Savage Little Games: Chapter 16

The next morning, by the time I finish my workout and shower, I get a text from Eli that Stevie Hudson, the guard from the Arizona warehouse that was raided, has been brought in for questioning.

The thirty-something man with thinning brown hair is already strung up from the ceiling right where Gavin was last night.

Eli assured me that the stripper wobbled out of here on his own two feet and that he would be thoroughly deterred from messing with Vanessa again.

Getting right down to business, I ask Stevie the usual warm-up question as I pace in circles around him with my hands shoved in my suit pockets. “How the fuck did you manage to avoid being killed or even seriously hurt in the unexpected raid that took out your two companions?”

“The bathroom. I was…I was in the bathroom when I heard the gunfire. I stayed there until the shooting stopped.”

“How convenient for you,” I mutter in response to his rapid response. “You didn’t think your comrades could’ve used the backup? That you should’ve done your job and protected my product?”

“I’m sorry!” he says. “P-please don’t kill me!”

The man pleads some more, but I don’t hear much of what he says. Instead of focusing on getting the truth out of him, I’m distracted, thinking about Vanessa.

Why doesn’t she want me? And why the fuck does she hate me?

It’s irritating the hell out of me. I know there are plenty of people in the world who abhor me, and I couldn’t care less what they think. But with Vanessa…

Does she hate me because I hit on her all the time when she was a cocktail waitress? Because I fucked around with all of her fellow cocktail waitresses?

Whatever it is happened before I coerced her into the agreement for Mitch’s life. He’s the one who mentioned it, as if at some point in time, she came home from work and told him she hated me. Or she said as much to him multiple times.

Trying to figure her out is impossible.

“You need me to take over?” Eli asks, interrupting my thoughts from his literal front-row seat. Other than the two Russians still restrained in chairs with duct tape over their mouths, he’s the only other witness to our question-and-answer session with Stevie.

“No. I’m sure you have your hands full already.”

“Which is preciously why I wish you would keep going. You know I can’t come until he screams a little louder.”

The former MMA fighter is still jonesing for more torture even after spending all of last night with the stripper. It’s like he can’t ever get enough of that shit. I’ve found that letting him jerk off in front of the bastards I’m interrogating and torturing makes them even more uncomfortable.

“You should ask him how he can afford that new car our guys found in his garage,” Eli says helpfully.

“Right,” I agree. “No financing, Stevie? On your measly guard salary? Who paid for the Land Rover?”

“My wife,” he lies. “My wife bought it. It’s in her name!”

“Should we bring her down here and ask her ourselves? String her up right beside you?”

“No! No, please don’t!” he begs between gasping sobs.

“Then tell me the truth or I’ll have her picked up right fucking now.”

The asshole is about to hyperventilate after my threat. He better figure out how to speak long enough to tell me the name of who paid him to fuck me over before the pain begins.

“Burn him with one of his cigarettes,” Eli suggests, breathing heavily behind me.

Sighing, I mutter, “Fine.”

Pulling out my knife from my pocket, I open it up and position the tip over the top button of his blue uniform shirt. The man wails when I slide it down the material to split it open, probably because I pressed too deep and sliced some skin. Whoops.

I then go over to the tool bench where all the man’s belongings were placed when he was brought down and searched. There, I pick up the half-empty pack of cigarettes to shake one stick out, put it between my lips, and light it with his cheap red lighter.

“Stop! Make him stop looking at me like that!” Stevie begs.

I don’t have to turn around to know that Eli is grinning at him like the psychotic bastard he is, his pants and underwear around his knees, not bothering to try and hide his hard cock he’s jerking like he’s watching the best porno ever.

“The more you scream, the closer he gets to finishing. Tell me who killed my men, your so-called friends, when they robbed my goddamn warehouse, and he’ll stop getting off on your suffering.”

It’s a lie. Eli and I both know the man isn’t leaving the room alive. Eli will either get to finish during the torture or when I take the rat’s life.

I hate that I sometimes get aroused, too, from the power play. Knowing I hold a life in my hands, a sorry son of a bitch rat or enemy’s life in my hands, and there’s nothing they can do about it, makes me hard. It’s nearly therapeutic having so much control in this chaotic world, even if it only lasts a few minutes. Vanessa would really hate me if she knew that detail.

Taking a draw from the cigarette on the way back to the waiting man, I remove it from my lips to blow out the smoke. Deciding where to start, I walk around behind him. Grabbing the hair on the top of his head, I pull it back and place the smoldering end of the cigarette on the side of his neck. It sizzles on his flesh, making him shriek.

In front of us, Eli closes his eyes, savoring the sound as his fist strokes his dick faster.

When I remove the cigarette from Stevie’s skin to take another puff, Eli’s heavy-lidded brown eyes stare at me with longing and loathing.

The once champion MMA fighter, living his dream, hates what I’ve made him—an evil bastard who lives and breathes at my whim, just like everyone else who steps into my basement dungeon. Part of him loves it, having the freedom to be as fucked up as he wants now. He just wishes his leash was a little longer. He’s lucky I let him live.

I know that I can’t force Vanessa to stay with me the way I did to Eli, giving him no other option. Butterflies were meant to fly free, not be kept selfishly trapped in a jar.

