[Warning: This Chapter contains torture and if it’s sothing that triggers you, I’d advise you to skip, else, happy reading.]
_________
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound of water dripping was the first thing Jas heard when his heavy eyes opened.
It has been a day since his press conference and saying it hadn’t gone well would be a big understatent.
In order to gain the favor of this new, anonymous big wig, he had not so subtly dragged Nathaniel’s na through the mud just after admitting to the leaks.
He was sure that this would be enough to impress this anonymous person. He was sure that this person would bail him out of the coming consequences.
Oh, how wrong he was.
Jas expected to be contacted by this person again, after all, he had done his part of the deal.
But as the hours ticked past without any form of communication, that’s when the realization settled in.
He had just bit the hand that fed him for years, in a single mont of desperation. And this hand was a dangerous one.
Sothing he was about to be reminded of.
His eyes finally focused on the environnt, revealing that he was in what looked like a warehouse.
The last thing he rembered was drinking in regret before passing out, so how had he gotten here. He tried moving only to realize that he was tightly bound by what seed like chains on a tal chair.
"Oh, you’re awake," a heavily accented voice spoke up, causing Jas to look up.
Standing before him was a man as terrifying as the reaper himself, Dmitri Volkov.
His back was towards Jas but he was still recognizable even from this angle. Dmitri seed to be sorting sothing out on the table before him so he couldn’t be bothered to turn around.
"I was wondering if I had to wake you myself," Dmitri added, his back still to Jas.
Jas pulled at the chains, but they were tightly bound around his wrists, ankles, and even across his chest. They rattled faintly, but offered no give. Panic began to swell in his chest and his breath started hitching.
"Dmitri..." Jas croaked, his voice hoarse. "This isn’t necessary. We can talk about this."
The Russian let out a soft, humorless chuckle as he picked up sothing from the table, a small, silver instrunt that caught the dim overhead light.
He finally turned around, revealing his cold, predator’s eyes. On his hands were gloves and there was a faint splatter of sothing on them, either red or rust, Jas couldn’t tell.
"Talk?" Dmitri repeated, tilting his head. "Jas, my friend. We are talking."
He walked over slowly, every step deliberate, controlled. Jas felt like a mouse cornered by a panther. There was no room to run and no hole to squeeze into.
Dmitri crouched before him. "And worse... you thought you could break from us. That you were no longer useful."
Jas shook his head quickly. "I wasn’t trying to betray—"
"You were desperate," Dmitri cut in, his tone cmpletely calm. "Desperation makes people sloppy. It makes them weak. And weak n..."
He tapped the silver instrunt, now clearly a scalpel, against Jas’s knee.
"...they break."
Jas flinched, sweat beading down his temple.
"I-I can fix this. I’ll retract the statent. I’ll bla it on stress. Say I was misquoted—"
Dmitri leaned in closer, so close Jas could feel the heat of his breath.
"You think this is about a statent?" he whispered. "You think Nathaniel cared what you said on cara?"
He pulled away, pacing in a slow circle around Jas now.
"The Langleys can make the dia forget about your statent with the snap of a finger." He continued, the cold scalpel lightly grazing Jas’ neck and drawing a bit blood "this is about Nathaniel’s reputation."
Jas shivered as the cold bite of the scalpel traced a delicate line down his neck, that caused a sting, it was to remind him of how close he was to losing his life.
Dmitri stopped behind him. Jas couldn’t see him, but he could feel the man’s presence on his back.
Dmitri leaned in close again, his breath completely calm and composed. "You thought you were playing a ga of kings and pawns. But you’re not a king, Jas. You’re barely even a pawn."
"Now, you’re going to tell exactly who this new king was that made you so confident in betraying the old."
"I’ll tell you anything—just please, ask. I’ll talk, I swear." Jas stuttered out, the fear very much evident on his face.
Dmitri didn’t respond right away. Instead, he stepped back into Jas’s line of sight, holding the scalpel delicately between his fingers like a pen.
