The bartender watched me warily with a towel over his shoulder while he washed glasses. Kostya sat on a stool next to the hallway, his phone in his hand. When he saw me, he fixed me with a heavy stare.
“Is Ronan in?” I asked.
He regarded me thoughtfully for an uncomfortable amount of time, the silence itching beneath my skin, and then he gestured down the hall without a word. The bartender bit out a sharp curse. Words were exchanged between the two men, but I didn’t stick around to hear any more.
I passed the kitchen, which sat empty and dark. Stopping in front of Ronan’s office, I saw it lay vacant as well, though a few masculine voices reached my ears from down the hall. The chill of unease returned, curling in my stomach as I forced my feet toward the sound. The back room door was cracked, and I inched it open.
My heart stopped.
A man sat in a metal folding chair, his hands tied at his wrists, which rested on the table in front of him. His face was black and blue, white T-shirt covered in blood. My stomach roiled, but the confusion and horror trumped the dizziness that tried to pull me under.
Albert leaned against the back door smoking a cigarette and watching the scene with a bored expression. Other men occupied the room, but I could only see Ronan.
He sat with his elbows on his knees while he ran a finger across the sharp edge of a knife. He was talking, the words low and English. His voice sounded different than when he spoke to me. It was tainted with darkness and thrill; the kind of voice that thrived on lust and pain and control. I picked his words apart through the drumming of blood in my ears, putting them together like a puzzle.
It was a nightmare come to life.
Ronan was asking whether anyone really needed a pinkie finger. It sounded like a rhetorical question, but a few men piped up.
“He might forget the size of his cock with no finger to compare it to.”
“His wife would miss the shocker,” one said, eliciting hearty laughs around the room.
Ronan smiled. “I guess she will have to get it elsewhere.”
My vision dimmed, terror inflating in my throat, when he stood and slammed the man’s hands flat on the table.
“Any last words as a ten-fingered man?”
The man clenched his teeth.
Ronan chuckled. “So be it.”
With a quick glint of silver, the man’s pinkie rolled off the table and fell to the floor with a sickening noise. His painful groan didn’t swallow my gasp of horror.
Ronan’s dark gaze came my way.
I couldn’t breathe, paralyzed beneath the heartless, brutal sheen in his eyes as he wiped the blood off the knife onto the side of his pants leg. A hot rush of adrenaline lit inside of me.
I ran.
Knowing a man sat at the end of the hall, I took a sharp right into the dark kitchen, crawled behind the stainless steel counter, and pressed my back against it. Soft steps sounded in the hallway, growing closer. Tears ran down my cheeks. I covered my mouth to hold in a sob.
Dread tightened my lungs, smothering each breath before I could inhale.
“Kotyonok,” he mocked, the soft endearment sounding from somewhere in the dark. He didn’t turn the lights on, and I knew it was because he was enjoying this twisted game of hide-and-seek.
I crawled away from his voice.
Now, I could see a light from the service door leading out near the bar. My chest moved up and down in anticipation. Without warning, I was on my feet and running to it, but I didn’t make it out of the dark before arms caught me from behind.
Ronan’s hand covered my mouth, muffling my screams, while I fought against his iron grip with tears flooding my vision.
“Where are you going, kotyonok?” His menacing words pressed against my ear. “The party is just getting started.”
A sharp sting poked the back of my neck.
And then heaviness pulled my consciousness, down, down . . .
Until everything was dark.
FEEL LIKE PLAYING A GAME WITH THE DEVIL?
—Anonymous
faodail
(n.) a lucky find
I tossed the empty syringe to the floor when her body went limp in my arms. I’d kept the injection in my pocket since she ran into me on her first night here, waiting for the right moment to put it to use.