Prisoned Series Box Set

by Marni Mann

The client had hired us before. It was a few years ago when one of his employees had threatened to leak some software he had created. The employee hadn’t had a chance to sell it to their largest competitor. Days prior to the sale, we’d captured the bastard. We’d flown him here. And he’d died twelve hours later.

  He had been an easy one to break.

  This time, the guy sitting in front of me wasn’t our customer’s employee.

  He was the man who had raped our client’s seven-year-old daughter.

  He had been found in her bed, his dick in the little girl’s ass. She had been on her stomach, her face pushed into the pillow so that it would muffle her screams. It wasn’t the first time he had raped her that day.

  Or that month.

  When our customer had asked his housekeeper why she didn’t tell him about the blood she’d found on the little girl’s panties, the housekeeper had said she thought it was blood from her period.

  Seven-year-olds didn’t get their period.

  Any fucking woman should know that.

  And that was exactly what Shank had told that cunt before he’d sliced her throat.

  This piece of shit would never touch that little girl again. He wouldn’t get a trial. He wouldn’t ever get to speak his side to someone who had the power to save him.

  All he was getting now was death. But not until we decided we had tormented him enough. In the meantime, Inmate #1497 was ours to play with.

  I took a knife from one of the shelves and pressed the tip to his forehead. It was sharp enough to pierce his skin immediately.

  “Ow, that fucking hurts!” he shouted. “Stop! I can’t—”

  I looked him in the eyes and snarled, “Don’t move, or it’ll hurt much worse.”

  I dragged it down to his eyebrow and back up at an angle until I reached his hairline and then down to his brow again. I finished the letter and lifted the blade to start the next. He whimpered, his tears mixing with the blood. It didn’t cause me to stop. It caused me to push even harder against his skin.

  When all three letters were completed, I took a step back to admire my work.

  WHY?

  The question he wouldn’t answer now was carved right into the middle of his forehead. It looked so fucking good.

  I took a mirror from the same shelf and held it up, so he could see.

  “Tell me now,” I said.

  All this motherfucker had was tears. Those weren’t good enough for me. It wasn’t time for remorse; it was time to tell me the truth.

  I held the back of his head with the mirror in my other hand, and I bashed the glass into his face, like it was a goddamn pie, as I screamed, “Why?”

  “She touched me.”

  “Go on.”

  “And…and…I liked the way her fingers felt.”

  I leaned into his ear. If he didn’t stink so badly, I would bite it off. “That doesn’t make it okay. She’s only seven years old, you sick, twisted motherfucker.”

  “I love her.”

  “SEVEN.”

  “But I love her.”

  “You don’t fucking love her. If you did, you wouldn’t have stuck your cock in her ass.”

  Inmate #1497 wasn’t going to last too much longer. Not because we were ready to kill him, but because an infection had already set in from all the other torture we’d done. He’d been puking bile in his cell, and he’d stopped eating. His skin was yellow. His body was shutting down. After today, with the mutilation of his face, he’d be begging me to leave him a sheet in his cell to hang himself with.

  I wasn’t that nice.

  “She loves me,” he whispered.

  “Seven years old.” I raised my voice. “Seven,” I said again. Repeating the word over and over, I walked to the back cabinet and removed a crowbar. I liked those better than baseball bats. The hook at the end allowed me to pull the skin after I took a big swing.

  I aimed the tip above my head and batted, slashing the metal across his chest. The end hit him so hard, it sliced off half of his nipple. The thing just dangled there, waiting to be flicked off like it was a fucking booger.

  He didn’t yell. Didn’t cry out. Didn’t even shed a tear.

  He had nothing left.

  I’d seen the same look so many times before.

  “I”—he wheezed—“love her.”

  I bent my middle finger, pressing my nail into the pad of my thumb, and aimed for the bottom of his nipple. I knew he probably wouldn’t even feel it, but I didn’t care.

  “You don’t love a seven-year-old.”

  When I released, his nipple shot across the room, hitting the cement wall and dropping to the floor. Shank would want me to feed it to the babies. Nipples were easier for them to eat, less bony than a finger.

  Like I suspected, the inmate said nothing. Didn’t move. Didn’t even tug on the rope.

  Once they stopped screaming, it wasn’t fun anymore.

  And all his screams were gone.

  I let the OR door slam behind me and went into The Eyes. Shank was sitting in one of the chairs, his feet on top of the desk, staring at the monitors, with Demon on his lap.

  “You were too fucking easy on him,” he said without turning around.

  “I cut off his nipple.”

  I sat beside him and enlarged the screen, so I could get a better look at the rapist. His head was slumped down, his body still. The only sound in the room was his piss dripping onto the floor.

  “Nah, you were easy on him. What the fuck has gotten into you?”

  I closed out the feed and glanced at Shank. “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit. A few weeks ago, you would’ve clamped the straightener around his nose and watched his skin bubble. But, tonight, you just whipped him a few times, smashed him with a mirror, and cut him with a crowbar.” He turned his chair, so he could face me, his hand rubbing Demon’s back. “Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

  The straightener was my new tool. Diego had come home with it after one of his trips back to the States and used it to straighten the top of his hair or some shit. Shank and I’d picked on him so badly, he had thrown it away. When I had seen it in the trash with the little sticker on the side saying it went up to four hundred fifty degrees, an idea had hit me. I’d tried it on the next inmate who came into my OR, sticking his nose in between the ceramic sides and squeezing them together.

