raise hi s head, but the thick leather strap across his eyes makes that an impossibility.
“H-hello?”
An eerie cackle rings across the stone walls of my torture room, the sounds reverberating through Jim’s bones and causing him to shake.
“Oh God, oh God,” he whispers, straining desperately against the restraints holding his wrists and legs to the chair. “Please, God, help me.”
“ Your God can’t find you down here,” that horrible voice spits, venom lacing every punctuated syllable. “ And if he could, he would praise me for what I am about to do.”
“NO! Please, don’t!” Jim gasps, his chest heaving as that slow drip… drip… drip… continues. “P-please. I’ll do anything!”
“It’s too late.” I stalk across the room, stopping at the head of the apparatus and twisting a little knob toward the top. The electric heater fires to life, and in a few minutes, scalding water drips onto Jim’s forehead.
His screams fill the room, raising the hair on my arms as satisfaction courses through me.
Yes. This is better. This feels right.
“Stop!” Jim begs, his face beet red from screaming. Little blisters are forming on his forehead from the boiling drops, growing larger and more painful looking by the second. “Please, stop!”
I reach down to the spout, turning the dial slightly to make the stream faster. “I haven’t forgotten that night you spit on my darling Brett. I have spent many nights awake, pondering the ways I would like to make you pay,” I muse.
“Wh-what the fuck are you talking about? I never?—”
“At the masquerade ball,” I growl. Jim’s screams are drowned out as a heavy flow of boiling water pours onto his face, covering his eyes and splashing into his nose and mouth.
Choked, animal-like screams pour from Jim’s blistered mouth, the skin around his lips blackened and oozing like a piece of seared mahi. I want to keep the stream going until he’s an unrecognizable lump of flesh, but I know if he takes any more, he’ll drown in his own lungs.
With a sigh, I turn off the faucet, earning a choked gasp from Jim as his raw skin is exposed to the air. Not much better, is it, buddy?
Deaf to the sounds of his pain, I undo the straps holding Jim’s torso and head to the chair, then work on the bindings on his arms and legs. As soon as he’s free, he slumps to the floor in convulsions of agony, in far too much pain to fight me off—or to stop what’s going to happen next.
Stalking over to my torture table, I grab my scalpel and a thick ball of rope, pocketing the sharp object before returning to Jim and tying the rope around his ankles. He tries to wriggle away, but all he ends up doing is smacking his face against the rough stone floor.
“Goddammit, Jim. That’s going to leave a stain.” I roll my eyes as I stand, grabbing the end of the rope and feeding it into the steel lever system attached to the ceiling. I press the red button on the side of the machine, and Jim’s body is slowly raised into the air. He screams as the blood rushes to his face, pooling through the open wounds and onto the floor.
Drip… drip… drip…
The sound makes me sick, and I pull out the scalpel and walk over to Jim, whose head now dangles a foot from the floor. Crouching down, I twirl the blade in front of his eyes, letting him get a good look at the tool that will bring his agony for the next hour or so.
“Are you ready, Jim?”
Jim shakes his head uselessly, flinching when I bring the blade within an inch of his eyeball. With a cackle, I straighten, bringing the tip of my blade toward the skin on Jim’s ankles.
“Tell me, Jim. Do you have any experience with skinning?”
He shakes his head, useless screeching noises bubbling from his blistered lips. I sigh, adjusting my grip so the blade is at the correct angle. “It’s quite an interesting form of torture. You see, when a person is upside-down, the blood rushes to their upper body—toward important things like the brain, lungs, and heart. If done properly, a person can live through the entirety of a skinning. Although, in my experience, most people die around the time I get to the face…” I look down at Jim’s terrified eyes, a smile growing on my face.
“But not all.”
By the time I’m through with Jim, my body is spent. I trudge up the steep stone steps toward the main floor, my conscience weighing heavily on me. When Jim fails to report back, the Madam is sure to know I’ve turned against her. And that means war.
I glance down at my gloved hands, slightly brown by the amount of blood coating the leather. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to live a different life—a quiet life. But the possibility seemed so out of my reach, I never dared to dream. I’ve lived my entire life shoving my emotions down, doing whatever was asked of me at the cost of my own humanity. I never knew I had the capacity to love—the capacity to care before. Before Brett.
Now, I know I’ll do anything for a sliver of a chance of a life with her. I’ll burn down this city—hell, I’ll reduce the entire earth to a smoking pile of rubble if it means I can have her. Smell her. Taste her.
Touch her.
I blink away the thoughts as Orion’s inquisitive blue eyes meet mine, a brow cocked in a silent question.
“It’s done.” I sigh, moving closer. “He put up a hell of a fight.”
“I still can’t believe you didn’t let me help,” Orion says, kicking his toe against the ground with a pout. “You know I love skinnings.”
“You say that, but you lack the patience for them,” I grumble, moving in the direction of the bathroom. “Is Brett awake?”
“Nope. Passed out with Venom and Rupert in your bed.” He wriggles his brows, an infuriating smirk on his face. “Should I bring out my headphones?”
“Do what you wish,” I mumble. “Just don’t bother her. She’s had a long day.”
“That’s putting it lightly.”
I chuckle, stepping into the bathroom and catching a look at my bloodied suit in the mirror. Streaks of red coat my forearms and chest, with some splatters managing to find their way onto my mask. The fine silk encasing my shoulders looks rumpled, and there are several busted seams around the jacket lining.
A deep sigh heaves my chest as I strip down, tossing the clothes into a pile in the corner of the room. No sense in saving them. No amount of dry-cleaning bill can get the stains out of those. I shake my head at the loss of a good suit and am about to step into the shower when the door creaking makes its way to my ears.
I look behind me, and my heart jumps as Brett’s sapphire eyes meet mine. There’s a tiny little smile playing at the corner of her mouth, and when I move my gaze to where hers is pointed, my cock jumps to attention.
“Did you have a good nap?” I ask, my voice hoarse. Brett is wearing nothing but one of my sleeping shirts, the hem stopping just above her knees and baring her delicious legs.
“Kind of,” she says, her voice soft as she steps into the bathroom and locks the door. “I kept thinking about what was happening, and I…”
My chest squeezes. “I’m sorry if I’ve frightened you. It was never my intention?—”
“No, not that,” she murmurs, looking up through her lashes. “I kept thinking about how… hot it was.”
“Hot?”
“Yeah,” she mumbles, taking her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’ve never had someone, like… torture a man for me. It’s kind of nice.”
I chuckle, dipping my forehead down to rest on hers. “You’re not upset about your partner?”
“What? The asshole that tried to kill me? Fuck him,” she growls, looking up inquisitively as my chest shakes with laughter.
“Good. It would certainly make things more difficult if you were pissed at me.”
“How so?” she asks, her eyes wide with curiosity.
“Last night… with Jim… Madam knows now that I’m not on her side. She’s going to be after us for the rest of our lives—until I can find some way to end her first.”
“And?”
“And… I have elicited the help of someone. If I had any other choice, I would not involve him, but…” I sigh, standing from the bed and turning to face Brett. “I need someone with inside knowledge of the Sanctum headquarters. Someone who worked as the personal guard of the Madam.”
She sits up straight, pulling the sheet up to cover her chest, “Who?”
As soon as she says it, the front door scrapes open. Rupert jumps up from his position by the door, letting out two sharp barks with his ears pinned back. It’s such unusual behavior from the teddy bear that Brett goes on high alert, clutching the sheet to her like a lifeline.
I simply sigh, securing his mask to my face after one last, defeated glance.
“I think it’s better if you see for yourself.”