Daniel exhales sharply through his nose. “Wrong answer.”
“I can get you something tonight.” Daniel hears the desperation in his voice. “Maybe thirty at a push!”
“Thirty! Are you having a laugh with me! I know you have millions hidden away!”
“I don’t!” Tom screams.
Daniel stands, pacing, thinking. He’s running out of time. The men he owes—people you don’t name, not even in your head—gave him until midnight. It’s nearly morning. He can almost feel the noose tightening.
His mind scrambles.
Tom is lying. He just needs some persuasion.
He spots the towel hanging on the rack. White, soft, unassuming. Then his eyes slide to the shower head.
The thought arrives before the morality does.
He turns on the tap, lets the water run warm, then hot, then back to cold. The hiss fills the small room, drowning out Tom’s voice.
“Daniel, stop. What are you doing?”
Daniel doesn’t answer. He grabs the towel, folds it twice, and steps closer.
“Daniel, don’t—please.”
“You’re making this harder than it needs to be.” His voice is almost gentle. “Just tell me you’ll transfer me four hundred tonight and this is over.”
Tom just stares up at him, frozen in fear.
He presses the towel over Tom’s face. Tom thrashes instantly, shouting, muffled. Daniel tightens his grip and lifts the showerhead.
Water pours down. The fabric darkens instantly, plastering to Tom’s skin.
Tom jerks, sputters, chokes. The sound is awful—gurgling, frantic, animal. Daniel’s arms tremble but he doesn’t stop. Not yet. Not until he’s sure.
“Where is it?” he shouts over the water. “Tell me!”
Tom can’t answer.
He can’t breathe.
Chapter 51
TOM
Water rushes over my face, through the towel, into my mouth, up my nose. My lungs scream for air. My throat convulses. The sound of it—the endless rush, the hiss of the shower—becomes all there is.
I can’t breathe.
I thrash against the tape holding my wrists to the toilet, but there’s no strength left, only panic. The instinct to survive overpowers everything—thought, reason, dignity. My body becomes a thing trying not to drown.
And just when I think I’m going to pass out, when the burning in my chest turns white-hot and the edges of my vision blur—Daniel pulls the towel away.
I gasp. A ragged, animal noise. Air floods in, harsh and raw. I cough, splutter, twist onto my side, choking up water, bile, fragments of panic.
Daniel watches me, chest heaving, face pale and shining with sweat. His hands shake, but his eyes are wild, fixed, burning.
“You made me do that,” he says quietly.
