Jack’s chest heaved as he worked to get his breathing—and his thoughts—under control.
Three hours?
He strained to piece together the lost time, but as the memories came rushing back on him, he suddenly wished he hadn’t bothered. At least then he wouldn’t have been aware of what was coming. And the growing awareness of the pain that wracked his body could’ve remained a mystery.
Unfortunately, he remembered it all now.
They’d brought him to some kind of abandoned factory—one of many in Detroit, so who knew which one it was. But the place was dark, dank, smelled of trash and mildew and decades of disuse. The machinery had long ago rusted, the factory floor reeking of oxidized metal. But they’d taken him down a set of stairs through a network of hallways that had most likely been offices and storage rooms at some point but were now gaping holes of darkness in the already dark corridors.
They’d had flashlights, but the dark was so deep it seemed to swallow the light. But not in the cold, concrete room where they’d taken him to exact their vengeance—and, apparently, information. It was lit up with portable work lights so bright that Jack had to squint against them as he assessed potential escape routes, but there was only the main door. And he didn’t have any weapons to work with, even if he did somehow manage to escape his restraints.
Which, considering the shape he was in and the fact that his clothes were several feet away in a heap on the floor, seemed pretty damned unlikely.
He covertly assessed his injuries. Seeing as how he was naked in the wooden chair they’d secured him to, it wasn’t difficult. The barbed wire had torn open his skin down to the muscle. His right eye was completely swollen shut. His nose was definitely broken. He tasted blood but couldn’t determine if it was from his split lips or the two teeth he was missing on the right side of his jaw. An assortment of bruises and lacerations on his abdomen told him they’d used him as a punching bag for a while too.
They’d stitched the worst of his wounds—to keep him alive longer and drag out the torture for as long as possible. But some of the crude stitches closing the stab wound had opened back up. At least the repair to the flesh wound from the gunshot still seemed to be holding for now . . .
But the worst pain was in his fingertips where Kozlov’s henchman had shoved needles under his nails. He’d rather they go back to using him as a punching bag than have to go through that shit again. Of course, losing a toe wasn’t a fucking picnic either, but at least they’d started small . . .
That said, he could feel his body losing the battle. He could only assess the external damage, but he knew the limits a body could take before it went into shock, then, eventually, shut down altogether. And so did they. They could drag this shit out as long as they wanted—or end it just as quickly.
All things considered, Jack wasn’t sure which route he’d prefer.
And God knew what the hell they’d given him to try to make him talk. Whatever it was had turned his guts to fire and was making him slip in and out of consciousness—but maybe that was a good thing.
A quiet clatter to Jack’s left sent a spike of fear through him. Apparently it was a sound he’d grown to recognize. He turned his head slightly in that direction and saw a mountain of a man with a buzz cut and a long scar running from the corner of his eye down to the corner of his mouth, lovingly caressing an assortment of torture implements—some Jack was familiar with himself from a couple of ops he preferred not to think about.
Fucking karma . . .
Another chuckle from Kozlov drew Jack’s attention away from whatever fresh hell was coming. Slowly, he lifted his gaze to meet Kozlov’s as the man emerged from the shadows.
He half remembered their questions . . . The data. The flash drive. They still didn’t have it. And no matter how many times Jack assured them they could go fuck themselves before he’d tell them a goddamned thing, they just didn’t seem to catch on. Of course, hell if he knew where the real flash drive was at this point. Was it really in the safe deposit box Antonovich had mentioned, or was that just a ruse too? The only one who knew for sure was Antonovich, who’d taken that information to the grave.
Unfortunately for him, Kozlov wasn’t buying the truth. Which meant Jack had to come up with a damned good lie if he wanted to put an end to this shit . . .
Kozlov crossed his arms over his chest and studied Jack for a long moment. “I can see what you are thinking,” he drawled. He began a slow stroll around Jack’s chair as if he was assessing a piece of art. “You are saying to yourself, ‘If I can just keep this up for alittlelonger, then my friends they will come for me. And I have no doubt you are correct. Your lover will arrive with your friends and deliver themselves into our hands. But the question is, will it be before you are crying like baby”—he paused and put his finger to Jack’s temple—“begging me to put bullet in brain to end your pain?”
Jack managed a smirk. “You think you’re the first asshole to try to get information out of me, Kozlov? You can’t break me.”
Kozlov’s answering smile seemed genuine, his eyes bright with glee. “Perhaps not. But if you do not tell us what we want to know, I will try the same with your pretty lover. Maybe she is not so strong, yes?”
“Don’t you fucking touch her!” Jack roared. “I swear to you, Kozlov, if you touch her, I will rip your fucking heart out of your chest.”
Kozlov grinned and swept a hand toward Jack. “I am not so worried at the moment, my friend.” He then motioned to his comrade. “If you please, Feliks.”
The behemoth playing with his toys immediately turned back to Jack, a sneer draped across his scarred face. The guy’s eyes were dull, dead. Jack’s gut twisted with dread. He’d seen that look before. People like this had no conscience, no moral compass to even give them pause before committing some atrocity. They were serial killers, henchmen, mercenaries . . . mindless killers who questioned nothing. Hurting others was as mundane and ordinary as eating breakfast or taking a shit.
When Jack glanced down to see Feliks carrying jumper cables attached to a portable battery, he took as deep a breath as a couple of broken ribs would allow and blew it out slowly, steeling himself for the next round.
This is gonna hurt like a bitch . . .