"Oh we’ll get to that," he murmured. "But first..."
Without warning, he drove the scalpel into Jas’s thigh.
Jas scread, his body convulsing against the restraints. The tal chair scraped an inch across the concrete floor, chains rattling wildly as blood began to soak through his pants.
"I get to have my fun first." He said with a grin on his face.
Tears stread down Jas’ face and his pants were soaked, not just from the blood on his thighs.
Dmitri’s gaze dropped. He sighed.
"You’re pissing yourself already?" he asked, almost disappointed. "There’s still a long way to go."
"Please don’t do this," Jas pleaded as tears and snot stread down his face, holding even the slightest bit of hope that Dmitri would go this far, but his pleas fell on deaf ears.
"You’re too noisy," Dmitri said as he walked back to the table and picked up a white cloth.
Dmitri walked back toward him slowly, folding the white cloth neatly as if preparing a dinner napkin. His calm was far more terrifying than rage.
"Open your mouth," he said flatly.
Jas shook his head frantically, words bubbling up in terror, "No, please—"
Dmitri struck him across the face with the back of his hand. Jas’s head snapped to the side with blood dribbling from his split lip.
"I said open."
When Jas hesitated again, so Dmitri forced his jaw open with one hand, using the other to shove the cloth into his mouth, deep enough to nearly gag him.
He whimpered behind the gag, his breath coming in ragged bursts through his nose.
"Better," Dmitri muttered, inspecting the work like a craftsman.
He turned back to the table again and picked up a small blowtorch. The clicking sound as he ignited it echoed in the room, followed by the low hiss of the fla.
Jas’s muffled screams picked up instantly as he thrashed wildly against the chair causing the chains to rattle.
Dimitri then brought the fla close enough for Jas to feel the blistering heat kiss the skin on his arm.
Jas let out a high, choking scream into the cloth.
Pffffft.
The scent of burnt skin filled the air.
"You feel that?" Dmitri said, his voice low and clinical. "That’s the pain betrayal brings, I’ll be sure to burn it into your mory."
Jas couldn’t hear a single word out of his mouth as he was busy screaming in pain from his scorched skin.
The torch moved away briefly and Jas sagged forward, sweat pouring down his brow and his eyes rolling in their sockets.
But Dmitri was far from done.
He placed the torch aside and picked up a pair of pliers next.
"We’ll take one finger. Just one. For now."
He clamped them onto Jas’s left pinky, ignoring the frantic, garbled pleas from behind the cloth.
Then, with a jerk, POP.
Jas’s muffled scream ca out louder than before.
______
While Dmitri tortured Jas, Nathaniel sat in his room, watching the news on Avance being reported.
The anchor woman neatly arranged her papers as she spoke, "according to the recent press conference by Jas Brock, CEO of Avance, he claid that he was pulling the strings—bribing enforcent agents, blackmailing clients, and worst of all... using his connection to Nathaniel Langley to keep the law off his back."
"The Langleys haven’t given any official response to this damning accusation," the anchorwoman continued, her voice unwavering despite the weight of the topic. "But with public outrage mounting in the last twenty-four hours, the silence is speaking volus."
There wasn’t a single change in Nathaniel’s expression as the news report went on. He was just a bit curious about where Jas got the balls to pull this off.
He took a sip of his favorite wine before letting out a sigh, dealing with this was no issue but it’d take a few days for this to completely die down so it was annoying.
Nathaniel leaned back in his chair, fingers resting under his chin. "So. Jas wanted to dance with ghosts."
He pressed a button on the intercom built into the desk.
"Isla."
Her voice ca through a second later. "Yes, sir?"
"Have Dmitri send everything he got from our guest once he’s finished playing." He ordered.
"Understood. Anything else?" She asked.
"Make sure this doesn’t reach my father." He added after a while.
"Understood." She replied before he removed his finger from the intercom.
With that he leaned into his chair and closed his eyes, this really was annoying.
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