"They work for my father." I ground my teeth and pushed down the raging anger bubbling up inside me. "They're the ones who are responsible for Carrie's attack.”
George shook his head with a deep sigh before gazing at me with apologetic eyes. “These two are going to regret the day they set eyes on that woman. I do remember how close you and that sweet girl were when you were younger. You two were as thick as thieves." He cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders back. "I'm sure you're itching to pay back the favor for what they did to your sister. Let's get started, yes?"
I smiled, that familiar excitement and adrenaline flowing through my veins once more. "I've been dreaming about this day since I saw the state Carrie was in. Let's end these fuckers." I looked at the young doctor with him and glanced back at George. “Can I trust him? He looks a bit fidgety.”
George gave me a comforting smile and clasped me on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t bring anyone you couldn’t trust. He’s wanting to gain some experience with black market business since he’s been barred from working in the medical field.”
I looked the man up and down. He was thin, but had a strong posture. His hair was covered by a white hair net as well, his clasped hands covered with tattoos.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Caleb,” he responded, his voice hinting at the nervous energy he exuded.
“What did you do to get barred?” I asked, curiosity getting the best of me.
He shuffled his weight from foot to foot in front of me. “Taking money for narcotic prescriptions, leading to a high rate of overdoses amongst my patients after surgery,” he admitted.
I nodded. “I see. Well, welcome to the underground,” I said with a grin. He only nodded in response, immediately jumping into action with George.
We all waited around as George set up everything he'd need. Not wanting to lose my patience with him, I quickly pulled out my phone to check the camera feed of Aurora. The video feed from her friend had gone off long ago, so the only sounds in the room were from Aurora's sniffles and bouts of sobbing and apologizing into the darkness around her. Her voice was tight with grief and hopelessness, so she was well on her way to breaking the way I needed her to.
I frowned when I noticed the iPad on the floor instead of mounted to the front of the box. Fucking useless sticker mounts, I thought to myself, hoping the screen wasn’t broken after it’d fallen on the hard concrete.
"Okay, I'm ready for you, Bennett," George finally said, breaking into my thoughts.
"Fucking finally," Saint mumbled under his breath, stifling a yawn as he pushed off the wall and moved back over to the center of the room.
"Organ harvesting takes time to set up. You should learn some patience," George snapped back before turning his attention to me. "How would you like to do this?"
"For starters, I want them both awake. I'd like to torture them a little bit before I actually end them," I stated. George handed me a piece of gauze soaked in something as I walked over to stand next to him.
"Just put that under their noses to wake them up," he instructed.
I walked over to Marco and stood next to his head, waving the gauze under his nose until he jumped awake and immediately pulled on his restraints.
"What the fuck!" he yelled, thrashing his head from side to side to take in his surroundings. "What the fuck are you bastards trying to do to me?"
I ignored his protests and moved over to Michelangelo, doing the same thing to him. He woke up a little calmer, dread settling on his face as if he already knew the fate that awaited him.
"Angelo, can you hear me, man?" Marco called from his table before glaring at me. "You better not lay a fucking finger on my brother, you fucking douchebag!"
"I have a question for both of you," I said and gave him a small smile. "If you can give me the information I want, I may consider letting you free. But I'll only do that if you can hold up your end of the bargain. Think you can handle that?"
"You're not going to let us walk out of here, and you know it," Michelangelo said with a scoff. "You may as well just do what you're already planning to do because we're not telling you shit."
"I just want to know which one of you broke my sister's arm and a couple of ribs,” I said and folded my arms across my chest. Neither of them said a word as they stared at the ceiling, their nostrils flaring in anger. I looked between each of them. "No one wants to say anything? That's fine also. You both can pay the price for one person's actions. The black market will be happy to receive organs from two people instead of one—"
"Wait!" Michelangelo called out.
Marco raised his head and eyed his brother with a slight shake of his head. "Don't, Angelo," he growled under his breath, but his brother wasn't trying to hear it.
"I love you, man, but I didn't want to do the job in the first place. I told you things didn't seem right from the beginning and look at the bullshit we're in now since you didn't want to listen," Michelangelo stated.
"What didn't seem right about it?" I asked, my curiosity piquing.
He sighed and rested his head back on the table. "The whole thing seemed rushed, as if it was something thrown together quickly. He'd told us he'd asked everyone else and they turned down the job. He made it seem as if they were cowards, not that they weren't stupid enough to take the job because those other men knew who the woman was,” he explained, his voice solemn.
