Chapter Two
Zahra
There was a ringing in my ears when I regained consciousness.
My throat was dry, and my skin felt singed. I could feel sweat rolling down my face, beading at the skin between my nose and lips.
I tried to open my eyes, but a thundering headache had me wincing. My vision was blurry for the first few seconds, but I soon adjusted to the empty pale walls around me. No windows. No opening. Just walls.
I couldn’t breathe properly. The air—it was hot, it was thick and dry, and I felt so dehydrated. I parted my lips, desperate for relief, but the thick, searing air filled my lungs like fire, and I quickly shut my mouth.
Why was it so hot?
I wanted to cry and scream at the same time. It felt like the air was suffocating me. I tried to move, but I couldn’t, and with the pounding in my head, it took me a good while to realize my legs were tied to the chair I was sitting on, and my hands were bound behind me.
The room was too fucking hot, and I could smell the tangy odor of something dead, of piss, of dried vomit—of torture.
I continued breathing through my nose, short inhales, as sweat dripped down my chin. I moved my head to my shoulder, wiping the irritating moisture with my damp shirt.
Suddenly, a door opened, and I jerked up, completely freezing when I saw who approached me.
Fear gripped my bones for the first time in years.
I had seen his face in philanthropic magazines, the news, and the internet, but I never thought there would be a day I would come face-to-face with this side of him.
The Wicked himself—the boss of the Marino empire—was standing before me, hands tucked into his pockets as his eyes scanned my form from head to toe.
“You are so … ordinary.” His voice was deep and a little accented, tinged with irritation and muffled in a room that was supposed to echo.
I blinked up at him. “But special enough for the boss to come g-greet me himself,” I croaked out.
Slowly, his brows pulled down in a frown as he tilted his head to the side, the tattoo on his neck peeking out of the collar of his dress shirt.
“If you’re—just gonna stand there, might as well fetch me water.”
“Thirsty?”
Yeah, no shit.
I sighed and nodded, lips burning.
“Is the room too hot for you?” he asked menacingly. “Does it feel like you’re … drying up?”
Annoyance bubbled in my stomach and I clenched my jaw.
He bent until he was face level, eyes locking with mine. “Now you know how my money felt when that fire started,” he said, tone calculated. “If you did not have the resources to take all the money, you could have just left the rest. Did your employer ask you to burn it?”
I remained quiet.
“Who is your employer?” he asked.
I locked my jaw, keeping my mouth shut.
He pressed his lips together, waiting a minute too long before nodding. “Okay,” he said, rising to his full height. My eyes burned when I tried to follow his movements.
He brought his hands out of his pockets and clapped once.
Immediately, the door opened, and a man walked in with a bottle of water, a gun, and a small evidence bag. The man handed the items to him before swiftly leaving the room.
I could see the tiny beads of sweat on his forehead as he looked at me again. “Water?”
The fight left me at the sight of the chilled water. “Yes.”
He nodded, gently placed the gun on my lap, pocketed the bag, and uncapped the water bottle slowly.
Then he held my face in his hand, fingers pinning my lips together as he lifted my chin towards the ceiling, pushed it back, brought the bottle to my lips, and poured the water over my lips so that it didn’t enter my mouth.
His grip on my face tightened painfully as he raised the bottle to my nose, pouring the water into my nostrils.
I fought to escape the brutality, choking and gurgling. Tears fell while I struggled for air.
I could see how my struggle pleased him. He looked so relaxed while I fought to breathe. My chest constricted, my body took on a dull buzz, and when my eyes started to see him in a painful blur, he let me go.
I coughed hot air back into my lungs and bent to allow the water that hadn’t gotten to my head to slip out of my nose.
“My hand slipped,” his voice rang out again, calm and collected like he wasn’t also feeling the lack of oxygen in the room. “It does that sometimes.”
He threw the almost empty bottle to the ground and took his gun from my lap, disengaging the safety.
My head felt lighter, and my left ear rang so loud I feared I would never hear again. “What—what the fuck do you—want from me?”
He didn’t speak for what felt like a minute before he began to circle me. “I want to know who you work for. Give me a name, and I promise only to put you in a coma and not kill you.”
At this, I frowned. “What?”
He stopped right in front of me. “I hate repeating myself, it is tiring. This room is too hot, and the stench is repulsive. So, speak, and let us be done with this.”
“We don’t work for anyone.”
He kept his eyes on me, bringing out the plastic baggie, and revealing my anklet. “How do you explain this?”
I eyed the jewelry, my heart hammering before I looked up at him, nerves crawling up my spine. “What does that have to do with anything?”
He studied my face as he spoke. “It was found at the scene of the arson. For such a careful operation … you must have wanted to be found.”
Fuck … I dropped my head and blew out a breath. “It probably fell off, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t even realize until now.”
“Do not lie to me.”
“It’s the truth. My crew and I—we—we work alone. Wait—Where are they?”
He let silence fall before he stepped closer to me and slipped the bag into his pocket, his gaze roaming my face. “Dead, alive, being tortured as we speak, it is of no importance to me. Tell me what I need to know and stop wasting my time.”
“I already told you,” I gritted, meeting his gaze. “We work for no one. We know no one but each other. If it’s your money you want, as you already know, we took some and burned down the rest; we can return what we took—we can—”
“You do not want to lie to me; aside from the fact that I can see through it, I am a liar who hates liars.”
My gaze locked with his. “Doesn’t—doesn’t that mean you’re lying right now?”
He went quiet, blinked, then, “What?”
“If you hate liars—and you are a liar—doesn’t that mean you hate yourself?”
His expressionless eyes stared into mine—if I weren’t tied to a chair, probably about to die, I would have commended the way he stopped his thoughts from being highlighted on his face.
