Page 116 of Twisted Revelations

56

Beverly

Luke pushed the double metal doors open and assisted me out of the room, leaving Dax and Laura inside. They’d picked up the reins of the torturers while Luke’s concern was taking care of me.

Normally, I’d be the voice of reason. The old me would have attempted to talk Dax and Laura out of doing to Luis what he’d done to me, but my compassion refused to answer my call at this moment.

It was heaven on earth to get a steady flow of oxygen into my lungs. I’d never experienced anything so horrific in my life, fighting to breathe, chasing after air, when there was nothing there but water. I’d fought for my life, knowing I didn’t have any hope of saving myself.

Breathing water, choking, and suffocating as your lungs and nasal passages are being burned from the inside out was the best I could describe the sensation.

I assumed I was tough because I’d grown up in an area where death sat and waited for you with open arms. By twelve-years-old, I’d witnessed more dead bodies on the streets of my neighborhood than some doctors saw during their whole careers. Therefore, I was no stranger to the chill of death as it lurked and crept up on the unsuspecting.

Today was different. Today, I’d come face to face with the faceless demon. The hands of death had gripped me, dragged me, and pulled at my soul. Death was right there on that table with me, waiting until my body gave up the fight, until my lungs burned into flames, and my heart exploded in my chest.

Luke had rescued me in the nick of time. Anymore and I believed they would have succeeded in killing me by inducing a heart attack, stroke, or suffocation. One of those three was seconds from taking me out. I’d been waterboarded, a form of torture I’d only witnessed in films. But, unlike the movies, no one could fully comprehend the experience unless they’d been through it.

I’d expected the men to threaten me with curse words, beat me, or cut me even. Now, I knew without a doubt that DG6 would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. When Regina told us about the farm, I’d been wrong to assume I understood what she’d gone through. Now, I had a visual and a physical understanding of the hell she’d been living in for three years.

Luis’s screams followed Luke and me as we exited the cellar. The fact that Dax and Laura were torturing him gave me a sick sense of pleasure I didn’t deny myself. He’d been the one to suggest my punishment to the others. He’d stood proudly aiming the hose at my face as he glared down at me, enjoying my pleading desperation.

After a hair-raising half hour, Dax and Laura emerged from the cellar and looked as though they’d just had explosive sex rather than having just tortured someone to death. Smoke from what I assumed was the incinerator billowed into the darkness. I was starting to understand why Laura had allowed Dax into her world over any of the hundreds of other men who had failed to get her attention.

She and Dax were cut from the same cloth. Dax was a quiet storm that released his anger through death and torture. Laura was a roaring thunderstorm, but like Dax, she had anger issues, and now death and torture were a way I believed she released it.

Since we’d managed to kill the crew that had snatched us from the interstate and dragged us to this farm, Dax and Luke discussed plans for clean-up as Luke called it.

“I’ve already made the call,” Luke announced, talking to Dax. “They will be here in a few hours. This is a big cleaning job, so I’d like to wait until they arrive before we take off.”

We waited. Luke and I sat in the back of one of the SUV’s that he’d mentioned would be destroyed along with everything on the farm once the cleaning crew arrived. My grip on Luke was so tight my hands and arms were starting to ache.

Luke’s steady heartbeat against my cheek gave me the strength I needed to form motivating thoughts that kept my brain from repeating the nightmare I’d lived through.

Dax and Laura spoke in hushed tones in the front seat. Their voices sounded, but my brain didn’t process what they were saying. I was in and out of focus, dozing only to be awakened by the ghosts of my own screams.

When the lights from an approaching vehicle came into view, the sound of guns being cocked registered. Luke, Dax, and Laura were ready to strike at any opposing forces. However, their warrior spirits weren’t necessary. The phone Luke had borrowed went off, and the cleaning crew identified themselves.

There were no introductions as Luke and Dax exited the vehicle to greet the crew of six. The darkness revealed shadows as muffled voices found a way into the cab of the SUV.

“These men are connected into all kinds of shit. Can you believe this? A clean-up crew?” Laura questioned as she stretched her neck for a better view. She’d cracked her window to eavesdrop, but the men were too far away for us to make out their words.

I didn’t want to know what they were saying. I didn’t want to know what they would do. All I wanted was to part ways from anything criminal and get back to my normal life as a director of a local rec center.

We waited as the shadows unloaded their equipment and disappeared into the darkness. Dax and Luke came back to the vehicle and informed us that we’d be taking one of the cleaning crew’s vehicles and our suite had already been taken care of.

* * *

Luke had gottenme cleaned up and settled as my head rested on his sturdy shoulder. He’d talked me into eating a small portion of my chicken Caesar salad. He also attempted to sweet-talk me into seeing a doctor he and Dax would call from a connection they had, but I’d strongly refused, and he’d dropped the subject.

Luke was the kind of man dreams were made of. Not once had he mentioned the fact that I’d lied by omission about our encounter in Florida with Luis and crew. He was the kind of man you clung to with everything you had.

My torture session had a chokehold on my concentration as my body continued to lurch with the urge to cough up one of my burning lungs. However, a more urgent topic fought for the number one spot. My relationship with Luke was coming to an end, and I didn’t want it to. Neither of us had discussed what we’d become. Were we in a relationship? It certainly felt that way.

I wasn’t ready for bed, so we settled into the large common area of the living room. Dax had gotten us the royal suite at The Regent. I knew from magazine browsing that any top-level suite in the place ran at least twelve grand a night. It contained two downstairs bedrooms and an upstairs bedroom. I believe it was owned by his family, like we were finding most things were.

Luke and I took one of the downstairs bedrooms, and Dax and Laura had taken the one upstairs. Dax had grown on Laura, and it would be interesting to see how she would react to their time coming to an end.

Dax came down the stairs in sweats and a T-shirt with Laura on his trail, his phone against his ear. His pinched brow had me sitting up in concern. He sat on the large couch beside us, and Laura squeezed her small body in next to him.

“Aaron, I’m putting you on speaker. Repeat the updates for the group,” he stated before placing his phone on the fancy glass coffee table and hitting the speaker button.

“It was that fucker, Sorio, who was after Regina. He had a twin, and that’s who I killed at Ansel’s house. Sorio sneaked into the city and lured Regina out of Ansel’s apartment. His men snatched her during JG’s attempt to get her to a safe house. JG sustained a serious gunshot, but he’s going to live. Thankfully, Ansel had a tracker on Regina, so we found her in one of DG6’s local dope houses. Ansel is in the garage playing with Sorio right now. This time, he is not going to escape death,” Aaron declared, and I could hear the certainty in his voice across the phone line. The way he’d stated Ansel was playing with Sorio didn’t need a translation.

Sorio was the one who kept sending his soldiers—keeping up a war we assumed had ended. It also explained why Luis was insistent Sorio wasn’t dead. Our run-in with Luis in Florida had dropped us into the middle of an active war.

After Aaron’s call, we chatted and dispersed to our rooms. With Luis dead and the news of Sorio’s impending death, we should have been free from DG6 hunting us. However, Luke and Dax had plans to do another recon mission before they took us home.

Dax had also put in a call to Kadeem, who was willing to watch over us for as long as it took. Laura still didn’t know how to take Kadeem and Dax’s uncharacteristic friendship, but she didn’t comment on the matter.

I was selfish with my time with Luke. We had a handful of days left, so I was going to do my best to make them count.

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