“May I please have some water?” I asked, noticing how shaky my voice was as my eyes zeroed in on the perspiring water bottle.
“You want some water, do you?“ he asked.
“Please,” I begged, my voice cracking.
He opened the water bottle, and instead of bringing it to my lips, he proceeded to pour it over my head. No matter what direction I tried to move in, he followed me with the bottle, pouring it on me until it was empty. I shook my head to get the water out of my eyes before glaring up at him, meeting his disgusted face.
You fucking stink,” he muttered as he unlocked the cuffs and roughly grabbed my arm, pulling me to my feet.
I scoffed. “What the hell did you expect when you—“
“I don’t recall giving you permission to speak,” he interrupted.
I pursed my lips together and didn’t say another word. My nose wrinkled when I finally caught a whiff of myself, shame and embarrassment flooding through me as we continued out of the room. Wherever he would take me next, I prayed that I at least got a shower.
“You need to get cleaned up before your next punishment,” he said, as if reading my thoughts.
I didn’t allow myself to get too happy though. Getting cleaned up could have a whole new meaning when it came to this asshole. For all I knew, it could be endless waterboarding or him trying to drown me for hours.
Instead of a bedroom or bathroom, we walked into a dark concrete room. It smelled damp and mildewed, cool air wafting in from the vents near the ceiling. A faucet dripped somewhere in the dark. That was a good sign. At least I’d get a shower in here.
The floor was uncomfortably cold beneath my bare feet, which wasn’t a good feeling after they’d splashed around in piss for hours. The light from the hall hit something along the back wall made of wood, but I couldn’t fully figure out what it was. Bennett flipped a light switch, but it only turned on a bright light in the opposite corner, which only illuminated that side.
“Go stand over there,” he ordered and released his grip on my arm.
I slowly walked into the spotlight and turned to face him, squinting against the light. I couldn’t see him with it shining almost directly in my eyes, but I could hear him moving.
“Bennett?” I called out.
“Take off the gown and throw it off to the side,” he said in response.
I peeled the wet garment from my skin and tossed it aside like he said, shivering in the light before him. The clicking of his dress shoes on the concrete sounded hollow in the room as he approached, my body trembling involuntarily.
Without warning, hard, freezing cold water hit me. I screamed as the water pounded against my skin, feeling as if it might tear into me. There was nowhere to run; no matter where I tried to go, the hose followed me.
“Stop! Please!” I screamed, but there was no way he could hear me over the rush of the water. It stung all along my body and face.
“Look at that; the dirty slut doesn’t want to wash off. Do you want to stay filthy then?” he taunted.
“It hurts! Please!”
“Too fucking bad,” he replied.
I screamed when the water hit my ass, which was already a bit raw from sitting in my own waste for hours. Anger filled me as he laughed at my misery, following me with the water hose as I tried to run out of its path. I collapsed onto the floor and curled up as I sobbed, the icy water beating me until my skin burned. The water finally ceased, and my hiccups and sobs were the only sounds in the room.
“Still thirsty?” Bennett taunted.
“N-n-no,” I stuttered.
My skin felt as if it were on fire. He flipped another switch on, lighting up the rest of the room. I slowly lifted my head to see that he held what looked like a fucking firehose. The air from the vent licked at my skin, sending a violent shiver through my body.
“Get up,” he snapped.
I stood on shaky legs as my hiccups subsided, wrapping my arms around myself. Relief washed over me when he tossed the water hose to the side, but fear quickly replaced that when he walked over to the box that was now fully visible in the light. It looked like a compact outhouse with a small window in the door.
“Time for the next level of Hell. Twenty-four hours in the box,” he said as he opened it and gestured inside. My heart pounded in my chest as I stared at it with wide eyes. Pointy nails covered the inside of the door, the sides, and the back of the box. While there weren’t nails on the bottom, there seemed to be jagged rocks glued there. Not only would this asshole make me stand for twenty-four hours, he would make sure I suffered every minute of it.
