Chapter Twenty-Five
Zahra
“Amore mio…”
His gloved hand softly stroked my left cheek, warm and tender. His hot breath fanned my face, and I shifted uncomfortably, dread tugging at my stomach.
That voice …
“My Zahra…” The side of his face brushed mine, clean-shaven and smooth; his lips hovered above my ear, and he whispered, “Wake up.”
My eyes snapped open with a short gasp.
I was alone.
Relief flooded through me, but it ceased when I realized I was hanging … hanging from a ceiling.
“What the…”
My arms were stretched above my head, with my wrists tied to an iron hook at the top.
My feet were far from the ground—and God, I was aching.
My eyes burned as I looked around the space.
It looked like an abandoned shed, and I could tell we were well into the afternoon and approaching evening from the light sneaking in through the small window at the end.
“Fuck…” I groaned in annoyance.
My ribs burned from the strain when I tried to twist my wrist free, but whoever tied the knot knew what they were doing.
I drew in a deep breath before swinging myself back and forth three times, lifting my lower body and then my upper.
It only lasted about three seconds before my body dropped in a painful protest.
I ground my teeth together, holding in the sharp pain that shot through the joints in my shoulders at the drop. I had probably been hanging for hours.
Voices had my ears perking up; I was breathing hard as the door opened. Two men in black walked in, one rolling in a table with what looked like an electrical torture machine.
“Oh, come on, for a chihuahua painting, really?” I asked, my voice tired.
One of the guys approached me while the other rolled the table beside him. The one watching me had a buzz cut and a brutal healed scar slashing from his brow to his cheek. His lips were lifted in a sneer.
“Hi?” I voiced.
“You have a mouth on you.” His French accent shot thickly through his words.
“Doesn’t everyone have a mouth on them?”
His hand roughly grabbed my chin, turning my face from left to right.
“See something you like?” I asked. “Is it the freckles? It’s always my frec—”
The back of his hand swung, connecting with my cheek in a hard slap. My head whipped to the side at the force of the hit, and I tasted blood in my mouth.
My breathing shuddered as I licked it off my lips. I turned to the buzzcut motherfucker; he was smirking at me.
“Learn to keep that mouth shu—”
I spat in his face before he could complete that statement.
He closed his eyes, pausing a few seconds before slowly digging his hand into his pocket, bringing out a handkerchief, and wiping the spit off his face. He opened his eyes again, this time with a glare that had me wondering if he would kill me now.
The other man turned on the machine, clearly pissed at how I’d insulted Buzzcut.
“My boss was right,” Buzzcut said, throwing the handkerchief away. “You are her.”
I frowned, my thoughts freezing. “Her who?”
“Manuel’s whore.”
I swallowed, my blood running hot. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who’s that?”
“You want to play dumb?”
“Bitch, I thought I was here for the painting.”
“Oh, you are.” He stepped back and picked up a pair of jumper cables. My breathing changed pattern as I caught the jagged metal teeth gleaming in the dim lighting of the space. With a flick of his wrist, he scraped them together, causing a crackling spark that cut through the air.
My eyes alternated from him to the metal clamps as he faced me once more.
“Buddy, just—just calm—”
He jammed the metal clamps to both my ribs, and a searing, sharp, burning sensation swept through my body like knives; it felt like every organ inside me grew sharp pointy edges, stabbing me from the inside out.
The pain had my body shaking violently; the electric current was slicing my muscles apart one by one.
A strangulated scream left me, and he drew back the clamps.
My breathing was nothing but short gasps, and I felt warm and cold at the same damn time. “Well”—my lips trembled—“that’s one way to shut me up.”
It had been years since I’d felt torture like this.
It wasn’t unfamiliar. I’d undergone what Manuel had called necessary training.
He’d shown me pain. Different kinds. He needed me to be strong.
Ready to stand by his side, rule with him.
I knew this pain, felt worse than this pain—but I wasn’t prepared for this, and that alone made the pain hurt more than it was supposed to.
“Manuel Conti sent you to find the painting. Why?” Buzzcut asked.
“Who the fuck is Manuel Conti—” The clamps were back on my ribs, and my body shook in spasms, my teeth pressing together as I tried but failed to suppress my groans of pain. He released me again, and I gasped out, my breathing noisy and labored.
“This time, I want you to answer me with the truth; I will increase the voltage if you don’t.”
