I don’t let a muscle on my face flicker, though. I just stare at him silently.
Borovsky’s arm cocks back and before I understand his intention, he drives a fist into my left cheekbone. Pain explodes in my head, and I’m dizzy from my brain rattling around inside my skull. I feel blood trickle down my face.
My eyes raise to meet his again. Borovsky massages the knuckles on his hand, flexing it. I take small satisfaction in knowing that it hurt him too.
Until he holds out his hand to one of the men. “I don’t feel like breaking my hand today. Let me have your knife.”
I swallow hard, steel my features, but there’s no stopping the sweat that rolls down my temple and across the gash in my cheek to mix with the blood there.
Borovsky moves in front of me and holds the large knife with a curved tip before his own face to examine it. He runs a finger over the dull side and then flips it over to examine the blade edge.
His eyes look over the knife and lock with mine. “Now… tell me where Jess is, and we can avoid… shall we say… a lot of mess.”
“You should probably start with cutting out my tongue first.” I smile at him, knowing it will piss him off. “Because I’m not telling you a fucking thing.”
Borovsky strikes so fast, I barely see it coming. Doesn’t matter, because even if I did, I couldn’t deflect it. The blade slices my chest from my right upper pec across to the lower part of the left one.
I hiss with pain and look down to see blood pouring freely, soaking into my pants. But it’s just a flesh wound. I don’t think I can die of blood loss from that.
“Where is Jess?” he repeats.
“No clue.”
The knife slices again, this time over my abs. Same type of cut… deep enough to make me bleed, but nowhere near deep enough to spill internal organs. The guy knows what he’s doing.
I grunt through the pain, look down at the wounds, and get a bit dizzy from the sight of the blood. I don’t feel my strength ebbing yet.
Borovsky snaps his fingers, and my head jerks up to look at him. He’s holding out his hand, and one of the men places an opaque bottle in it. It’s got a label, but I don’t know what it is.
When he removes the cap, my muscles clench in anticipation. He pours the clear liquid over my chest, and I inhale the stinging scent of rubbing alcohol. It hits the slices and feels like a hundred suns searing my body from the inside out.
I yell and groan against the pain, but I do so through gritted teeth, my chest rising and falling as I try to breathe through it.
“Where is Jess?” he asks.
My teeth gnash together, I stare at him in open rebellion.
Borovsky flicks his knife out, only a small cut to my upper arm. He immediately pours alcohol on it, and it burns like the fires of hell.
“You’re a big guy,” he muses as he walks around me until he’s at my back. I don’t try to look at him but keep my head high and my spine straight. “You’ve got a lot of area on your body for me to open up. I could do this for a long time.”
“Have at it,” I taunt even though I know it’s stupid to do such a thing.
Pain hits me along my trap, another small cut, but when he pours alcohol onto it, my vision swims as my mind tries to break from the torment.
Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out.
I blink hard, sweat pouring into my eyes, and focus on the pool table in front of me. I think of Jess and Thea and that hopefully I’ll be reunited with them soon.
At any minute now, my team will be busting down the doors to save me and take Borovsky into custody.
“Where is she?” he asks again.
“I imagine getting a manicure right now.” I clench for the cut.
It comes hot and fast, followed by the thousand bee stings of alcohol. I inhale sharply, air hissing through my teeth.
Borovsky moves back into my line of sight and bends at the waist to peer at me. “Where is she?”
I refuse to answer, and he cuts me again.
CHAPTER 21
Jessica
Not wanting to alert the people holding Dozer that the police are on to them, every bit of presence has been moved from the front of the gated community and spread out among various surrounding streets. Mostly unmarked vehicles, but patrol cars drive in wide circles of the area. No one wanted to chance that a neighborhood visitor would see all the law enforcement outside and alert someone on the inside.
Bebe is what I will forever deem to be a miracle worker. By the time we got Kynan’s SUV moved a block over from the gates, she was already serving me photographs of neighborhood homeowners inside. I looked long and hard, but I recognized no one.