TRENT

Turner, answer me, brother. Where are you? my mind screams. Every part of me wants to ask these fuckers where he is. If I do, they’ll taunt me with his whereabouts, and I’ll be surrounded with more guilt than I already have inside of my heart not being able to help him.

A thickness of dread lodges in my throat when the tip of a whip slices through my jeans and snakes around my ankles. The pain isn’t sharp like the wound from being shot years ago. It burns in a circle around my skin worse than what I imagine scalding hot water would feel like.

I can’t see the men who are attacking me as. They barged in here and threw something over my head, then one of them grabbed me from behind, loosened the chains, cuffed my hands, and chained me to something on the wall.

They're trying to torture me with pain. It isn’t working. They fail to see that watching him beat Tara until her unmoving body fell to the floor brings more pain than any amount they inflict on me.

The pain eating away at me now, though, wouldn’t be so bad if I had use of my hands. Hell, they would be dead if I did. I hate pussy-ass motherfuckers who don’t fight like real men. Hands, fists, feet, and the feeling of someone’s flesh being torn by your own deadly paws is a much greater reward to a man like me than this shit, but never raise them to a woman. Especially my woman.

Now, as I sit here taking their wrath, I can’t help but wonder if he’s forcing her to watch what they're doing to me. Christ, I could see how strong she was when she stood up to him. Pride rang through my chest as I squinted to try and read her lips through the screen. It cuts me deeper than every slice to my skin that I’m down here, while she’s lying on that floor where I can’t help her either.

The chaos in my mind is at an all-time high, and I can’t help but wonder if they are doing this to my brother, too. He’s the good part of my soul, and God help these men if they hurt him. He’s been through enough.

“Is that all you got?” I tempt. Baring my teeth and waiting for the hiss of the whip through the air. I’ll keep dishing out digs until one of them talks. I need fucking answers.

Motherfucking bitch, I inwardly hiss when the whip cracks across my inner thigh and blood coats my jeans.

“You are one tough asshole, you know that? You should see yourself. The bottoms of your feet are coated in blood. You're going to die with scars all over you.” Do they really think I give a shit if I die?

“I’m not dead yet, you pussy. Where’s your boss? Get his Goddamn ass down here. Or is he scared to take on a man? We all know he is. All of you are,” I seethe. Gritting my teeth and wishing like hell I had something to bite into. The whip whooshes again and lands right across my chest, and I hear my blood boil when it hits the air.

A fist connects with my cheek; I’m sure that was for calling them a pussy, but the knock that does me in, the one that has me seeing stars is the solid kick to my balls. At first, there is no feeling whatsoever, and within seconds, I feel them shrink up and shoot straight up my spine. I bite my tongue; the red-hot blood tastes vile. I cough, gag, and I heave, spitting it out with what little bit of saliva I have in my mouth. “Fuck.” The pain explodes, igniting my entire midsection in hellfire. Burning, incapacitating pain, somewhere between horrible cramps and having my organs scrambled and crushed.

“Now who's the pussy?” they sneer and taunt. I couldn’t tell you who is who anymore with the ringing in my ears and the need to catch my Goddamn breath.

“I’ll let you take that title,” I cough out. Throat burning as I gulp for air. There is too much going on inside of my head. I can’t abandon one over the other. Both of them are right there in front of my face, and I’m stuck here unable to save them. Motherfucker. That is the worst kind of suffering. The not knowing.

That's when the tears drop inside of me. My brain connects with my past. I'm a kid getting beat with a belt or a willow switch once again. So I try doing what I did when my father would go on a drunken rage. I try to think about my mother. Only the familiar faces whip violently in a way that is more traumatic than just about any beating I’ve endured before. All I see is Tara, Clove, and my brother, all of them standing there with a whip in their hands. Each one of them is striking out and laughing as the whip snaps in their wrists and connects with my body.

My arms scream in disapproval, and my head feels like it wants to break itself free from my neck within seconds. All of this combined with the shortness of breath from the strikes to my feet and legs means I’m in so much pain I couldn’t tell anyone what spot hurts more than the other.

My heart hurts more than anything. It’s so heavy and full of guilt that it’s bleeding.

I shake my head to try and get my hair out of my eyes. A lot of good it will do when I can’t see, anyway. I swallow down the knowledge that I’m going into shock and push my large frame up against the wall. I may be sitting on my fucking ass because that’s how they want me, but I won’t give them the satisfaction of taking this agony back to their boss. They can beat me until I’m raw, yet they will not hear me beg.

“No, motherfucker, that wasn’t all we got. We have a lot planned for you and for her. So much more. I have something for your pain if you want it. You need to answer a question first. You’ll get it depending on your answer,” one of them speaks from my left.

