Page 39 of Ginger

I leaned closer, close enough to smell the sour whiskey on his breath.

"Does the name Ginger mean anything to you?"

His body went rigid beneath my boot. Even in the dim light, I could see the blood drain from his face. He knew. Of course he knew.

"Your niece," I continued, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "The little girl you were supposed to protect after her parents died. The little girl you abused for years instead."

He tried to shake his head, to deny it, but Bronx tightened his grip, those massive fingers digging into Martin's cheeks hard enough to leave bruises.

"Don't bother lying," I said. "She told me everything. Every. Fucking. Detail."

Around us, the sparse living room seemed to pulse with the weight of unspoken horrors. A broken television sat in one corner, its screen cracked. Faded curtains hung limply from a crooked rod. Empty beer cans formed an aluminum monument on a scarred coffee table. This room had witnessed so much, absorbed so many screams, and now it would witness Martin's reckoning.

"We're going to have a conversation, you and I," I said, nodding to Bronx, who adjusted his grip to allow Reed to speak but still kept him restrained. "And you're going to tell me exactly what you did to her. Every time you touched her. Every man you sold her to for an hour, a night, or even a week. Every nightmare you created."

"I don't know what she told you," Martin gasped when Bronx loosened his grip slightly, "but she's always been a liar. Always making up stories—"

My fist connected with his jaw before he could finish the sentence. His head snapped back, and blood sprayed from his split lip.

"Wrong answer," I said, wiping his blood from my knuckles onto his wifebeater. "Try again."

Martin's body trembled beneath my boot, not just from fear but from the beginning stages of alcohol withdrawal. How convenient that we'd caught him between benders.

"Please," he whimpered. "I don't know what you want—"

Bronx's turn. His massive fist crashed into Martin's stomach, driving the air from his lungs in a pained whoosh.

"We want the truth," Bronx growled, his normally quiet voice harsh in the dim room. "And we're going to get it one way or another."

I looked around the room, taking in the details of Martin's miserable existence. The scattered remnants of fast food meals. The overflowing ashtrays. The stains on the walls that might have been food or might have been something worse. This was a place where hope came to die, where innocence was sacrificed on the altar of one man's perversions.

"We can do this all night," I said, reaching down to grip Martin's thinning hair, forcing him to look at me. "Or we can move this conversation somewhere more private. Your choice."

His eyes darted toward the front door, toward windows too small for escape. The desperate calculation of a trapped animal.

"No one's coming to save you," I said, correctly reading his thoughts. "No one even knows we're here. No one will hear you scream."

That broke him. I saw the moment his resistance crumbled, replaced by the recognition of his inevitable fate. His body went limp beneath my boot, his eyes dulling with resignation.

"There's a basement," he mumbled through bloodied lips. "Door in the kitchen."

I nodded to Bronx, who hauled Martin to his feet with one powerful movement. Reed swayed, unsteady from the blows and the alcohol still in his system.

"Lead the way," I said, pressing the tip of my knife against the small of his back. "And remember—we're just getting started."

As we forced him toward the kitchen and the basement door beyond, I thought of Ginger. Of how she flinched at sudden movements. Of the scars on her wrists from failed suicide attempts. Of the night terrors that left her screaming and clawing at phantom hands. I thought of her tears soaking through my shirt as she finally told me the truth about her uncle.

And I knew that whatever happened next, it would never be enough to balance the scales. But it would be a start.

The basement welcomed us with damp air and darkness so thick it felt like another presence in the room. Bronx shoved Martin down the creaking wooden stairs, not bothering to catch him when he stumbled and fell the last few steps. I found the light switch, and a single bare bulb flickered to life from the ceiling, swinging slightly on its cord and casting moving shadows that made the concrete walls seem to breathe. Perfect. No windows. No neighbors to hear through the concrete foundation. Just us, Martn, and all the time in the world to extract his confession.

Martin lay at the bottom of the stairs, whimpering as he tried to push himself up from the stained concrete floor. Blood trickled from his nose where he'd face-planted after Bronx's shove. The basement was surprisingly large—probably spanning the entire footprint of the house above—but mostly empty except for a rusted water heater, some broken shelving, what looked like an old workbench pushed against one wall, and the one thing that made my stomach twist — an old stained mattress with shackles bolted to the wall above it.

"Get him in the chair," I said, nodding toward a metal folding chair leaning against the wall, half hidden by the shelf. Bronx grabbed it, set it up in the center of the room directly under the swinging bulb, then hauled Martin up by his armpits and slammed him down onto it.

I circled them both, taking in our surroundings more carefully now. The concrete floor sloped slightly toward a drain in the center—convenient. Dark stains marked the area around the drain. I wondered briefly if we weren't the first to use this space for an interrogation, but the thought slipped away as I focused on the task at hand.

"Zip ties," I said, holding out my hand. Bronx pulled several from his back pocket and passed them over. I secured Martin's wrists to the arms of the chair, then his ankles to the legs. Not tight enough to cut off circulation—not yet—but enough to hold him securely.

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