He nodded. “You think I am here to play psychology with you.” He pointed his gun at me, and I heard a loud bang before I felt the pain spread from my shoulder to my whole body. It was as if my breath had been sucked out of my lungs. The cry that left my mouth was harsh and hoarse.
The bastard shot me.
For the first time, his eyes turned hard and he leaned in again, placing his gun-free hand on the shoulder he just shot, his thumb pressing against the wound. “Now, I ask again—” Through my blood-and-sweat-soaked shirt, his thumb dug deeper into the wound as if fishing to find the bullet.
“Gah, fuck!” I yelled. The pain was blinding, and I ground my teeth together as tears fought to leave my eyes while I held them at bay.
“Who paid you to steal from me?”
“No one!” I screamed between my teeth in anger and pain. “Please—please stop! I swear we did it alone—fuck!” My lips trembled.
“Truth, I need the truth.”
He dug his thumb in again, and I squirmed and bit back a cry at the pain that had me lightheaded.
“Talk.”
“Why—why would I fucking lie! You are The fucking Wicked. People fear you—more than anyone—in this—business—no one could pay me a million dollars to fuck with you—no one but myself. As we have done before, I trusted myself to do this without any casualties, and my people trusted me. No one sent my team or me—we did it of our own accord—because we could.”
“How do you explain the tracking device on the anklet?”
I shivered in pain. “Safety purposes, I swear. Our job is dangerous; it was meant to be on me.”
Then there was silence. A moment of him watching me and me breathing heavily while watching him.
Suddenly, he removed his hand from the wound, and I sagged in relief while he straightened and looked away, wiping his forehead.
“This is a waste of my time,” he muttered under his breath before looking back at me.
“How can you all be so stupid to steal from someone like me? You thought you could get away with it?”
“We did,” I said before I could stop myself.
“Angelo!” he yelled into the silence, and a young man walked in. Composure in place, his hair brushed back and curled at the tip, his brown skin tanned, lips pursed. His eyes moved to me for a swift second before they settled on The Wicked.
“Marino,” the man—Angelo—said in greeting.
“?Qué dije?” What did I say? The Wicked had a small edge to his voice that almost had me believing he was angry. “Did I not say they were lone rangers? But Casmiro knows best, no? Now I have wasted my time and my resources.”
“I see…” His gaze flicked to me, then his boss. “Should I call Casmiro?”
“Leave it. There is no point in dragging out something that doesn’t deserve the time and energy.
Oversee this case. Have your people dispose of the others, make this one watch, and then dispose of her too.
Before you do that, increase the heat enough to make the skin burn.
It is only right to prepare sinners for what awaits them after death. ”
Angelo nodded, gaze sweeping in my direction again. His eyes showed no form of hesitation, and I knew he would follow through with it.
The Wicked handed the gun to Angelo, adjusting his collar as he began walking to the door.
No, I can’t let it end like this. There must be something—anything—think, Zahra—think, think—
“You’re making a mistake!” My voice rang out in desperation, and he halted.
Angelo’s brows shot up in surprise.
Silence followed until slowly, ever so slowly, The Wicked turned to me, his brows dropped in confusion. I understood that expression.
Anyone in my position would be begging for their life, but me? I wanted to make a proposition.
He took a few steps back to me. “I am … making a mistake?”
I didn’t take my eyes off his. “Yes,” I breathed. “If you kill us, you’ll be making a big mistake.”
“Pray tell why you think this?”
I swallowed. “I can help you.”
His gaze moved to Angelo’s interested one.
“Help me?” he asked, eyes on me once more.
“Yes.”
“Why would I want the help of a child?”
Despite the sarcasm in his tone, I bit out my response with a scowl. “I’m twenty-six.”
“Ah … And here I thought you were a child, throwing a tantrum.”
There was a short silence before he nodded. “Okay, Sport, I’ll bite. What does that little head of yours think it can help me with?”
“My people and I are efficient,” I started, “fast, and skilled. We can get in and out of a building without getting seen. I know your syndicate has a legal face, but you should know that sometimes, you must mix the legal with the illegal. We are like shadows, and we can slip into your legal spaces and turn things to your favor without anyone ever guessing you might have been involved—if you know what I mean.”
He nodded. “Hm.” He shoved both hands into his pockets again. “Everything you just said would have been a compelling reason to keep you and your people alive if you weren’t tied up in a chair after being caught by me.”
“That wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t leave something behind.”
“Hm.”
“I know my mistakes, and I know better than to make them again.”
He looked like he was pondering hard, gaze searching my face. “So, you agree to be indebted to me for the rest of your life?”
“If that is what it takes to stay alive, then yes.”
“You speak for your whole … crew?”
“Yes.”
He nodded as his gaze settled on Angelo. “Have your people turn up the heat until she can’t breathe; record it.”
Fucking hell.
“And the others?” Angelo asked.
The Wicked glanced my way, his eyes moving from my head to my toes before he spoke. “Make them watch.”
I tried to wiggle my way out of the hold on the chair, my shoulder burning away with pain. “Please!” I cried out pathetically.
He turned, walking out of the room without a second glance. Angelo followed seconds after him.
I was panting, shivering in anger as the heat became unbearable. I groaned in pain. My shoulder wound was burning—and I was screaming and begging—again and again and again.
I used to think if I ever were in a situation like this, I would face it with equal confidence and grace; I used to think I wouldn’t beg—I used to think I wouldn’t fear death.
But here, in this room, alone, with no assurance of me or Street ever coming out of this alive, I was trapped. I had no solution. No quick thoughts. Our lives were in the hands of a man who was known for his inability to show mercy.
I was wrong. The universe wasn’t on our side, it was preparing a wicked trap for us, and there was no escaping it.
This time, we were all going to die.