  “Nothing,” I said again, feeling the smile tug at my lips. “I—”

  “Ah, shit. I know that fucking look. You like someone.”

  I’d been thinking about Layla since I got on the plane that took me back to Venezuela. There was something so cool about that chick. She was a little fancy for me, the way she wore those dresses and business suits, but that just made me want to dirty her up.

  I’d never get her dirty enough to come to my side. The closest I’d get to Layla’s tongue would be watching it lick the stripper’s clit. But, hell, I could watch that all day.

  “Yeah, there’s someone, but nothing will ever happen.”

  “Bitch must be a lesbian. That’s the only thing I can think of that would stop you.”

  I laughed. “She’s a lesbian.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “Nah, man. She is. She’s got a girlfriend and everything.”

  “Can you convert her?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t know if I’ll even try.” I checked the monitor; the rapist still hadn’t moved. “We’re doing some business together, and she’ll be getting a commission from it. I don’t know if I want to mess with that.”

  “I get it. No one fucks with my money, especially not the people I fuck.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Is she worth it?”

  It wasn’t just that tight little body of hers that I craved—although I couldn’t get that or her gorgeous pussy out of my mind. But I craved her presence, too. When we’d gone to the Cuban restaurant, she had eaten—really eaten, like getting her hands in the meat, taking a bite from my fork, not
afraid to tear into my dessert. She had drunk liquor, not that chardonnay bullshit that most of the women I’d been with liked. From the way I had seen the stripper touching her, she enjoyed it rough. The same way I’d want to give it to her.

  And she fucking screamed.

  That was one of the most important things.

  “Maybe,” I finally answered.

  “Think about it.” He gently pounded his fist against the desk. “And think about this, too…Dad wants to see you.”

  “I just saw him a few months ago.”

  “No, Beard, he wants you at his place or at one of the mills.”

  That was what we called Bond’s pill mills. He had tons of them scattered all over the place. Before Shank and I had opened the prison, we’d helped him run them. As his business had grown, so had his need to get rid of some of his associates. Not just hurt them. Bond had needed them to vanish permanently. So, Shank and I’d found this piece of land on Margarita Island, and we’d started building.

  It had been a while since I visited Bond’s house or any of the mills.

  And I had no intentions of going back to either for a long fucking time.

  “I’m good,” I said. “Bond knows he can come here anytime, or I’ll meet him somewhere. Just not there.”

  “Don’t you think—”

  I stood up and pushed the chair, hearing the wheels screech across the floor. “I’m not talking about this.”

  I didn’t shut the door behind me. I let it slam. It was the closest noise to a scream. And, once I put something in my stomach to soak up the coffee sloshing around, I would go into my OR, and I was going to kill that fucking rapist.

  Go back to Bond’s place?

  Shank had known better than to ask me that. He had known better than to even bring it up.

  I could take someone’s life with steady fingers, but the mere mention of that place would cause my whole body to shake.

  I took out an empanada from the fridge and swallowed mouthfuls of it during my walk to the OR. Through the small window in the middle of the door, I saw that #1497 still hadn’t moved. My hands twitched to hurt him. To make him bleed.

  Before this anger destroyed me, I had to get it out.

  I pressed my code into the pad by the door and waited for it to unlock.

  “I hope you’re here to kill me,” the inmate whispered.

  I looked at the camera in the corner of the room and stuck up my middle finger.

  Motherfucker.

  Shank was probably laughing in his chair as he watched me grab the chain saw and pull the cord to start it. He’d gotten me worked up, knowing it would send me here to do this. But that wasn’t the reason he had brought it up; I was sure of that. Because, if Shank wanted #1497 dead, he would kill the inmate himself. He had brought it up because he wanted me to go visit his father.

  The only thing I would say yes to was the question #1497 had asked me.

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  I barely had the words out before my entire face was covered in his blood.

  Nine

  Tyler

  Five Years and Ten Months Ago

  Dean and I were tucked all snugly in the back of the limo. From what I had been told by Wynter, riding in a limo was one of the many perks of my new job. We weren’t always transported this way. It was reserved for when we were working or when a bunch of the girls went out together for the night or when Mina wanted us to come over for a meeting.

  I’d never ridden in one before.

  Not even drugged up Dean could stop me from enjoying it.

  He was such a perfect first mark. He’d been so willing since the moment I met him at the bar. And, when I’d told him how badly I wanted to go to his place and get a little more comfortable, he’d downed the second round of drinks, including my wine. By the time we’d stood up to leave, I could see that the powder was starting to kick in. So, I’d grabbed his hand and led him through the back door of the VIP room, down the set of stairs, and outside where the limo had been waiting.