“Please don’t make me do this,” I croaked.
He didn’t respond. He gripped my upper arm and yanked me forward before shoving me in the box and closing the door behind me. My back struck the nails along the rear wall, and I hissed in pain. I didn't think any broke the skin, but they still hurt like hell. Had he been even a little bit more forceful, they would have done much more damage.
“Please don’t leave me in here!” I begged. “I’ll do anything! Please let me out!”
“You know, I’m not a complete asshole. I even have some entertainment for you while you’re in here,” he said as he secured a heavy lock on the door. “I have a feed of your friend that I’m broadcasting on the dark web. Since you’re so concerned about her, you can now watch how she’s doing in real time with the rest of the dark world.”
My pleas ceased as I watched him through the small window. He moved across the room by the door and picked up an iPad from the floor before strolling back over to me. I shifted uncomfortably in the box, my feet already hurting. Bennett secured the screen of the iPad in the window, plugging something into it before his hands disappeared.
“Have fun,” he said as the screen turned on.
Tears burned my eyes as the camera focused on Savannah chained to a dirty mattress, her makeup smeared on her face as she cried. Her screams filled the box and were so loud that I couldn’t help but flinch. I looked up and saw tiny speakers in the upper four corners of the box. There was no way I could escape this. I couldn’t raise my arms to cover my ears without the nails piercing me, so this would torture me for hours.
I sobbed as I watched the two men in the room with her tear her apart. My heart broke as her cries and pleas for them to stop echoed in the box. Comments appeared on the side of the video, sick perverts cheering on the men abusing Savannah and calling her all sorts of names.
“Rip that stupid slut open!”
“Look at her; pathetic like any other bitch with a pussy.”
“Rape her dead!”
“Choke her with your cock until she passes out!”
The cruel comments and inhumane requests continued to pour in. If the viewers requested that the men beat her, they did. If they asked for them to make her scream as they pounded one of her holes, they obliged. And here I was, helpless in a box with no way to help her. With no solution or plan in place to get her out of her predicament.
No matter how much I complained about Bennett and how he treated me, it was nothing compared to what she’d gone through since she’d been here. After being so spiteful and selfish to her before everything happened, she’d risked her life to try to save me.
Despite Bennett’s warning, she tried to call the police to help me. I didn’t even deserve that kind of loyalty from her. Because of me, she was likely to die in here, and I didn’t fight hard enough for her. I failed her, just as I had failed Heath and Jess. If something happened to her, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
“I’m so sorry, Savannah. I don’t know what else to do,” I cried, resting my forehead on the glass of the window as I sobbed.
All my attempts to help her only got me in more trouble, and with asshole starting a war with his father, I didn’t know how the hell I’d be able to help her. I looked back at the screen. Her body was limp as the men got off her and left her alone. She quietly curled up in fetal position and rocked herself, her sobs
still audible before the feed went offline. My soul shattered with grief as I stared at the black screen, seeing my own reflection.
My hope and strength slowly left me the longer I stayed in the box. I lost a sliver of myself as each hour passed during my punishments, and at the rate I was going, I didn’t know how much of me would be left at the end of seven days.
For my sake, I hoped I was dead.
BENNETT
"Are you ready to work, or do you plan on watching your girl scream in a box all night?" a voice asked, bringing me out of my thoughts.
I lifted my eyes from the camera feed inside the concrete room on the iPad before me, raising an eyebrow at Bruce as he smirked at me from the doorway.
"Unless you're coming to tell me the location of my next victim, you have no reason to be in my office right now," I said, my voice flat.
He put his hands in his pockets and walked further into my office. "You should know me better than that, Bennett. I wouldn't be here unless I absolutely needed to be. I figured you'd want a brief on the guy before going to his home with guns blazing."
