15
NIALL
Ican’t say Javier was exactly fucking wrong, and that pisses me off, because the last thing I want is to agree with the bastard on anything. And I wouldn’t say I wish I was dead—not quite—but after much longer, I might get there.
I’ve known some inventive fucking torturers, most of them part of the Bratva. Men who would peel your skin off in ribbons and exclaim at how perfectly it stripped off, betting with each other on who could get the longest unbroken strip. Men who popped eyeballs and cut off digits while laughing with each other and making plans for the bar afterward. Javier could match the worst of them, not least because of the pleasure he clearly takes in it.
I lose track of how long I’m downstairs in the room I was dragged into, a cold, clinical room with a white tile floor and a drain in the center of it, the only entrance or exit is the reinforced metal door I’d been shoved through before the guards went about manacling me to the ceiling. I knew there wasn’t any point in fighting, but I got in a few good punches before the guards got ahold of me again. The rush of that helped get me through the worst of the first part of Javier’s torture, at least.
The rest of it was worse than anything I’d experienced in my entire fucking life.
He left my skin intact, at least—by which I mean he didn’t strip it from me like I’d seen the Russians do to others. He liked the method of leaving thin bleeding cuts, not enough to bleed out or even result in any major blood loss, just small cuts done with the sharpest knife I’d ever encountered, and then belting the cuts, leaving me bruised. When that was finished, when he’d tenderized me like a fucking slab of beef, he started in on the next round.
I’d told myself I wouldn’t fucking scream, but I didn’t succeed in that. Not when those tender, bruised, cut places were hit with the electric jolts of a taser that worked its way up to a couple well-placed hits with a cattle prod when I screamed, but I didn’t give him any answers.
He wanted information. Information about Luca, about Viktor, about the Kings. It’s a good thing that Isabella’s safety or life wasn’t on the table because I might have given up some shit for that, but for myself?
Not a fucking chance.
I just sneered at him from a face swollen, bruised, and bloody, and told him to go fuck himself.
Until he jolted me in the thigh, way too close to my fucking balls. I was naked by then, stripped down so he had unfettered access to me, and his threat to chop my cock off didn’t escape me at that moment. If he went a couple inches higher with that cattle prod, he’d be right.
Iwouldwish I was dead because even if my cock was still attached to me, I’d never be able to use it again.Thatwould be a fate worse than death.
Javier knew it, too. I could tell from the menacing grin on his face, the way the cattle prod hovered an inch from my shrunken shaft—until a banging on the door got his attention, and he dropped the prod.
I’ve never felt relief like that in my life, even if it might be short-lived.
“What the fuck do you want?” he snarled as he answered the door, yanking it open an inch. “I told you not to fucking interrupt me—”
“Diego Gonzalez is here,” a rasping voice said from the other side of the door. “And he wants to see the prisoner.”
“Fuck.” Javier let out a sigh. “Fine. He can decide what happens to the prisoner, then. And his cock.”
Being referred to by my name had ended the second they dragged me out of the office. I know why well enough—Javier likes the power it gives him to remind me that I’m incapable of escaping and subject to his whims. All I had to do was see him with Isabella to know he’s a man whose entire life revolves around power and control, and that’s what gets him off.
I’m also not holding out hope that I’ll get out of here alive.
The door opens wider a moment later, and Diego Gonzalez walks in. I’d seen him at the party, enough to know he’s old enough to be Isabella’s father and then some—which makes me sick in and of itself to think of her sleeping with him—and being closer doesn’t improve my impression. He’s heavily overweight, straining at his clothing, his chin thick and stubbled, with a large mustache that tries to compensate for the roundness of his face. His eyes are narrowed, small and angry, and I feel a fresh wave of fury at the idea of this man pawing at Isabella.
“Niall Flanagan.” Diego purses his lips as he circles me, taking in Javier’s efforts. “You’ve done good work here, Aguilar. My men couldn’t have done better. He’ll think twice before deflowering any more well-born virgins, eh?”
His throaty chuckle makes me jerk in the chains keeping me on my toes, glaring in his direction. Pain shoots through every part of my body—aching, throbbing, burning, a strange numb tingling radiating from where Javier hit me with the prod—but I don’t fucking care. The sight of him makes me feel nearly feral with rage, remembering him carrying Isabella out screaming.
“I’d rip you from limb to limb if I weren’t chained here,” I hiss through my teeth, and Diego laughs.
“Brave words from a man hanging there naked, with so much still to be taken off.” He looks pointedly at my groin. “I can have Aguilar make you a eunuch with a word.”
“Fuck you,” I snarl, even as my gut contracts painfully at the thought, my balls practically trying to crawl back up inside me. I can’t think of a part of my body I’m more protective of, but I’m not going to grovel in front of this man. Either of them.
“I ought to have you cut out his tongue,” Diego hisses and then turns back to Javier. “I might like to see you work on him. This isn’t enough, I don’t think, for the man who took my Isabella’s virginity from me.”
“I didn’t know who she was, youfuckingasshole!” I snarl, jerking at my chains again. “She gave me a bloody fake name! I swear tofuckingChrist, when I get out of here—”
Javier moves before I can flinch, his fist hitting my ribs squarely where he’d belted me earlier, just above one of the burn marks from the taser. It takes the wind out of me. “You’re only getting out of here at all because your pretty Isabella agreed to lay down for Gonzalez here.” He raises an eyebrow, grinning at me. “We could bring her down here, let her see my work. Make her suck you off while he watches.”
Diego chuckles. “As pleasant as that sounds, she’s otherwise occupied at the moment. I brought the doctor here to make certain she’s not pregnant before I take her home with me.” His beady gaze rakes over me again. “I suppose we can’t kill him since Isabella promised her submission for his life. Which means I suppose we ought to leave his cock as well, since he’d likely off himself instead of live without it.”
Fucking hell.“I’d really like nothing better than to stop listening to the bloody lot of you yammering on about my fucking cock,” I hiss, but I’m soundly ignored by them both.
“Send him back to Ricardo Santiago as a warning for what happens when he meddles in my affairs,” Diego says archly. “But not before Isabella sees him like this. Leave him here for tonight, then get him dressed and bring him upstairs in the morning. He can hear the results of the test like everyone else.” Diego smirks. “But give him one good lash where it counts, yes? For daring to put his cock where it doesn’t belong.”
It’s clear from the terse look on Javier’s face that he doesn’t fucking appreciate Diego ordering him around in his own home—or torture chamber. I can see his jaw clench, the muscles working as he nods tightly.
“The men will take you upstairs to your rooms,” he says and then turns, his hand wrapping around the length of leather he used to beat me with earlier. No doubt the mood Diego put him in is responsible for the force with which it comes up between my legs, cracking against the sensitive flesh of my cockhead in the same instant that it wraps around my balls, a jolt of pain to beat the cattle prod resounding through my body.
I hadn’t passed out from anything else—but that, that fucking did the trick. I barely have time to scream before the world goes black, and the last fucking thing I see is Diego Gonzalez’s pleased expression before I go out cold.