Page 28 of The Torturer's Target

Bose and Clinton stopped abruptly. “What!?” they exclaimed at the same time.

Max simply shrugged, unsure of how else to explain it. He wasn’t sure he had done the right thing by letting her go, but only time would tell.

Bose gritted his teeth in anger. “If you’d given the order, I would have killed her earlier.”

Max continued walking. “Not to worry, Bose. I don’t think she will attack again.”

“How can you be so sure, boss?”

He wasn’t. Before tonight, he had been convinced that Tesiera was a monster after seeing footage of her torturing people. But the emotions he had seen in her eyes tonight...

Well, only time would tell.

As Tesiera stumbled into her apartment in the wee hours of the morning, the silence that had once comforted her now seemed suffocating.

Tension hung heavily around her like a rain-ladened cloud as she tried to push the night’s events out of her mind. She was completely exhausted and desperately in need of sleep, but the prospect of a good night’s rest seemed unlikely. Mother Nature was always cruel on that aspect.

It was either she was wide awake until morning, or the nightmares came back. The worst enemies are always those you can’t see or touch.

Tesiera entered the bathroom, undressed and stepped into the shower, hoping the hot water would ease her frazzled nerves. However, she didn’t feel any different as she emerged from the bathroom thirty minutes later.

An hour later, she bolted from the bed, screaming. She felt a sharp jolt of pain run through her body, waking her up completely. The nightmare was back, replaying the events of that dreadful evening on permanent repeat. And then her horrible life for the two excruciating years after father’s death.

The emotional pain was all too familiar, and Tesiera clutched her chest tightly, hoping to suppress the feelings that threatened to overwhelm her. The voices in her head echoed like a broken vinyl record, taunting her with their hurtful essence.

Desperate to silence them, she reached for a small knife from her bedside table, bared her thigh, and made another clean cut on one of the thin scars. She almost moaned at the physical pain. It was a blessing because it numbed the ones she didn’t want to feel. She calmed down as she watched the blood trickle down her thigh.

She had a pounding headache. Her home was too quiet.

Rising from bed, she ambled to the other side of her room and retrieved an aspirin from the bottle atop the shelf. After swallowing the tablet with a glass of water, she walked back to her bedroom window, gazing out at the night sky.

Her mind returned to her conversation with Max. It was hard to forget as much as she wanted, to simply eject that whole chapter from her brain.

She was still reeling that she had almost killed an innocent man. Feelings she hadn’t had in a long time—so long that they seemed alien, flooded her. Guilt. Regret. Self-doubt. Shame.

She hated them, but she couldn’t make them stop. You almost murdered a man the same way they murdered your father.

“I thought we agreed that we don’t believe him…” Tesiera’s innermost thoughts had escaped in a low whisper. “I thought we agreed that he might be lying.”

She sighed again, burying her head in her hands.

The house was way too quiet.

Big Cat was sound asleep when a loud alarm abruptly woke him.

It was the second-floor alarm that indicated the presence of an intruder in the mansion. He grabbed the two guns that were neatly arranged on his nightstand and dashed out of his room.

As he made his way down the hallway, he met with one of his captains who informed him that all the soldiers had been deployed and were searching for the intruder. Big Cat could see the men scurrying around the mansion, determined to apprehend whoever had broken in. He decided to remain upstairs, ready to pounce with his guns if anything threatening occurred.

A few moments later, the alarm stopped blaring, and his captain returned with news. “Sir, it’s The Torturer,” he reported.

Big Cat was taken aback. “Alright. You can go now.”

He took the elevator up to the second floor, where he found an open door. Stepping into the room, he realized that the light was broken. He could barely see anything, but a shadowy figure with signature red hair seated on the other side of the bed, staring out into space.

For a few seconds, he simply watched her. She always came through the door—always did the security checks because she didn’t care enough to object. As far as she was concerned, the world could burn around her so long as it didn’t disrupt her peace or her mission.

But tonight, she’d risked being gunned down if sighted by any of his trigger-happy security forces. What the hell was going on?

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