I let out a shaky breath, my body growing weaker with each passing second.
“I was paid f-five thousand fucking doll—ars to retrieve the painting for an unknown client. If this”—I swallowed—“if this person is Manuel Conti, whoever that is, I don’t know them. No names were—were given when I passed information across to them.”
“I know your face. I know you know him. And he sent you. Manuel Conti doesn’t care about gold. So, there must be something else, and we want to know what it is.”
What?
“Gold? There’s—there’s gold in the painting?” I asked, my surprise rocking some strength back into my body.
“Don’t act like you don’t know.” The man sneered, rubbing the clamps together.
My gaze dropped to the clamps.
He moved closer. “Talk.”
“Just c-calm down, okay? You don’t think I was fucking surprised when I was sent five thousand dollars to retrieve that ugly painting? I thought I hit the jackpot, but now you’re talking about—about gold? I was cheated.”
“Quit playing dumb. We want to know why Manuel Conti wants the painting. What else is there with the gold?”
I sighed, confusion gripping me. “Who the fuck is Manuel Conti? Whoever you think I am, I promise—I promise you’ve got the wrong girl.”
“Increase the voltage,” the man said with a no-nonsense tone.
“Oh God, I’m fucking serious; I don’t know what you’re talking abo—ghhhhh.
” My body locked on tight as it shook violently; I felt the sharp, painful, blood-draining zap from my head to the soles of my feet, my toes curling, the strain on my arms—the pain gripping my insides so fucking unbearable, I didn’t bother to hide my screams this time. My throat burned, my chest squeezed—
He released me again, and my body slumped, my head lolled to the side, and my breathing grew faint.
His hand came underneath my chin, raising my head.
“Talk now, or I kill you,” he said.
I smiled, then a broken chuckle left me, and then a laugh; though weak, it still sounded like I was deranged.
I licked my bottom lip. “What do you … think, Buzzcut, that you’ll … you’ll shock me a few times, then I’ll, what—cry and tell you all I know about Manuel Conti?” I drawled.
An unsettled look flashed in his eyes, making my smile widen as I said, “You don’t … you don’t know who you’re fucking with. I humbly suggest you go back to your boss and tell him to leave Manuel to his business.”
“So, you admit you know him.”
I didn’t respond, and his eyes scanned my body from head to toe. “You admit you’re his … whore?”
My jaw clenched as he dropped the clamps, his finger coming to trace my jaw, down to my collarbone, then to my chest.
My hand formed a tight fist above me as I tried to level my breathing. “Get your fucking hands off me,” I gritted.
“What does Manuel Conti want with that painting?”
I leveled him with a glare. “I don’t know, and even if I do know, I sure as fuck won’t tell you.”
His fingers trailed down to the swell of my breast, and I jerked weakly away from his touch. “I swear to fucking God,” I said, “I will chop your fingers off one by one if you don’t keep them to yourself.”
He laughed. “Making threats when you’re tied to my ceiling.” Then he looked at the other guy, who had a crooked smile on his face. “Crazy woman.”
“Try me,” I said, and both of them stopped laughing, attention back on me.
Buzzcut looked like he was seconds away from snapping my neck.
“Millions of gold bars are not enough for Manuel Conti to send people out for the painting. You know something. Not just Manuel, my boss suspects other families are on the hunt for it. What we don’t know is why.
Surely it can’t be gold; these people are richer than sin.
What else aside from gold connects with the painting? ”
I frowned, dissecting his words, as a separate kind of suspicion arose in my mind. I tucked it aside for later, leveling Buzzcut with a glare.
“As I said, stay the fuck out of Manuel’s business because if he doesn’t hunt you for meddling, I will.”
He smirked, and I watched his hand travel down my cleavage, but before he could wander further down, a loud clash from outside got their attention. There were shouts and grunts of pain and loud, unending, piercing gunshots.
Buzzcut and the other man exchanged a look at the chaos that seemed to have erupted outside.
My joints curled tightly in alert when the shooting lessened.
“Go check,” Buzzcut said to the other man, his voice strained while the other guy left his position.
The shooting stopped completely.
I briefly wondered what the hell was happening, but I stopped wondering when the door to the small shed barreled open, a baseball bat swinging right into the face of the other guy who had been approaching it to go check.
The guy went down immediately, disoriented, as Elio swiftly twirled the bat, holding the handle and jamming its end into the man’s face. He went out like a light.