I released a deep sigh and sat back in my seat, running my hand over my face. This whole situation had me on edge with everyone when it was no one's fault but my own that we were in this shit in the first place.
"Should we take this meeting downstairs, or do you want everyone to come up here?" Bruce asked, breaking the awkward silence around us.
"Downstairs is probably better," I said and stood, clutching the iPad in my hand as I made my way around my desk.
He and I walked down to the bunker. I glanced over at him, the look on his face appearing as if he had something to say.
“Got something on your mind?” I finally asked, my hands in my pockets.
He cut his eyes to me briefly before looking straight ahead. “What’s going on with the redheaded girl?” he asked.
I grinned. “You dirty dog. What, you want a turn with her?” I asked.
He shrugged, his stone face never wavering. “Possibly.”
“Is now really the time to be thinking about getting your dick wet?” KC asked as he passed us.
“Fuck off, nerd. Maybe if you stopped touching your keyboard long enough, you could actually touch a real woman,” Bruce snapped back.
“Hey, hey, hey. None of that right now. We have more important things to worry about than arguing over whether or not anyone’s getting pussy,” I said when Bruce’s hand went to his hip.
“He’s the one being sensitive,” KC mumbled and went into the conference room.
“I swear I hate that guy sometimes,” Bruce growled under his breath.
“What’s going on with you?” I asked.
There was too much going on for us to fight with each other. He was usually calm and collected, the one who was usually the most levelheaded out of all of us. To see him snap at KC over something so small was out of character for him.
“It’s nothing,” he said, rolling his shoulders.
“It’s something. You’ve been acting weird ever since we set up the web cam in Savannah’s room. Is there something I should know?”
“No,” he said, his voice tight. “I’m fine. Are we having this meeting or what?”
I gestured for him to walk before me, and he moved forward. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he had a thing for her. He’d spent more time in the bunker, his name appearing on the client roster more often than it usually did. Still, it wasn’t the time to think about that. The only thing that was clear, despite the madness swirling through my thoughts, was my thirst for revenge.
I wanted every single person responsible to pay for what they'd done to everyone I cared about, and I wouldn't be satisfied until I spilled their blood. Locking Aurora away for twenty-four hours for her punishments gave me one less person to worry about, but it made me realize I had way too much idle time on my hands while we located where all these people were.
I couldn't go after people on a whim the way I usually did because the last thing we needed was an attack on my property while the children were here. I glanced toward the wall at the end of the hall that looked like a dead end, knowing those innocent souls were on the other side of it. Every move we made had to be accounted for because there were more lives in the balance besides our own.
The guys already waited in the conference room by the time Bruce and I arrived. KC tapped on his laptop, looking up and nodding at me before going back to work. Saint and Nyxin talked amongst themselves, their conversation ceasing when I settled into my seat at the head of the table.
"So, who do we have first?" I asked, ready to get down to business. I was ready to spill someone's blood.
"Well, it depends," KC said. He looked away from his computer and leaned back in his seat, meeting my gaze. "I've found the locations for all of them, but getting to a couple of them will take extra effort."
"Are you going to speak in riddles all night, or am I going to have to cut the information out of you?" I snapped.
KC's eye twitched, but he only shook his head and pushed a small stack of papers over to me. "What I mean is that only a couple of them are local. I'm pretty sure Wilson has his men on high alert, too, and they're thinking about the same thing we are: getting their families somewhere safe. The ones higher up the food chain have left the country on 'family vacations.' The guys who don't hold much rank, like the new guys who attacked Carrie, they're still in town," he explained.
I scoffed. It wasn't surprising that my father chose those lower on the totem pole to do his dirty work. He didn't care if he lost them or not. He gladly left them out in the open like sitting ducks because he knew I'd get the revenge I sought.
"A part of me wants to think this is some kind of trap," I finally said. "How do we know if he has men waiting around to protect these guys because they anticipate my attack?" I asked.
