Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
“Ah, good. He’s coming around,” a deep voice said in the distance. Or maybe it was closer. I couldn’t be sure with the thumping against my skull that felt like something was trying to split it open.
I fought to get the heavy weight off my eyelids, but when I tried to move a hand, I couldn’t. Going still, I took stock of my body. My wrists were tied together and over my head. I tried to free them, but I hissed at the burn, as if they’d been wrapped in a hot brand that seared my skin.
Tearing my eyes open, I had to immediately squint from the fluorescent light. I heard the sound coming from my chest as I tried to speak through the thudding in my head. Where was I?
Focusing on one thing at a time, I located a person. My vision cleared enough for me to make out the face.
He’d come to my door. I opened it. There had been two of them.
I swung my eyes over to find the other one. Where had they taken me? How?
The lack of windows with only concrete walls didn’t bode well.
“Like I was saying, you made an error,” one of them said.
I struggled to fight through the pain taking over my brain so I could focus on who was talking.
“Where—” the word came out like a croak. Saying more made the shitstorm in my head worse.
“Where isn’t your concern. The why I’ll share with you,” the same voice told me.
I could almost place it. The name was hovering, just out of reach.
“Saylor,” he said.
Hearing her name brought things together. Gave me a fight and purpose. Ignoring what felt like shards of metal being shot between my eyes, I stared at the man. It was Gathe.
“That got your attention,” he drawled. “Glad you could come around. I’d like you awake for story time. You can moan and plead for your life while we torture you until you die later.”
I said nothing in response as I watched him. Things were slowly coming back to my addled brain. The Southern Mafia. I lifted my eyes to see my arms bound at the wrists, hanging from a pulley in the ceiling.
“You hurt our girl. She’d already been hurt. The last heartbreak we couldn’t get retaliation for. There was no way to get vengeance. But you…well, that’s a different story, isn’t it, Father?”
I could tell them. Speak up. Explain. The sadistic gleam in the pair of eyes boring into me, however, told me they might not care what I had to say. I remained quiet. Waited.
“What? No pleading for your life? Begging me to understand?”
The grin on his face was one that I was sure sent chills down spines. Not mine. There was nothing he could do to me that would rival the torment I had already suffered. Pain I’d inflicted on myself.
Gathe took a step toward me, sheer loathing seething from his sneer.
“Might want to wait before you start with the torture. That is, if you want him alert for the first part,” the other one said.
Gathe stopped and glared at me while he turned his head to the side, cracking it.
“You’re right. Let’s start with eight-year-old Saylor,” he said, and then a softer smile came over his face. “You’ve never seen a little girl any prettier. You think those blue eyes and dimples are something now. Well, on little Saylor, they were fucking adorable. I was ten, but, damn, I was sure she was the prettiest thing ever created.”
He walked over to the other guy…Than. His name slowly came back to me. He held out a hand, and Than put a cigarette in it, letting my imagination picture Saylor at eight. A warmth spread through the pain at the thought.
“That,” he began as he lit the cigarette with the lighter, then handed it back to Than, “was the year they told her about her dad’s Parkinson’s disease. It didn’t really sink in for her because her dad was larger than life. He had always been her hero. Nothing could ever harm her because no one was stronger than her daddy.
“We were all kids, but I’d heard the adults whispering. I had known, but I didn’t know it was gonna go downhill so fast. It did. He began to change. He was weak. Saylor watched this man who she believed was invincible start to stumble when he walked. Then, his speech became difficult, and the tremors came. Her smile was less bright. She cried more, worried about her dad. Was scared to stay overnight at one of our houses, like she used to, in case something happened to her dad.
“Fia, her older sister, was a teenager and not as affected as Saylor. She’d known since his diagnosis, and she wasn’t a big comfort. More wrapped up in her own world.