Mad, Mad World

by J. D. Sloane

  “Good. Now we’re on the same page at least. I was only joking about the whole memory thing the last time we met but still, never too soon for a check-up, right? I mean once the mind starts to go, what else is there really?”

  You should know, you twisted fuck, Nolan thought, his face flickering with pain as an image of Brooke burned through the front of his mind, her ghost whispering to him from the shadows as the curtains flapped in the wind. He had a strange flash of déjà vu as he remembered the way the apartment had looked back then, the soft gray walls and wide, open space giving the place the feel of an old-fashioned ballroom. He bit the inside of his lips as Ronan made a quick gesture to one of the men behind him, his expression filling with an amused sort of compassion as he crouched down in front of his chair.

  “I’m sure Brooke would’ve liked having you over,” he said, his eyes shifting over his tense features with a deliberate sort of enjoyment. “Even after everything that happened, she always had a soft spot for you, Nolan. Don’t ask me why.”

  “So, what?” Nolan said, his head jerking lightly as Ronan raised his brows. “Are you going to torture me here? Kill me because of what happened to her? Are you that far gone already? Are you so far gone that you think it’ll actually mean something to…”

  Nolan cried out as Ronan stood up suddenly and punched him hard in the face, the impact crushing his glasses back into his nose until he heard them snap. He exhaled quickly as her heard someone laugh behind him and then curled his lips as a drop of blood slid down his cheek, the pain so intense that for a moment he couldn’t breathe.

  “We’re. Getting. Ahead of ourselves,” Ronan said, cocking his neck lightly to one side as he tried to smooth the rage out of his face. He reached out his hand, pausing to enjoy the way Nolan flinched and then pulled his glasses off of his face as he let out a low whistle.

  “And these look like nice frames too,” he said, tossing them aside. “That’s going to set you back.”

  “Don’t you think if I could’ve saved her I would have?” Nolan said, his voice dropping with emotion as he swallowed hard. “I did everything I could to help her. Before you, after you, everything. If you think I had anything to do with her death, you really have lost your fucking mind.”

  Nolan cringed as Ronan curled his hand around the front of his jaw and leaned over him in one smooth motion, digging his fingers into his skin as he tilted his head at him.

  “Oh, but I do think that, Chief. I really, really do. I don’t think you were bluffing when you came visit. I think you know who took her. I think you know where they took her. And until you fess up, this circus just goes round and round and round.”

  Ronan let go of Nolan’s jaw and then let out a deep sigh as he paced away from him. Nolan jerked his hands again, rolling his ankle slowly as he tried to determine how much leeway he had and felt his palms begin to sweat as another drop of blood rolled down his cheek.

  This is going to go badly for me very quickly, he thought as Ronan scratched the back of his neck thoughtfully, his fingers twitching towards the pocket of his suit jacket without quite dipping inside. He’s just toying with me right now. But it’s going to get a lot worse, and we’re in the middle of nowhere out here. He’s going to have all the time he needs to carve out his pound of flesh.

  “I don’t know who took her,” Nolan said, trying to keep the soft thread of fear out of his voice as he tracked Ronan across the floor. “He’s there on the footage, but I don’t know who he is. I don’t know who he worked for. And that’s the truth.”

  Ronan rolled his jaw and glanced over his shoulder at him, the moonlight lighting up his profile like a crisp black cut-out.

  “You want to know what the problem is with torture, Nolan?” Ronan asked, his low voice almost friendly. “Hmm? After a while it’s just more of the same. You say you won’t talk, we hurt you a little. You try to lie, we hurt you a little more. And on and on and on and on until we get absolutely everything we came for to begin with. It becomes- tedious, to be honest with you.”

  “Then maybe you should let me go,” Nolan said, twisting his hand in the opposite direction of the ropes as he gave it a violent tug. “I really hate to be a bore.”