  I knew where the driver was taking us. I just didn’t know the building’s address or how long it would take us to get there. I wasn’t able to see our location; the windows were tinted from the inside, preventing us from seeing out. But I suspected we had been on the road for at least fifteen minutes. I wasn’t allowed to look at my phone to check. Phones were only for emergencies. That was one of the rules. And anxiety couldn’t exactly be considered an emergency, so I hoped we were almost at our destination.

  Wynter had told me Dean would be extremely quiet during the ride. Confusion, slurring of words, tiredness—they were all side effects of the drug. She was right. Dean hadn’t said more than a sentence since we slid into the back seat. He mostly just stared at his hands, moving them in front of his face, back and forth, as though he had never seen them before.

  He was high as hell.

  And so was I, but a much different kind of high.

  Securing the mark and getting Dean into the limo was a kind of rush I hadn’t ever felt before, yet it was something I definitely wanted to feel again. I needed to make sure I didn’t screw anything up, so I would get that chance.

  As the limo came to a stop, Dean finally spoke, “We’re home?”

  “You can call this place home if you like.”

  “I want to go home.”

  I didn’t mean to laugh, but his voice had become so childlike and a little slurred, and he was cowering in his seat, like every bit of his confidence was gone.

  “Dean, you’ll be getting everything you want. Just hang tight, okay?”

  He didn’t nod. He didn’t say another word either.

  There was a bag near my feet on the floor; it had been there when we got in the limo. Due to Mina’s training, I knew two scarves were inside. Before we got out, Dean and I were required to each be wearing one. The scarves would cover the top portion of our faces, starting at our noses, wrapping over our eyes, going past our hair, and tying behind our heads. Slits were cut out for our eyes along with a small one under our noses, so we could breathe.

  I put mine on first. Then, once I knotted Dean’s behind his head, I tapped on the window to let the driver know we were ready. I expected Dean to try to take off his scarf or at least ask why he was wearing it. He said nothing, his hands nowhere near his face.

  The driver opened the door, and I climbed out, reaching into the back for Dean’s hand.

  “Come on,” I said to him.

  “We’re home now?”

  Mina had said the mark would be agreeable. She hadn’t said he would repeat the same question and sound like a toddler while doing it.

  “Yes, Dean, we’re home.”

  He clung to my fingers and shuffled across the pavement, as though his feet were too heavy to lift. I supposed the drug could be making him feel that way. He was certainly walking differently than he had when we first got into the limo.

  As we made our way toward the only door, my eyes scanned the building. It was a giant warehouse well over a block long, the exterior covered in a dark red brick. Besides its size, nothing stood out. It didn’t even have a sign. The neighborhood looked industrial, so it fit in well.

  I knocked four times—two soft knocks, two hard. It only took a few seconds for the door to swing open, and the man who greeted us was almost as broad as the doorframe.

  “I’m number twenty,” I said. “And this is my partner, Dean.”

  “Home?” Dean asked.

  The doorman ignored Dean, looking at a piece of paper that he held in his hand. The paper was small and worn; the strength of his palm had caused it to crumble. Something told me it would be burned to ashes by the end of the night.

  He moved out of the doorway. “Come in.”

  We followed his order and now stood in a room made entirely of concrete—the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. Whenever our heels landed, they would echo. And it was pitch-black, except for the sconces on the wall that were placed every six or so feet.r />
  “Keep walking,” the man behind us said.

  I continued to hold Dean’s hand, remembering the instructions Mina had given me.

  “When you reach the nineteenth sconce, take an immediate right. There will be a short landing that’s only a few feet long and then a set of twenty-six stairs. There’s no railing. If you need support, make sure to hold the wall. At the bottom will be a metal door. Knock four times—two light knocks, two hard ones.”

  I repeated her directions in my head, so I wouldn’t focus on all the unknowns that were waiting for me downstairs, and I counted each light on the wall.

  Dean didn’t move very fast, and besides the occasional mumbling, he didn’t say much. I had thought he’d be filled with questions since he had to know by now that this wasn’t his home. But maybe the drug had taken those questions away. Or maybe they were in his head, but the drug made it difficult for him to speak.

  That was something I needed to ask Mina.

  When we reached the landing in front of the stairs, I pressed my free hand against the wall. “Hold on if you need help,” I said.

  He squeezed my hand tighter.

  “No, I mean, the wall, too,” I said.

  Instead of counting the lights, I rattled off the number of stairs in my head and tried to focus on that versus the silence. The silence was unnerving. My heart beat faster with each echo of my heels, and my throat felt thicker as we neared the bottom. The hole that was cut out under my nose didn’t feel big enough for me to take in all the air I needed.

  The pressure was building inside my body.

  I had to get this right. I had to make Mina proud.

  I had to make my whole family proud—the girls, all twenty of them, and the higher-ups. Once I got through the next door, that was when things would really matter. That was where I assumed Mina was waiting for me. That was where she’d analyze every one of my moves and report them back to her bosses, and then they would decide if I was right for their company.

  Just because I had gotten into The Achurdy didn’t mean I would stay.

  My acceptance all depended on what happened now.

  It had been easy, getting the vial of powder into Dean’s drink. It had been even easier to flirt, sticking out my chest and biting my lip.