So, I’ll just have to find a way to win her over and enjoy the time we have left together before I let her go.

Why do I get the feeling that finding out who is responsible for raiding my warehouse will be easier than catching one little butterfly?

I put the cigarette back between my lips as I stroll over to the two Russians. There’s drying blood on the floor around them and bags under their bloodshot eyes. They haven’t been able to sleep or eat in two days, so they’re not long for this world.

Ripping the duct tape off the first one’s mouth, then the other, I wait until the swearing stops and then ask them, “Do either of you recognize the man hanging from the ceiling?”

Both shake their heads no.

“Never had any business dealing with him?”

Again, they deny the allegation.

“If I go back over there and he tells me you’re lying, I’ll let Eli cut your eyeballs out and fuck the sockets.”

“N-never seen him. I swear,” one replies.

The other says, “Don’t know him.”

“We’ll see,” I warn them.

Going back over to Stevie, I pull out the pocketknife I keep on me. Opening it, I place the point to the fresh burn wound, making him scream. “Do you know those two men in those chairs?”

I pull the knife blade away from his flesh so he can respond, but he keeps on sobbing.

“Oh fuck,” Eli groans. “Fuck, I’m coming!”

“Talk or he’s going to feed you every drop of his cum,” I threaten him.

“No! No! I don’t know who it was! Please! I swear!”

Homophobia can be one hell of a motivator.

“You don’t know who raided my warehouse or you don’t know who paid you to betray me?” I ask for clarification.

“Please don’t hurt my wife!” he exclaims, telling me the answer. “She doesn’t know anything!”

“Tell me everything, and I’ll spare her,” I promise. She was never going to be my victim anyway, but the promise has him confessing it all.

“Someone…I got a text with an address. The message told me to meet up last Thursday at seven-thirty, after I finished my shift at the warehouse.”

“And you went?”

“They offered me an easy fifty K. I didn’t know what they wanted until it was too late!”

“Too late for your greedy ass to return the money? Sure. Right. Who was it, Stevie?”

“I don’t know! He was standing there waiting in a long, trench coat and hat, no car. I didn’t get a name.”

“Did he have an accent? Could you tell his ethnicity?”

“I don’t know! He was just a pale white man wearing sunglasses, so I barely saw his face.”

“And what did he ask you to do for the fifty K?”

“He wanted me to text when the next shipment came in. Said I’d get another fifty after it was done.”

“Well, Stevie, was that quick hundred grand worth dying for?”

“No. I don’t want it! I’ll give it to you.”

“I don’t want your dirty money. I want the person responsible for killing two of my men and fucking robbing me!”

“I’m sorry, I’m so…so sorry.” He then starts bawling like a baby.

“We have his phone?” I ask Eli.

“Yeah,” he says while licking his hand clean. Sick bastard. When he’s done, he pulls up his pants to finally put his dick away. “IT is trying to track the texts.”

Turning back to the rat, I toss my knife in the air a few times and catch it. “Tell you what, Stevie, I’m going to let your wife keep the cash. She’ll need it when you don’t come home tonight—or ever again.”

I don’t give him a chance to respond before I bury my knife into the side of his neck down to the hilt.

Blood splatters over my jacket and button-down, drips from my hand as I jerk the knife free and let the asshole bleed out.

It’s not much justice for Mark and Eddie, the two men who lost their lives to his greed. I’ll make sure their wives get twice as much as the rat’s.

“You’re gonna have your hands full again this afternoon,” I tell Eli.

“Three bodies will take all fucking night for me to bury,” he complains.

“Why don’t you swing by and pick up your new stripper friend? Make him help. Two shovels are better than one.”

“You really want me to show Gavin the dead men and where we bury them?”

“Yes. With a gun to his head if necessary. Then video him digging holes to use for blackmail. I think they’ll be a bigger deterrent for him to stay away from Vanessa.”

“Fine.”

Ready to get this over with, I head for the two Russians. I’m halfway to them when Eli calls out, “Hey, Dante?”

“Yeah?” I ask over my shoulder.

“I, ah, need to tell you what was dug up on Gavin.”

“Yeah?”

“The stripper’s had a crush on Vanessa for a while.”

That brings me up short. Turning to face him again, I say, “And? How do you know?”

“He’s not a fan of Mitch’s, and he’s friends with Kozlov’s girls.”

“You’re saying he had something to do with running up the debt?”

“He offered the girls fentanyl if they baited him into fucking. Wanted Mitch to think it was a freebie while adding it to his tab.”

“Holy shit.”

“Four of them took him up on the offer. Crazy, right?”

“Vanessa is going to lose her shit. That fucker is the reason they hurt her!” I exclaim while pointing at the Russians.

“Gavin’s only responsible for about twenty-five percent of the debt Mitch owed. The rest was all on him gambling on shit.”

“Good to know. You got proof?”

“Talked to two of the girls myself this morning.”

“You’ve been busy,” I remark. “Take tomorrow off after you finish cleaning up this mess.”

“Hell, yes,” he replies with a smile.

Turning back to the Russians, I use what’s left of one of their shirts to clean the bloody knife in my hand before pocketing it again. This suit is fucked anyway.

Then, I pull out my gun from my holster, putting one bullet in each of the asshole’s heads.