  Ronan raised his brows as two crewman he hadn’t noticed before walked into the room and then smiled as Nolan turned his head, the expression so quick and careless it seemed to transform his entire face. He took a step closer, brushing his long blond-brown hair out of his eyes with an impatient gesture and Nolan’s brow furrowed as he heard something being dragged across the floor, one of the crewmen clucking his tongue as he heard someone let out a low cry.

  Nolan felt his brow furrow as he tried to crane his neck around to look and then felt all the blood in his veins run cold as he noticed Ronan’s expression, the violent flash of triumph in his eyes hitting him like a roundhouse kick to the gut. He jerked his head around as Ronan crossed the distance between them in two steps and then hitched his chair up unto its back legs, watching his expression as he spun it around.

  “Which is why I like to shake these parties up a bit. Get everyone in the mood for some good old-fashioned- discourse.”

  “No,” Nolan said, the word leaving his lips before he could stop it and felt pain fill up every unused corner of his mind as Jessica rolled her eyes up to meet him, her entire body shivering as one of the crewmen shoved her to her knees. He felt his eyes well up with tears as he saw that she was gagged, her bruised white body bound at the wrist and ankles like some kind of animal. He saw her drop her eyes, her face screwing up with shame and felt all his sadness ignite into a killing rage as he saw her dig her nails into her palms as she struggled not to cry.

  Shame, he thought, gritting his teeth so hard her felt like his jaw would shatter. Shame because of me. Shame because she thinks I’ll blame her. As if I could ever blame her for something like this.

  “I have to hand it to you, Nolan,” Ronan said, stepping up next to him as Nolan choked back his horror and rage long enough to meet his eyes. “She really is something. The fight in her…But I guess I don’t need to tell you, do I?”

  “Let her go,” Nolan said, trying to keep his voice steady as he looked up at Ronan with so much hatred he grinned.

  “In general, I’m not a fan of blonds. A little too touch-me-not for my tastes. But I could tell instantly that she wasn’t one of those. Just something in her eyes maybe. Or was it her mouth?”

  “I told you I don’t know who he was!” Nolan shouted, his voice breaking as Ronan leaned over him, his pale face twitching with rage as he jerked his chair closer.

  “You’re becoming predictable again,” Ronan said, his low voice hard and cheerful. He pulled a knife out of his pocket and watched Nolan’s face as he swung the blade in Jessica’s direction.

  “I tell you what. One more chance to give me the information I want, or I start to take my frustration out on her. And I’m feeling very, very frustrated right now, Chief. You can’t believe how deeply I’m going to resent your failure to cooperate.”

  Ronan cocked his head as Nolan dragged his eyes back to face him, leaning over him deeply as he dropped his voice.

  “Unless, of course, you’d like to take my place.”

  Nolan looked up at him, his face twisting with contempt and tried not to scream as Ronan gave him a conspiring wink.

  “No?” Ronan asked raising his brows in his direction, his dark eyes spinning so wildly they were barely part of the same expression. “Too honorable? It might help if you don’t think of her as your daughter. Just some girl you paid for in some filthy underpass alleyway. Someone you can own completely, for the next twenty minutes or so. Go ahead. I’ll never tell. Why not give into the animal side of yourself? Just. This. Once?”

  “You sick fuck.”

  Ronan rolled his eyes down towards him, something hard and violent uncoiling rapidly behind his expression of polite half-interest.

  “And if I told you I’d let you both
go?”

  Nolan’s brow furrowed, and he glanced up at Ronan in horror as he whistled to one of the crewmen behind him.

  “Just kidding, of course,” Ronan said, giving him an amused smirk as he held up his hand and caught something above his head.

  “No, no. Our path was- how do all the romance novelists put it? Our path was set in the stars long ago, Nolan. Right about the time you decided to start playing God with those around you. And I mean, what choice did you leave me really with a cast roster like that?”

  Nolan’s hands began to shake as Ronan set down his knife and unspooled a long piece of duct tape, tearing it loose with is teeth.

  “So what’s it going to be, hmm? Sticking to your story? Rather keep your little princess pure than alive, huh? Can’t say that I blame you.”

