Putting our masks and gloves on, we enter the room together, and I shut the door and flick the light switch on.
Charlie’s hungry gaze roams the room with mounting interest. “Nice work, Manning,” he says, whistling low under his breath as he takes in the remains of the other men this cell has housed over the years.
“I like to keep them here. I find having a visual image of their fate helps to loosen tongues a lot quicker.”
“Fuck.” Charlie’s eyes lift to the naked man staked to the wall in front of the prisoner. Dried blood coats his patchwork skin, and we stop for a minute to critique my handiwork. “Nice touch with the nails through his balls and his nipples.”
“I had fun with that one. He screamed like a little girl, and I thought it was fitting he died choking on his chopped dick as I fed it to him.”
“Poetic. I like it.”
“It wasn’t enough. That prick is the one I mentioned earlier. He was turning a blind eye to all the trafficked kids coming into the Cabello port for years, accepting payoffs to say nothing.” His putrefying remains tickle my nostrils even through the mask, and I’m glad he suffered before death even if he deserved so much more. “I should have given him the Rafael treatment.”
Charlie tips his head to one side. “What’s that?”
“Rafael was the only guy we managed to get out of the compound Vera was at. He confirmed she had arrived there when she wasfour.” It’s part of how we were able to piece the timeline together.
Charlie’s face pales. “Fucking hell.” He scrubs his hands down his face.
“He didn’t take long to break.” A muscle pops in my jaw, and renewed rage flows through my veins as I stalk toward the pile of bones in the corner. Bits of flesh still cling to the bone, but the piranhas did their job well. “I won’t repeat what he told me they did to her because it’s too sick to repeat. I went full-on beast for his torture. Slicing, cutting, burning, hacking. Bribed a few sick pricks into fucking him, and they tore his asshole up real good with their cocks, broken glass, baseball bats, and a few other choice objects. I let them cover him with cum, shit on him, piss on him.” I waggle my brows and grin. “I have a video if you ever want to watch.”
“Sounds like some light entertainment to watch with my wife.”
We both crack up laughing, and I cast a glance at the naked prisoner tied to the wooden chair in the middle of the room, but he’s still passed out. I worked him over good last night.
“Then I made Rafael watch as I used a chainsaw to rip them limb from limb after they had served their use, constantly reminding him this was his fate. I dragged his death out for six months. I beat him, starved him, sliced little pockets of skin, let him get to the brink of death, and then I had my men feed him, put salve on his wounds, give him water and false hope. When he was well enough, I did it all over again. Did that a few times until I had the final scene prepared. Then I dropped him into a sealed tank with five hundred piranha who’d been starved for weeks and basked in his agonizing screams as they tore into his patchy flesh with their jagged teeth. It took less than ten minutes for them to kill him.”
“I always thought the piranha kill was an urban legend.”
“The conditions have to be right, but it works. They picked the flesh clean from his bones. It was a highly entertaining, virtually evidence-free way of offing the asshole.”
“You got that on film too?” His lips curve into a smile.
“Damn straight.” I flash him a wide grin. “You can have a back-to-back movie night with Demi.”
We chuckle again. “I can’t believe you didn’t let me in on the fun.”
“You’ve got it good, Charlie. Don’t let the dark suck you back in.”
“The dark is a part of me, Manning, the same way it’s a part of you. Not indulging it doesn’t make it go away. It just remains hidden.”
“They really fucked us up, didn’t they?”
Charlie shrugs. “Probably, but maybe we always had it in us, and they just coaxed it out.”
“It’s the age-old nurture versus nature debate.” We turn around, and I rake an appraising gaze over the dungeon. It’s a typical old-school interrogation cell composed of grubby brick walls and a stone floor with no natural light or ventilation. The stains of human misery cling stubbornly to the ground as we walk toward the unconscious prisoner. The place is cold enough to freeze my balls off, but that’s the intent.
Charlie walks to the table, inspecting the variety of tools with an approving smile.
He picks up an electric drill, and the euphoria crawling through my veins is the best kind of high next to sex. I walk to the prisoner and slap his face a few times to wake him up. He starts cursing at me in Spanish, and my smile grows wider as I contemplate how I want to play this today. This is his last opportunity to give me something useful before I end the motherfucker.
The buzz of the electric drill is music to my ears as Charlie approaches holding it in his hand. His pupils are dilated, his face alive with the promise of retribution. He presses the power switch on and off, and the intermittent buzzing of the drill has the beast in my pants stirring with violent arousal. “I’d like you to meet my friend, Charles Barron III, Luis,” I say as Charlie steps around the chair and stands beside me in front of the man.
“El pendejo,” he hisses, and a broken tooth falls loose from his mouth, bouncing off his battered naked body and pinging on the hard ground.
Charlie digs his thumb into a festering wound in his shoulder. “That’s not very polite.”
Luis howls in pain as Charlie rummages in the wound, flashing a devilish grin I haven’t seen in ages.
