Before I have time to fully register what’s happening, Doc strikes. In one swift movement, he tugs his arms, and the weakened bar that he’s chained to breaks away, clanging to the floor. Doc wraps the chain of his cuffs around the man’s neck and leans back, using the force to choke him. The man struggles and frantically flails as he tries to reach for his gun, but Doc kicks it away, just out of reach. The man’s face turns purple as he struggles for air. His bulging eyes meet mine, begging, accusing, desperate, before rolling back in his head. Doc pulls harder as the man loses consciousness, and he doesn’t release his grip until the guard has stopped moving.
I blink. “Well, shit,” I say. I don’t care if the man is dead or alive. I turn my focus to Doc. “You asshole! I thought you were dead!”
Doc chuckles, panting from exertion as he struggles under the man’s weight, rolling him off and searching his pockets. “Sorry, I had to fake it. I needed to make it realistic. You’re a fine soldier and a good man, Judge, but you can’t act for shit. If he sensed it was a trap, he wouldn’t have come close.”
“You dick, you should be an actor. I really thought you were dead.” I laugh too, from sheer relief, and shake my head ruefully.
He grins. “I’m too tough to go out like that, remember?”
I shake my head. “You had me worried there for a moment, don’t pull that shit again, damn near gave me a heart attack.” My focus returns to our escape. “How’d you break free? I’m stuck fast.”
Doc shrugs. “Dumb luck, one of the bars had rusted so much I was able to break it away. Thank fuck he didn’t notice the gap, or we’d have been done for.” Doc breathes a sigh of relief as he finally finds the keys in the unconscious man’s pocket. He struggles a little to unlock his cuffs, rubbing his wrists as he finally gets them free.
“What are you waiting for? Come and uncuff me. Someone could be coming any minute,” I huff impatiently.
“I thought I’d leave you tied up,” Doc jokes, as he picks the gun up and rises to his feet before coming and unlocking my cuffs.
I shake my numb arms to bring the feeling back to them. “Let’s go find the others.”
Doc nods in agreement, serious now, all brevity gone. Zeke thought he was capturing us, but all he’s done is let foxes into the hen coop. Doc hands me a flick knife that he found on the man. I raise a questioning eyebrow at him, and he shrugs. “He only had one gun.”
I don’t argue with him. Out of the two of us, I’m the one who’s better at close combat and knife work anyway. Doc leads the way, his gun raised as we slip into the hallway, careful and silent. He hands me the keys, and I lock the door behind us. Ifthe man wakes, he won’t be able to get out of there. I then push the keys into my pocket, just in case they might come in handy later.
There’s no time to discuss what happened last night, for me to ask what Doc thinks about Lena, if he believes that she’s Zeke’s old lady. Once we’ve found the others, we can come up with a plan. I don’t know about my brothers, but I’m not leaving here without Lena and Mia. I have to believe that what we had was real, that she’s lying now for her own reasons, to protect us all.
We move down the corridor, every creak of the old floorboards echoing like thunder. Room by room, we clear the area, our military training coming in handy. There’s dust and decay everywhere. It’s empty.
I hear the footsteps of someone approaching. Doc signals, and I wordlessly agree to hide, ducking behind the doors of opposite rooms, prepared to ambush the men. Through the cracked door, I see a beefy man with a shaved head ambling down the corridor.
“Fucking Bulldog, can’t he do anything right? Always screwing things up. First, the bitch gets the upper hand on him and breaks his nose, and now he can’t even bring the prisoners to the Prez without fucking it up and taking too long,” the man grumbles to himself.
I assume Bulldog must be the man we just encountered, and that ‘the bitch’ who broke his nose must be Lena.Atta girl, I think proudly. This further bolsters my belief that Lena is still on our side. She’s playing the game.
The man walks past us, and we spring on him. He’s so absorbed in his task that he doesn’t even hear us coming. He goes down without much of a fight, and we easily incapacitatehim, cuffing him to a drainpipe in one of the rooms using the cuffs that were on us. We’re not in the habit of killing people unless we absolutely have to.
We need to keep on moving.
Doc and I continue our silent search of the house, determining that we’re in a separate wing, away from the main house, where Zeke must be holding Lena and Mia. Zeke isn’t fool enough to risk keeping us too close by. I assume that Rex and Cole can’t be far from us. They might even be back in that dungeon, so it’s a place to start searching at least. I wish I could remember the route more clearly.
I can’t stop thinking about Lena, what Zeke might be doing to her. I know she’s strong, but I also know how manipulative he is. Did she look like she didn’t care because of some lies he told her about us? And he has Mia. That’s the hardest part—knowing our daughter is in his hands. I try to push down these insistent thoughts and find comfort in the fact that he believes Mia is his and, therefore, surely won’t harm his own child. I ignore the small voice in my head that says narcissistic monsters like Zeke hurt their kids all the time.
I tighten my grip on the knife in my hand, feeling the weight of it as I imagine the satisfaction I would feel sticking it into Zeke’s neck and watching the life drain from his eyes. I’ve not lived up to my namesake and been the judge, jury, and executioner in a long time. I’m not that man anymore. I swore I would never be that cold-hearted killer again, but for Zeke, I’ll make an exception.
There will be no trial. No mercy. Only justice.
Ready or not, Zeke, here I come. Your day of reckoning is here.
Chapter 30
Rex
The drip, drip, drip of a leaky faucet echoes relentlessly in my ears, each drop falling into a small puddle on the cold concrete floor. It’s maddening, every splash a cruel reminder of my torment. Thirst gnaws at me, an intense, unrelenting ache that seems to deepen with each passing second. I think, deliriously, that perhaps this is the worst torture of all. But even as those words form in my exhausted mind, I realize they’re not true. No, this isn’t the worst. Not even close.
What cuts deeper than any physical pain is the image seared into my skull—Lena’s cold, impassive expression, her eyes devoid of warmth, her face a mask of indifference. That look, so empty, so unreadable, plays on repeat through my mind. Her betrayal cut deeper than Zeke’s knife, creating a wound that refuses to heal. Beneath the surface, beneath the pain, the sense of betrayal is more profound than I want to admit. It’s as if she tore my beating heart out of my chest, crushed it, and stomped on it in those sky-high heels last night. I can’t forget it. I won’t.
They’re holding Cole in the room next door to mine. He tried to convince me that Lena was just acting, playing a role to keep us all safe. That she isn’t a traitor. I wish I could believe him, I really do, but if she has a plan, I’m at a loss as to what it is. I don’t have the strength left to try to decipher her motives anymore.
Maybe Cole would have gotten through to me eventually, broken down the impenetrable walls I’ve built around my heart, if he’d only had enough time. But then Zeke’s men came back,and his words of comfort transformed into screams of pain. I had to sit here helplessly and listen to my best friend’s torture. His muffled screams echoed through the thin walls, the sharp sounds of fists and boots pounding his battered flesh. Every second felt like an eternity. He’s been silent in the hours since they left. I thought his screams were hard to hear, that I would give anything for them to stop, but now I’d gladly listen to them again, just to know he’s still alive. The silence is as deafening as the screams.
