Page 149 of Tempt Me (Dark Odyssey 4)

The official reason for closure was down to lack of funding. The unofficial was actually because of the unsavory practices that went on within the walls. Lobotomies were just the start of the type of things doctors would do to prisoners who displayed any form of mental health condition. In the end I imagined that the doctors were the psychos looking for any excuse to carry out their experiments.

The shutdown of this joint opened up the door for other types of psychos like Ilya.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard of the place being used by criminals of the underground. It certainly won’t be the last.

As I walk through the rusty front gates with my heart beating so wildly in my chest and my nerves on end, I pray for the first time that Marguerite’s pleas to the Lord will help me.

It’s the first time I’ve turned my sights that way because I get the feeling that I’m going to need miracles in abundance.

Two guards come through the large wooden doors that would have been the entrance to the main reception.

Two more come out carrying guns. They aim them at me, then Dmitri steps out with a smug-as-fuck expression. Asshole. I hope I put a fucking bullet in his head before the day is out.

Fucker… look at him. He’s got a bright smile on his face and is looking at me like he has me right where he wants me. I hope I’ll get a minute with him, any of them. They all hurt Ava. Him though… it was him she looked at the most on the night of the party. She glanced at Yuri, but Dmitri terrified her.

“Hello,Boss,” he mocks.

I’m not going to entertain his conversation with any kind of pleasantries.

“Cut the shit. Take me to Ilya.”

“Wow, testy, testy. You really are a prick.”

“Yes, I am.” It’s important I stop talking to him now. I don’t want to lose my shit and blow my chances. That rage inside me, though, is hard to calm in this shit storm.

“Search him,” Dmitri orders, and the guards start searching me with a pat down on my sides to make sure I’m not carrying any weapons. As if I would be that stupid.

I don’t know who would be. When we enter shit situations like this, the enemy’s weapons are what we look to take the first chance we get.

My weapons are going to literally be whatever I can get my hands on when the fights starts and the bullets fly.

That’s when the guys—my backup—will come.

That’s what I hope for, anyhow.

I don’t actually know how it will all go down. Or if I’ll make it out with Timothy and Ava.

Satisfied that I’m not a prick with any weapon concealed up my ass, Dmitri calls off his dogs and they nudge me forward to go inside the building.

It smells old and unused. It has been decommissioned for the last twenty years or so.

These guys look comfortable, though, like they’ve been here awhile. It’s not uncommon to use a place like this that’s supposed to be derelict for other purposes if you want to do things under wraps.

I just pray that the surveillance is as we think it is.

I left Christian and Georgiou on it. Christian assured me that the place is as Claudius said it was. The older section of the building has no surveillance, so that’s we’re my guys will be coming up. The section with the surveillance is where Christian will be hacking into and should be in there now.

“Vincent,” he says in the earpiece I’m wearing. I at least have that to take some comfort in. I walk on like I can’t hear him. “Brace yourself. What you’re about to see is not good.”

Holy shit. Fuck… I wish he would tell me more than that.

“The guys are on the way, Vincent,” Christian says in my ear. “They’re in the building making their way to you. Hang tight.”

Hang tight? My thoughts of where they are, are stolen away. I’m not left wondering for too long about what shit I’ll have to face.

I’m led into a massive courtyard, and my gaze lands on what’s ahead of me. Off in the distance are Timothy and Ava, about twenty feet apart.

Timothy is in a glass tank. He’s standing on a stump and tied up to a pole. Water starts to fill the tank. He’s crying and screaming.

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