A lone bartender is working behind the bar, and he looks up when I sit down, gawking at me for a few seconds. I know I look out of place in a joint like this. I thought I was meeting Ben in a plush office in the middle of the Central Business District, and I dressed accordingly in my fitted long-sleeved black knee-length dress, black pantyhose, and skyscraper black Louboutins. Add the expensive pink coat and patterned silk scarf, and I stick out like a sore thumb in here.
“What can I get you, Miss?” he asks, masking his surprise.
“I’ll take two sparkling waters. Pellegrino if you have them.” He stares at me like I have spoken a foreign language. “Two bottles of water. Any will do,” I rephrase. “My colleague will be joining me shortly.”
Without saying a word, he retrieves two bottles from the fridge, placing them in front of me. I slap a twenty down on the counter. “Keep the change.” He tips his head and swipes the cash but otherwise ignores me.
Feeling eyes on me, I look right, noticing the two old perverts seated at the bar watching me with blatant curiosity. Apart from them and the two staff members, there is no one else around. I glance at my watch, willing Tony to hurry the fuck up, when the rear door opens and one of the guys who came in with Ben pops his head out, speaking to the man standing guard. The bodyguard nods and walks off across the room, exiting through a different door, while the other guy disappears back to where he came from.
The bartender is crouched down behind the bar, stacking drinks on shelves, so the only witnesses are the two perverts at the end of the bar. Sliding carefully off the stool, I walk on the dirty threadbare carpet in their direction. Handing each of them a hundred-dollar bill, I tap the side of my nose. “You didn’t see anything,” I tell them in a low voice, ignoring the fluttery feeling bouncing around my chest cavity and how all the tiny hairs on the back of my neck are standing at attention. I’m definitely channeling Esme right now, and Tony is going to string me up, but I’m not wasting the opportunity.
Keeping one eye on the bar, I walk quickly toward the rear door and slip inside, surprised to find stairs leading to a lower level. Blood rushes to my head, making me dizzy, and I clutch the wall until it passes. My heart is thumping wildly against my rib cage as I remove my shoes. Holding them in one hand, I slowly descend the stairs. My legs feel like they might go out from under me, and when a guttural scream rings out, I stall midway down the stairs, blood pounding in my skull as bile travels up my throat.
My cell rings in my pocket, and I about die, scrambling to mute the sound before someone hears. But I doubt anyone could hear over the incessant roars emerging from downstairs.
I’m frozen.
Rooted to the spot.
One-half of me is screaming to get the fuck out of here before I become that stupid person in every horror movie. You know, the one who just has to investigate and usually ends up paying for their curiosity with their life?
The other part of me needs to know what’s going on, and that part is overriding all sense of logic and self-preservation. My gut tells me to press on. That it will be okay.
Unless there’s another exit point in the basement level, Ben is down here. He won’t let anything happen to me. No matter how dangerous he is, he has protected me before, and I know he will keep me safe again.
13
SIERRA
Pushing through my fear, I force my limbs to move and continue forward. When my foot hits the floor, I have no choice but to turn left because it’s the only option. Keeping my bag clasped tightly to my chest and my shoes secured in my free hand, I flatten my body against the closest wall and move stealthily down the long corridor. Successive doors are on the left, all closed except for two in the middle that are slightly ajar.
Lighting is scant, and the only illumination comes from a flickering light bulb dangling from the cracked ceiling. Cobwebs cling to the corners of the walls, and I shudder as a blast of cold air swirls around me. The concrete floor is like ice under my shoeless feet, my pantyhose offering little protection.
My nostrils twitch as a godawful smell slaps me in the face. It reeks of sweat, stale piss, vomit, and other indistinguishable smells. I press my lips together and scrunch my nose, and it marginally helps to keep the grossness at bay. My stomach lurches, and I pray this isn’t the moment my pregnancy nausea kicks in.
Soldiering on, I take slow careful steps forward. I startle, as more roaring and screaming echoes through the basement, slapping a hand over my mouth to stop myself from reacting and giving myself away.
This is a bad idea.
But something is still prompting me to keep going, not to turn around, so I persevere, ignoring the vicious trembling in my body and the rapid beating of my heart.
As I approach the first open door, I press my spine flat to the wall, pricking my ears to determine if I hear movement in the space. I hear voices, jumping when another shout rings out, but it doesn’t sound like it’s coming from the room right beside me. The shouting is muffled, not piercing like it was when I first heard it on the stairs. Wherever it’s coming from, I don’t think it’s this room.
Making the sign of the cross, I risk a peek, relieved when I discover the empty room. I sneak inside, softly closing the door but not all the way. I stuff my hand in my mouth, blocking the scream ready to let rip when I lift my head, staring at the glass window in front of me. It looks right into the much larger room inside, and I’m waiting for one of the five men in that room to notice me, sure it’s about to happen when Ben’s friend, Leo, stares right at the window, straight at me. I stop breathing as I wait for him to call me out, but he turns back around, expression unchanged, as if he hasn’t seen me.
This must be an observation window, like they have in police stations. I release a shuddering breath, relieved they can’t see me and they don’t know I’m here.
“I can do this all day, Sergei. And we know enough to determine the Irish are meeting your Bratva bosses,” Ben says, rolling his sleeves to his elbows as he stares at the man strapped to a chair in the middle of the room.
Although calling it a room is a bit of a misnomer. It looks more like a dungeon or a torture chamber. The bare brick walls and concrete floor are spattered with dark stains, and various hooks and chains dangle from some steel contraption secured to the ceiling. A trickle of urine leads from the man in the chair to a large vent in the floor. That explains part of the woeful smell. The man is naked, bound at the ankles and wrists to the chair with silver cable ties. He has several lacerations across his arms and his chest and a deeper gash in his thigh. Blood drips onto the floor from his shredded skin, yet he spits at Ben in defiance, spouting something in a foreign language. Given his name and Ben’s mention of Bratva, I’m guessing it’s Russian.
Bright strip lighting grants me a prime view of the proceedings, and I watch the scene unfold in a state of dazed numbness. It’s almost like it’s not real. Like I’m watching a movie or show and these are just actors playing a part. That’s not real blood. And it’s not my baby daddy getting ready to beat a man bloody.
My heart is lodged in my throat as I watch it go down.
Ben coolly removes a set of pliers from a steel unit wedged against the wall. Both shelves are full of weapons and instruments of torture, all clean as if lovingly cared for. The pulse in my neck throbs when Ben turns around and I see the front of his shirt for the first time. His pristine white shirt is now smeared with blood, and it turns my stomach. “I won’t ask you again. This is your last chance, Sergei. Why were you meeting McDermott? What business do the Russians have with the Irish?”
“Fuck you, Mazzone, and your dead whore mother.”
