Page 71 of What I Should Have Done

Double shit considering I was lying on a metal table.

A malicious grin spread across his face and he tipped the baton forward.

With a crackle, the rod connected with the metal table.

Electricity jolted through me. My back arched off the table as the tendrils of lightning splintered beneath my skin. Every nerve in my body roared with a kaleidoscope of energy shearing like a knife through me, weaving a tapestry of burning warmth and icy claws.

A garbled cry split my throat as the fierce crescendo surged with the force of a tempest. It was as if the very essence of vitality surged through me, a wild, untamed energy pulsing freely with its electrifying embrace reminding me just how fragile my mortal life was. My senses roared with agony. Surging with every tick crackling from the taser.

I groaned, straining against every muscle tensing beneath the fiery current. And as quickly as it came, the electricity fled my body. “What will…” I paused, trying to coax my vocal cords to work again. “Karim al-Jabari say… When he finds out…” I gasped, panting for breath as the fibers in my body twitched with lingering current. Everything was warm.

And I’d never been so tired before.

“Who?” my captor asked.

I blinked through the hazy blur, and flopped my head toward him. “Karim al-Jabari. You know, the man who hired you?” Every word felt like a cheese grater on my throat.

He fervently shook his head, the blood between his legs slowing. “I don’t work with terrorists. Like I already told you, I don’t come here often, and that’s why.”

My neck twitched, straining against the involuntary contraction of muscle. “Wait, what?” I coughed, stretching my trembling fingers out. “Then who…who hired you?” Cotton coated my tongue, muffling the enunciation of every letter.

The man smiled, that same sickening one that sent another jolt of shivers and current down my spine. “He didn’t give me a name.”

“Then…Then how do you know it wasn’t al-Jabari?”

“Because Karim is rather distracted with what your team has been up to lately. He doesn’t have the time to hire me for some simple kidnapping so one of his soldiers can come in and rescue the damsel in distress.” He gingerly pried his hand away from his junk.

“Wait, that’s what this is about? Someone hired you so they could come and simply be a hero and rescue me?” My stomach dropped.

He nodded but said nothing as he prodded at his dick that had mostly stopped bleeding.

“Who?”

“Someone who has 500,000 US dollars, kitten,” he replied with a wicked grin and stepped toward me. “Now, should we try this again? Or will you need to be taught another lesson?”

I narrowed my gaze at him and lifted my chin. “If you try to get your dick anywhere near me again, I’ll bite the entire fucking thing off this time,” I snarled.

And Merlin slapped the baton against the edge of the table.

Chapter 25

SCOTTIE

Coughing, the cotton remained lodged in my throat as he pulled the taser baton away for a fourth time. “I’m surprised…your dick still works,” I hissed through gritted teeth. He hadn’t successfully shoved it back into my mouth yet, as the blood flowing from his wounds seemed to hinder him.

“Why this man thinks you’re worth it, beats me,” he snarled. I glanced at him as he deeply inhaled and then looked at the ceiling. Calm fell over him like a blanket fresh from the dryer.

And then he casually placed the baton against the metal table again.

Clouded within the merciless tendrils of fire and ice that ripped through my veins, a cascading numbness slipped onto my nerves. And somehow I was floating above my body, watching as my muscles contracted, contorting my own figure as if possessed. But for whatever reason, I no longer felt it.

Maybe a few sharp pricks of that ethereal power caressed my cells, but the moment the agony split through the surge, I was once again disconnected from reality.

My thoughts drifted. Caging the pain into a small box in the corner of my mind, I slipped away. Back to the simple moments that I once shared with Mikey. I was getting rather annoyed with my own mind, constantly swimming my ponderings back to him. But there he was, with that stupid, cocky smile watching me. Protecting me. Pulling me away from agony.

As piercing as the jolts of lightning crackling through my veins, his eyes studied me. They were endless. All consuming. Full of life that I wanted to drown in. Hidden deep within the pain and rage that fueled him, lay a gentle soul begging for love.

Closing my eyes, exhaustion crept into my bones as the flooding electricity dimmed. I clung to the brief break that I was afforded, letting it fuel me with adrenaline and dissociation from the absolute torture my body was enduring. I had to make it through. I had to survive.

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