Those images in my mind made my heart pound in my ears and my hands were fisted at my sides as I reached the bottom basement step. The man from the gym was tied to a chair on the far side of the dimly lit space. The basement was a bare room with black walls and a concrete floor with a drain in the middle. There was a utility sink with an attached hose and a cabinet filled with torture devices, tarps, and cleaning supplies. Everything we needed to extract information or teach a lesson.
It was cold in the basement, and not just naturally. The air conditioning was always set low in this room, meant to keep anyone held down here uncomfortable.
The man in the chair tried to yell when he saw us, but he’d been gagged so I couldn’t make out his words. The basement was soundproof, so the gag was unnecessary. I could have just untied it, but I wanted to scare him, so I pulled out a switchblade and approached him with a wicked smile on my face. The man’s eyes grew wide with fear, and he struggled against his binds as I lifted the knife to his face.
When I cut through the gag, letting it fall into his lap, he immediately started yelling.
“What the fuck am I doing here? Let me go! You can’t do this to me. It’s illegal.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You mean like kidnapping a child?”
“Fuck off!”
I turned away from him, heading to the cabinet in the corner of the room. Opening it, I ignored the man’s continued shouts about how I couldn’t hold him there and that I’d be sorry. He might have been delusional. I couldn’t imagine why else he would have thought he was in any position to threaten me.
I grabbed a screwdriver from the assortment of tools. There were plenty of horrifying things in there that were known to break a man, including a blow torch and pliers. But I doubted it would take much to get this man to talk. He might have tried to take Alexis, but I could tell he was no hardened criminal.
Maxim watched from the bottom of the stairs as I strode back across the room and plunged the screwdriver into the man’s thigh without hesitation.
He howled in pain, and I stepped back to watch him bleed.
The satisfaction that I got from seeing him in pain might have made me a psychopath, but I didn’t care. He wouldn’t leave this basement alive after what he tried to do to Alexis today.
“What’s your name?” I asked curiously when he stopped shouting and cursing me long enough to take a shuddering breath.
“Fuck you, you asshole!”
Stepping forward, I punched him in the face, feeling another surge of satisfaction at the crunching sound that signified his nose breaking. This time the blood gushed over his lips, which quivered as he started to cry.
So weak.
But that was fine. It worked to my advantage.
“Fine,” I said. “Don’t tell me your name. It doesn’t matter anyway. What I really want to know is why you tried to take the girl.”
“I… I didn’t,” he lied, looking at me with terror in his eyes. All of the anger and spite had left him already. “It was a misunderstanding. I swear, I didn’t—”
His words cut off with a scream as I ripped the screwdriver out of his leg. The blood flow increased, but he wouldn’t bleed out. I knew what I was doing well enough to avoid any arteries that would end this too quickly. I needed answers.
“Oh God,” he cried as I lifted the screwdriver over my head. “Don’t! Please, don’t.”
I didn’t listen, and it ended up embedded in his other leg. This time, his eyes rolled back in his head as he screamed, and he passed out. Disgusted, I turned away, heading to the utility sink. As I picked up the attached hose, Maxim spoke up.
“If you keep going at him so hard, you’ll kill him before you learn anything.”
“He tried to take Alexis,” I snapped.
“What does this woman and her child mean to you?” he asked.
My hand tightened on the hose. “I don’t know. I just… I need to protect them.”
I knew that answer wasn’t satisfactory because it bothered me that I couldn’t explain my reasons too. But I wasn’t going to discuss this with my brother right now. I needed to deal with the trash first.
Turning on the hose, I aimed it at the kidnapper’s face, and the blast of cold water brought him back to consciousness quickly. He spluttered and shook his head, but it didn’t take long for the pain in his body to register and remind him of where he was.
“I’m sorry,” he blubbered. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t want to hurt anybody.”
“Then, why did you try to kidnap Alexis?”