“Here’s a question for you. Where’s my brother, you motherfuckers? He doesn’t have a thing to do with this.” I hold on to that thought on the tip of my tongue with the love I have for both him and my mother. I refuse to believe Turner would work alongside a man like Luciano to make me pay for the sins I’ve committed. My brother is a good man. Self-righteous and loves his family more than he hates me to jeopardize the good in his life. He would never stand by and allow a man to strike a woman down. Me on the other hand, he would gladly take hold of the handle and beat me to death.

One of the men murmurs something to the other. Pulls my hood off and shines a light on my face. I can’t see a fucking thing. I smell him, though. The hunger he has to kill me.

“Do you know anyone from the FBI?” he spits out as if I should. I don’t, and I’m a loyal man even if I did.

I try to breathe slowly and deeply to keep calm even though everything inside of me is trying to suffer through the pain. I haven’t a Goddamn clue why they would ask me that.

However, these assholes have given me something to go on. Someone has betrayed their almighty leader. But who and why and what in the fuck this has to do with me is what I’d love to know.

I expect them to keep on with their interrogation, but they don’t. One of them pulls my legs forward, while the other tips my head back, and before I can suck in a breath, I hear the sloshing of water. Fear like I’ve never felt before grabs hold of me when the freezing cold hits my face. The excruciating sting is indescribable. My brain freezes, and my eyes bulge and shut. Lids sticking to my eyeballs. Fucking hell, now this is suffering. The numbing burns, and the stinging is enough to make me pass the hell out.

And I think I do black out for a few seconds. I’m woken with a kick to my face. My nose crunching. Damn it.

Someone hollers out an order. I can’t hear it over the water filling my ears. There’s a bustle of activity, and then someone grabs me by the hair, sits me upright, and bitch slaps me across my face.

Yeah, that one might have just pissed me off worse than the kick to my balls. Fuckers.

I tell myself it wouldn’t be this bad if I knew where Turner was. If I weren’t traveling through hell already wondering if they were doing this to him, or if the little bit of doubt I have that he could be partially behind this isn’t driving me insane. “Turner, are you here?” I cough his name out, jerk my head out of the man’s grasp, and shake the water from my hair.

I swear on all things holy my beard has icicles stuck to it. Jesus fucking Christ, is it cold.

“Where is my brother, you crazy sons of bitches?” Goddamn it. I can’t hold it in anymore. I need to know, need to hear his voice. I glance into the light and gasp for air. My nose is burning. My lungs are constricting as death stares me in the face. These men are high on the adrenaline of doing this. The difference between them and me is I would have killed me by now and moved the fuck on.

“You dumb fucks don’t know a thing about torturing someone. It takes a strong man to sustain it, while a weak one, like the two of you, would make up anything to get them to stop. Squeal like a motherfucking pig. You fuck this up, and he’ll kill you, won’t he? You come back with nothing from me, and you are both dead men. The FBI has something on you, don’t they? You are all going down, and it’s scaring the piss out of you.” Luciano doesn’t want me dead. Not yet, anyway. He wants me to suffer before he takes my life.

“No one is going down but you. You're going straight down to hell. I bet it’s killing you wondering if Tara is okay. The knot in your stomach is tightening by the second. It’s driving you insane not knowing if she’s dead. Maybe we should tell him what Luciano has planned for him,” the one shining the light on my face says. Both of them ignore my pleas about Turner, which leads me to believe they know nothing, or else his presence was a figment of my imagionation.

“Advice, boys. You better run, because if it’s the FBI after you, they won’t give up, and prison isn’t any fun for pretty boys.”

I’ll suffer through whatever they do to me to see that I make it out of here alive and save the people I love. War will be declared on any person who dared to touch Tara, and if I find out Turner is here and they laid a hand on him, Clove, or their kids, I will make them wish they weren’t born by the time I’m through with them.

Shit, Clove. If they have him, then Clove has to be going out of her mind. They have both suffered enough by my hands. I won’t be able to come back from this if something happens to any of them. I’ll die from that and not this. Turner might hate me, but I don’t hate him. I love him as much as a brother should. I wish daily things could have been different, and before I met Tara, I would have given up my freedom for him to hear him say he forgives me just one time. One time is all I need to pull the last bit of me from hell.

It won’t ever happen, and up until I heard his voice a little bit ago, I told myself I could live with it. It’s a choice I don’t have. A choice I made when I thought I could be him. There is so much of my past life that will forever be a hell for my soul, and yet there is much more waiting in my future; and that is what I have to fight and hang on for.