Page 49 of Fast Vengeance

Nieto stepped forward and folded his arms across his chest. “Awake at last,” he said with only the barest trace of an accent. “Now you can answer my question. Where is my daughter?”

He was so fucked. His SERE training had taught him how to take a beating, but he wasn’t looking forward to that part, and he’d seen firsthand what these bastards did to their captives. His teeth clacked together despite every effort to stop shivering. He didn’t want these assholes to think he was afraid.

“S-safe in the U.S.” Where you’ll never get your filthy fucking hands on her again.

Nieto stared at him for a long moment, his expression and stance calm but his eyes fierce. An underground volcano ready to blow. “There’s not much in this world that is of any real value to me anymore, Agent Hamilton. But my daughter is the one thing I would take on hell itself to get back. Now. Where is she?”

“How the hell would I know? I’m not a fucking U.S. Marshal.” He didn’t know the WITSEC Safesite location, and even if he did, he wouldn’t tell this fuckwad where it was, not even under torture. Oceane and Tori were both there. He would rather die than jeopardize their safety in any way.

The man drew in a breath and released it on an impatient sigh. “I’m only going to give you one more chance to tell me what I need to know, and then this is going to get ugly for you. Where. Is. My. Daughter.”

Brock was pissed off enough that he wanted to stare into those cold eyes in defiance, but that was stupid. He settled for staring at the collar of Nieto’s shirt instead. There was nothing he could do to stop this next part. Nothing except bear it as best he could before they broke him. Because based on what Brock knew about them, they would keep going until they broke him.

His heart slammed against his sternum as the silence stretched out, part of him wishing they’d just get on with it already.

Nieto made a soft, scoffing sound. “Maybe you’ll feel differently after you spend some time alone with my associate here.” He said something in Spanish to the others, then spun around and walked out.

The head of security spoke to the other man in English, wanting Brock to hear it. “Don’t kill him. Yet.” He stopped at the door to flick a switch. A dim light flickered on overhead. Then he walked out too, shutting the steel door behind them with a clang that echoed up Brock’s spine.

His breathing increased as the remaining man stepped toward him. Big son of a bitch, around Brock’s size and build. He had the eyes of a killer, the gleam of anticipation in them telling Brock he fucking loved his work.

This is gonna suck. He held his body rigid, put on his game face and prayed he had the strength to take what was coming.

The man stepped around behind him. Brock’s senses were on full alert, every single sound amplified over the panting of his shallow breaths, his muscles shuddering in the freezing room.

Something metallic rattled behind him.

Chains.

A chill raced up his backbone, having nothing to do with the cold. Fuck, this was gonna be bad.

Something sliced through the bindings on his wrists. Before he even had a chance to bring his arms up, steel manacles clamped around his wrists. Ice cold. Heavy. Biting into his skin.

His heart stuttered. Broke a little as he thought of Tori in this same situation. Manacles around her wrists and ankles, cutting into her skin so deeply they had left scars. The one around her throat—

A soft clanking sound came from behind him. Rhythmic. Almost like something was being cranked or ratcheted.

The manacles tugged on his wrists, pulling them out to the sides. He resisted, but it was no use.

His arms began to rise. He immediately unlocked his fists to grip the chains, his fingers wrapping around the icy metal links.

Sucking in a deep breath, he fought to empty his mind as the mechanism raised his arms above shoulder level, extending them into the air in a V shape. Then his body began to lift from the chair as well.

He gritted his teeth and shut his eyes, fought back the wave of fear assaulting him as the manacles bit into his wrists. In SERE school he’d been taught to vocalize his pain in order to get his captors to go easier on him. He didn’t bother now, because it wouldn’t do him any good.

It didn’t matter how much he screamed in here. He couldn’t give them the information they wanted, because he didn’t know it, so their only goal was to break him. Inflict as much pain as they could and then either kill him or leave him to die as a statement to the DEA and the U.S. government.

Taggart and the others will come for you.

Even if it was just his body. That brought him a small measure of comfort. They would find him and take him home, no matter what.

God, he was glad Tori was starting her new life in the morning. He didn’t want her to ever know what had happened to him, it would rip her wide open. She’d been through enough without adding that to her burden.

The chains continued to lift him.

His ass came off the chair. His feet bore his weight for a few more precious moments. He stretched up onto his toes to prolong it, buy himself a few more seconds before the pain hit, dreading the moment when his arms would bear the full brunt of his two-hundred-ten-pound frame.

He locked his jaw as his toes left the ground and tightened his grip on the chains. He was strong, but sparing his shoulders and arms was only a temporary reprieve. In this cold, within minutes the strength in his hands and forearms would be gone, leaving only his wrists and shoulders to hold his weight.

---