  Nolan’s hands began to shake as he heard Jessica whimper behind him and felt his heart twist in agony as Ronan raised the tape up to his mouth, his dark eyes spinning so wildly it was like standing at the threshold of a swirling black whirlpool.

  “Your daughter might, though. I don’t think she’s going to enjoy much of what comes next. But just remember, you’re doing it for her own good. It’s invaluable for girls like her to learn the way the world works from the men in their lives. Even if she never gets a chance to thank you for it.”

  Nolan felt his head swim with blood and watched Jessica track Ronan across the floor with red-rimmed eyes, her expression so frightened and hopeless that he felt like his mind would snap. He blinked quickly, his pulse hammering through his veins until he could almost hear the quiet rush of blood coursing below his fingertips and jerked his head to the side as Ronan moved to slap the tape across his mouth.

  “He was a doctor,” Nolan said through clenched teeth, his eyes filling with tears in spite himself as Jessica jerked her head in his direction. He held her eyes, trying to communicate some emotion more comforting than the simple anguish of regret and felt his shoulders sag as the entire room fell into a sudden, electric silence. Ronan dropped his hand, tilting his head slightly and then tipped Nolan below the chin, his face suddenly so calm and polite that for a moment it looked almost human again.

  “Who was a doctor?” He asked.

  Nolan gritted his teeth and raised his eyes up to meet him as he balled his hands behind him.

  “The man who took her.”

  Ronan’s eyes widened and then he crouched down in front of Nolan slowly, his face twitching across the painful looking groove of his scar as he picked up his knife.

  “Start making sense,” he said, his dark eyes jumping from feature to feature as if trying to draw the information out of him by sheer force of will.

  “I wasn’t lying,” Nolan said, his voice coming out in a low, weary rush. “I don’t know who took Brooke or why. But she didn’t die that night. The officer that found her called me first and then called in a favor from a doctor he knew. The three of us were the only ones on the scene. No-no one knew she still alive. And I knew that the only way to make sure you never found her was to keep it that way.”

  Ronan ran his tongue over his lips, his eyes shifting between absolute hunger and stunned disbelief and snapped his knife open next to Nolan’s head, his mask of polite indifference vanishing so suddenly that Nolan recoiled.

  “Where is she?” Ronan said, his voice rising, and Nolan swallowed hard and then shook his head.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t want to know.”

  “Where is she?” Ronan screamed, his face twisting with a burst of wild, unchecked hatred as he brought down his knife in a sudden vicious arc, burying it in Nolan’s shoulder as he let out a strangled cry of pain.

  “Tell me where, you useless fuck!” He spat, his voice so low and guttural it was hard to identify as human speech.

  “I don’t know!” Nolan yelled as Ronan grabbed him by the throat and then knocked the chair to the floor, shaking him by the collar as he straddled him in one sudden leap.

  “I don’t know! Let her go! Let her go, you sick fuck!”

  Ronan let out a low noise of rage and grabbed the length of duct tape, wrapping it over his mouth in a sudden wild twist of his arm.

  Oh God, Nolan thought as Ronan dug his fingers into his jaw and leaned over until they were almost eye to eye, his pale, ruined face pulsing with rage across the twisted groove of his scar. Oh God, please let her go! Please let her go. I’ll do anything if he just lets her go…

  “Let’s see how much you remember once we get started, Chief,” Ronan said, his voice smooth and savage as he wrenched his face back towards him. “Something tells me you’re going to have a lot more to say soon enough.”

  Ronan stood up and then shoved Nolan’s chair backwards with a sharp kick and gestured towards the men in the room, shrugging his jacket off with as stiff roll of his shoulders.

  “Make sure he watches,” Ronan said, walking over to Jessica as his shoulders twitched with anger.

  Nolan started to scream as he felt someone grab the back of his chair and watched Jessica cringe as Ronan paced around her on the floor, his eyes leaping over her body as if he couldn’t decide where to attack first. He sneered lightly as he crouched down in front of her and Nolan felt his eyes widen with panic as they dragged him through a swinging door, the legs of the chair catching on the threshold with a rough jerk as the door swung against his shin.

