Wasden opened his mouth to speak but I gave a swift shake of my head. This appeared to stun him and I took the opportunity to fish a handkerchief from my jacket pocket, the piece of material serving as an effective gag as I slowly fed the entire thing into his mouth, watching his eyes bulge as he struggled to draw breath.
I didn’t speak immediately, choosing to let the stark silence of the room work its magic. Many gangster-type films would choose this moment—the prey incapacitated, at the mercy of its predator—to insert a long-winded spiel; an explanation as to how they had come to be in this situation, and what was to happen as a result.
That wasn’t how it worked in real life. If I was going to shoot someone in the kneecap, I wouldn’t tell them. Why give them the chance to defend themselves or to move. No, for the prey, the fear of the unknown was much more effective.
The sound of my shoes echoed around the sparse room as I moved toward a lone filing cabinet, right in Wasden’s line of sight. His eyes tracked my movement as I opened the top drawer, reaching in slowly. Wasden struggled against his binds, screaming against the cotton in his mouth, the sound muffled and pitiful. A small chuckle left my lips as I drew out a bottle of scotch, raising it to him and unscrewing the lid before taking a deep slug. Tossing the cap to the floor, I made my way toward him, reaching out to pull a discarded chair across the room, watching Brock flinch as the metal scraped against the concrete, only stopping when I placed it in front of Wasden, about a foot from where he sat slumped in his seat. I took a seat and let my eyes wander over him as I took another drink, using my free hand to loosen my tie. His clothes were stained, the white of his shirt yellow and torn, his pants spattered with what looked like mud. At least, I assumed it was mud. His hair was in disarray. Thick clumps of hair matted with blood stuck out from the side of his head. I snapped my fingers and his eyes came to mine, the iris almost disappearing into the bloodshot whites.
“How do you know where Tess lives?” Dad asked.
I pulled the cloth from his lips. “I have no idea where Tess lives.”
Dad nodded toward Ray. “Lies,” he said simply. “He needs to understand that the truth is his only ticket out of here.”
He looked down and Ray and asked if he wanted to change his answer. Brock gave a sharp crack of his knuckles and I got a good look at Ray’s face. Looking at it, I was shocked he was willing to still tell us lies. There was a nasty gash above one of his eyebrows; the other eye was swollen shut. His lip was split in two different places and when I glanced farther down, I noticed his arm sat at an awkward angle, even when held by the ties. It didn’t look broken, but I didn’t need a medical degree to know that his shoulder was no longer sitting in its socket.
Brock drew back and threw a quick punch to his other eye.
Dad pulled out another chair and rested his foot on it, using his thigh as an armrest. I waited for him to keep asking Ray questions, but he didn’t. Instead, he stood there silently. Waiting.
“Isn’t there anything else you want to know?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “This is your show, you run it. I’m just here to watch.”
“Fair enough.” I turned back to Wasden. “Let’s try this again. How do you know where Tess’s new apartment is?”
No answer.
The cracking sound and the howling scream that followed let me know that Charlie’s punch had broken a few ribs.
“One more time,” I said. “How did —”
He spat on the floor, the red liquid pooling at his feet, his teeth stained as he admitted, “I followed her home from school one day.”
“You followed her home and decided to stop by and knock her around a bit?”
“Knock her around a bit?” His eyes went wide. “I didn’t touch her, I swear.”
“Are you telling me you figured out where she lived for no reason?”
“I was going to kidnap her.”
This time it was my fist that flew directly into his lip, splitting the other side for good measure. “Why the fuck were you going to kidnap her?”
“Because she’s mine,” he panted, an evil smile playing at the edge of his lips despite his precarious situation. He really was a dumb fuck.
Dean’s foot shot straight into his balls. He tried to hunch over, to protect them from the pain, but Brock wouldn’t let him go.
“I think you need a reminder about the last time we had a conversation about that. Why didn’t you kidnap her?”
“The guys who I hired ran off with my fucking money. When I get my hands—”
Dad stood up straight. “You won’t be getting your hands on anyone for a while, if ever again.”