Page 91 of Whispers of Fire

So I torture all day and it’s becomin’ a fuckin’ slaughter house in here.

Fucked up way to keep me here, but Ares doesn’t want me out of the building until Sunday. So I take out my anger and frustration on the piece of shit I’ve been given to interrogate in the basement, making Carter almost seem like a saint compared to me. I’ve cut and skinned more men recently than I did in the last few years. And I haven’t had enough, the beast in me won’t be satisfied until I can get out and find my girl.

The worst part is I have no idea if she still trusts me to come get her.

She must think I played with her, and now she must be fuckin’ scared and hopeless, thinkin’ I abandon her.

I thought about bribing a prospect to get to her, but I couldn’t take the risk of Ares findin’ out and having a talk with Skarn. Won’t risk gettin’ her hurt.

So I made a plan. A plan where I can kill Skarn and take my angel with me at the same moment. It’s risky, each second will matter to save her life, but that’s all I have to get to her without the threat of Skarn above her.

I’ll come get her on her wedding day, and I’ll kill any men standing in my way to get to her.

I’m fuckin’ exhausted, my body drained mentally and physically from the lack of sleep and the amount of torture sessions I’ve given. Ares knows it, that’s his way of keeping me here, dull and too exhausted to try to escape.

He knows it each time he comes downstairs, resting his hand on my shoulder.

“Good job, Vox, good fuckin’ job,” he says, before patting my arm like a fuckin’ dog “You’re doing great, keep it up.” And then he leaves again, leaving me alone with Carter and ten blindfolded guys on their knees, some of them even pissing themselves from fear.

All I want is to ride at night and watch her sleep, but even that I can’t do. And without my phone, I can’t even watch her through the camera I’ve put in her room.

I’m like an addict searchin’ for his next fix, my hands shaking from frustration each time I think of my angel. I need her to trust me on this and not give up. I’ll be there, but she has to stay strong and not give up on me, on us.

The only thing I got time to do before heading into the basement three weeks ago was call my banker to set up an account in her name with enough dough to pay for college if she needs it, or for whatever she wants to try.

I never want her to bother about that kind of thing.

I’ll take care of it, whether I’m still alive or not, whether I manage to get out of here and save her.

I've given the envelope to Ash with all the information in it, including bank codes and my will, where I've set her as the beneficiary of all my assets. I grew up without money but now I am flooded with it, and I want her to achieve anythin’ she wants. She'll get the money from my house and from four other flats I own in the city.

She'll have enough to start fresh.

I didn't write anything on the envelope when I gave it to the kid, just told him that in case something happens to me, he would have to find her and give it to her. Somehow, he didn't ask for more, maybe he sensed it was too serious to joke on, so he took it, and I know I can trust him to not open it if it's not necessary. He's a good kid.

This was all I was able to do before working with Carter at the warehouse. I’m so fuckin’ tired I can hear a pounding in my head. But there's still a lot of guys to finish before dawn so I'll get back to work.

It's been a strange few weeks for Carter. He's usually doin’ his thing, focusing on his victims like an artist at his canvas, but this time I sense his gaze on me much more often than it should be. He’s watching me, expecting me to flee at any moment.

Ares told him to never let me leave the club. Hence why I’m gonna need a plan to get the fuck out of here on Sunday morning, knowing the whole club will be on my back.

But it’s either this or my angel gets given to a fuckin psycho and I won’t have it.

Better have a bullet in my skull than know she is stuck in a miserable life with no future.

I fuckin’ hate that I have to lie to my brothers, but I keep hopin’ they’ll understand once it’s done. The price to pay for disobeyin’ a prez is usually death; there’s no way around it in the dark world I’m livin’ in.

I’ll get her out, even if it costs me my life. At least I'll die knowing I’ve protected my angel.

Cleanin’ my bloody hands in the sink of the basement with one guy still tryin’ to fight his incoming death, hung by the wrists at the ceiling, I turn my head to face him.

Carter cut his throat a minute ago, but he didn’t cut deep enough like the fuckin’ sadist he is, so the guy can literally feel himself die.

I keep drying my hands while I watch his body fighting with all he has. Funny how you can become desensitized to those sorts of things after a while. I know Carter gets pleasure from it but to me it’s just, well, my job. In the same way I do the accounts upstairs in my office, but here it’s just more physically draining, that’s all. It’s messy, and I’m not a fan of messes, so I just keep going, staying in the flow of things, and get to the next guy who’s lying on the floor in the corner of the room.

We drug them to make them loose sense of where they are, and also cause I was getting a fuckin’ headache from hearing them begging for hours.

My sleeves are pushed up to the elbows, my tattooed forearms covered in blood even after trying to wash them.

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