  Oh God, please, please, please…

  “Jessie, right?” Ronan said, his voice carrying across the room as Jaxson jerked Nolan’s chair backwards with one hard yank of his hand. “I like that better actually. And it sounds like you father didn’t believe in a lot of hands on punishment.”

  Nolan let out a muffled cry as he saw Ronan’s face fill with a wave of hatred so deep it had almost blurred back into compassion and then shoved Jessica face first against the wood floor, sliding his hand between her legs. He heard Jessica try to say something and yanked his hands wildly against their restraints as Ronan shook his head, dropping her underwear in front of her face as he leaned closer.

  “Luckily I’m here to intervene,” he said smoothing her hair away from her cheek as the slated door to Nolan’s room sighed shut with a loud bang. “And no. You don’t need to worry about that, Jessie. Not now anyway. Trust me. This is one of those lessons you’re not going to want to forget.”

  Michael idled the car in the parking garage near his storage unit and snapped his black leather gloves off, tucking them into his jacket as he rubbed his hand through the back of his hair in quick agitation. His pale eyes shifted to the spatter of blood now decorating the gray cover of his passenger seat and startled slightly as his phone went off in the dash board. He glanced at the number, brushing his knuckles across his mouth and then picked it up as he saw that it was Byron, hesitating for only a second before he answered.

  “Michael?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. What is it?”

  “Did you close the loop?”

  Michael glanced at his reflection in the mirror and then adjusted it so that he could see the traffic move behind him.

  “There was a complication.”

  “What kind of complication?”

  Michael rubbed his hand over his face, his jaw tightening as he returned it to the steering wheel and gripped the leather cover hard enough to crack it.

  “She’s alive. The girl. Brooke. She didn’t die that night.”

  Michael heard Byron pause on the other end and let out a deep sigh as he cleared his throat.

  “How do you know for sure?”

  “I know for sure, Byron. All right?”

  “How did you miss it?”

  “The ex-chief, Nolan, he set it all up. He brought his own man on the scene before anyone else. Got her to a doctor. He wanted the world to think she was dead, and until now he succeeded.”

  “You got this from running down your back trail?”

  “Yes. Almost all of it.”

  “And the doctor. What of him
?”

  “I have his name, but he lives on the other side of the country. My guess is he’s still treating her. Or he knows who is. I was so careless in all this. I can’t believe how careless I was. This whole time I thought White was searching for me. I thought it was just about revenge, but it’s not. He’s looking for her. He’s tearing this city apart looking for her. And I’m just the lucky guy with all the information he wants.”

  Byron let out a quick sigh on the other end and mumbled something under his breath, his agitation so unusual Michael felt it like a slap.

  “What?” He asked sharply. “What is it?”

  “How could he have known this?” Byron asked, his voice low and thoughtful. “How could he have known she was still alive if no one talked?”

  Byron paused because, of course, the short answer was he couldn’t. Oh, but there’s a long answer too, isn’t there? Michael thought, following the lights of a police car as it sped across the intersection. And the long answer doesn’t make any sense to anyone who has never loved someone deeply. The truth was he simply had no way to explain how he had felt the night his mother had disappeared, or why her being late for dinner that particular night had filled him with such an impending sense of doom, when she was often late for things and it had never given him a moment of worry before.

  That night, the night his father was off fulfilling a contract in another land so that some billionaire could retain his controlling percentage of the diamond market, he had felt her love for him like a tether from far away, reaching out to him through the darkness and then sliding through his fingers suddenly like the string of a kite. It drifted away farther and farther to a place he couldn’t find, and he knew instantly and without reason that the last thing he had said to her that morning would be the last thing he ever said to her. And he always hoped it had been something kind because he had been a child and not concerned with things like that and he hadn’t really been paying attention at all…

  “Michael? Are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” Michael said, biting back a sigh as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his gun. “And I don’t know how he knew. Maybe someone did talk. But this could end up being a lot more involved then I planned for.”