Saint nodded. "That's actually a valid question. Wilson may be an asshole, but I don't think he's dumb enough to leave his guys unprotected if he knows they're targets," he said.
"I've been monitoring Wilson's emails. After the frenzy with Kyler's head popping up at the headquarters, the rest of the targets are a bit shaken up. You could tell what everyone's ranks were based on how Wilson responded to them," KC replied.
"Pull it up and let me see them," I said.
KC worked quickly to pull up a folder containing a bunch of saved emails from Wilson. I scanned them all, almost shaking my head in disgust. I didn't know the men by name since Wilson's chain of command had changed since I'd branched out on my own, but KC was right about figuring out their ranks based on Wilson's response.
He'd wired money to those who were flagged as "important" and asked them to leave the country until things "cooled off," claiming he wanted to protect his greatest assets. Those lower down the chain were simply told to stay inside and to make sure they had enough ammunition to protect themselves. To put it frankly, they were all dead men walking, and my father knew it.
"We'll deal with the local ones first. Give me their information," I said as I pushed KC's laptop back toward him.
"It's actually two of them. They're twins, Marco and Michelangelo," Bruce said and pushed a manila folder over to me.
I flipped it open and looked at their pictures on the first page. They were identical twins with black hair and dark, menacing eyes with a permanent scowl. One of them, Marco, had a cut across this eyebrow, the only distinguishing mark that made it easy to tell them apart.
"Okay, so let's pay these twins a visit then," I finally said.
“I’ll get the cars ready. What methods are we taking?" Bruce asked as he stood.
I glanced down at their information. They both were young, only twenty-eight, and fairly healthy. "Get the on-call surgeons on the phone. The black market is about to receive some organs," I said, a devilish smile pulling at my lips.
The men all grinned and filed out of the room, but Josh stayed behind. I raised an eyebrow as I studied him. He was usually the fi
rst one out the door when we were on our way to wreck havoc, but the tense look on his face and the stress shining in his eyes put me on edge.
"What's up?" I asked, cautiously standing. After learning that I had a man assigned to take me out in my ranks, I almost didn't know who I could trust anymore.
"I wanted to talk to you about the organs," he started, his eyes darting around the room.
I slipped my hands in my pockets and cocked my head. "What about them?"
Josh blew out a breath, multiple emotions flickering across his face before they disappeared. Running a hand through his dark hair, he focused his gaze on me.
"I can't bring Hannah here because she's still in the hospital," he mumbled. Tears glistened in his eyes, but he quickly wiped them away before they had a chance to fall. "The docs are saying she has a bad heart or some shit, and—"
"It's done, man," I said with a knowing nod. "You should've told me this earlier. It won't be a heart from the guys we're killing tonight, but we'll get you one."
"This is important, Bennett. I can't lose my wife, man. She's all I have. She's counting on me to get her a heart," he practically begged.
I sighed inwardly. "I know, and I understand, Josh. I'm sure you know transplants are a lot more complex than just taking someone's heart out and putting it in someone else. We don't even know if they'll match Hannah, which means her body could reject it, and it would be a waste of an organ. I promise you I'll start working on it tonight so your wife can get her transplant before the week is out. Understood?"
He nodded, wiping his eyes on the back of his sleeve. "Thanks. You can hold whatever paychecks you need to in order to pay for—"
"You risk your life every day for me. I'll always take care of those I call my family. Don't worry about it, man. I got you guys covered."
He gave me a small smile and nodded before leaving the room. I sighed. As if my to do list wasn't long enough, I added yet another task to it. I wouldn't complain about it though. My men put their lives on the line for me daily.
Unlike my father, I wouldn't leave them out to dry when things became chaotic. Everyone on my property was like family as long as they followed the rules and remained loyal. That was just the way things happened in our world. It was unfortunate that we had to lose some people due to either breaking the rules or being unloyal, but sometimes that was just how the mafia world turned.
Rules of Bennett: The Complete Collection Page 28