I turned to Marco, whose face was so red I thought it would explode at any moment. "You see how easy it is to turn on someone you care about when you're in danger? He wasted no time throwing you under the bus to save his own ass," I mused.
The muscle in his jaw ticked as angry tears burned his eyes. "He's fucking lying. I didn't break anything on her."
"So who did? Bones don’t break by themselves,“ I said, cocking my head to the side.
He didn't say a word. His breaths came out rough and ragged, and his chest heaved with each one. He tried pulling at the restraints again, pulling so hard that a vein stood out in his neck before he yelled out in frustration.
"Fuck you!" he bellowed.
I chuckled. "Yeah, I get that a lot." I walked a few steps over to George's rolling cart that held his surgical tools, picking up a scalpel that reflected the dull light hanging overhead. Focusing on Michelangelo, I asked, "Are you sure you want to stick with your story about your brother being the one who actually dared to harm a hair on my sister’s head?”
Michelangelo looked over at Marco, who refused to meet his gaze. Marco kept his eyes glued to the ceiling, the muscles in his jaw flexing as his nostrils flared at the familial betrayal of his own twin.
"Neither of us did it," Michelangelo finally said.
I sighed and rubbed my forehead. Quite frankly, I didn't give a fuck who was the one who actually did it when I looked at the bigger picture. They'd both be dead soon regardless of who was actually guilty and who wasn't. Instead of asking them any other questions, I simply shrugged and said nothing else. I was tired of talking. It was time to do what I did best.
As I rolled my gaze over the tools at my disposal, thoughts of Carrie filled my mind. I could still remember the fear that trembled in her voice when she called me in a panic. The way she cried out in pain when we tried to help her to safety. The numerous fractures and bruises she had from the attack. The screams that filled my hallway when she woke up from a nightmare, all because I'd failed to protect her. Failed to act fast enough. I was angry at myself, at my father, and at this stupid crime organization for continuously trying to rip my life apart.
I snatched a power saw from the cart and flipped the switch. The twins panicked as the whirring sound of the blade filled the hollow space. Bruce, Josh, Nyxin, and Saint all stood with this arms folded over their broad chests, chuckling at the men's fear. George nodded at me, a faint smile on his lips he explained things to me that went in one ear and out the other. I moved to the foot of the table that Marco lay on, his dark eyes following my every move. I flipped the sw
itch to the power saw and met his gaze.
"Regardless of which one of you hurt her, I want you to understand something," I murmured, my voice low. The room was so quiet you could've heard a ball of cotton hit the floor. "I'm very protective over my family and will stop at nothing to avenge them when someone has hurt them in any way." I locked my gaze on Marco's, my face remaining neutral. "The only thing she’s guilty of is knowing the truth and wanting my father to pay for what he's done."
"We didn't know, man. We were just given the order and told that we needed to prove ourselves," Marco pleaded, tears shining in his dark brown eyes.
"You had to do what you had to do," I agreed. “Now it's my turn to do what I have to do."
He yelled for me to stop, pleaded for his life as I flipped the switch back on to the power saw. His body jerked on the table as he attempted to move away from the blade.
“Please, man! Don’t do this!” he screamed.
I took slow steps until I stopped beside his chest, looking down at him as I cocked my head to the side.
“Wait,” George said suddenly.
I released a loud sigh, slowly growing annoyed with all the interruptions. I was almost two seconds away from just telling him not to worry about the organs if he planned to interrupt me every few minutes.
“What?” I snapped.
“Unless you want blood all over you, you need to put on some gear. That power saw is going to create a lot of blood spatter in a live person,” he said, holding out a face shield and a long plastic coat.
I bit my tongue as I switched the saw off and placed it back on the table with the rest of the tools, slipping on the coat and face shield. I turned back to George.
“Can I continue now?” I asked sarcastically.
George put his hands up as if telling me to go ahead, and I grabbed my weapon and turned it back on.
My mind went blank as the saw sliced through the flesh of his chest. The twins' screams were distant as I watched the blood spill from Marco's wound. George moved over to stand next to me, instructing me how to open the chest cavity.
I took great pleasure cutting through his sternum, cracking his chest open to expose his heart and lungs. His heart beat quickly as blood bubbled out of his mouth, blood filling his chest cavity. The smell of copper hit me in the face when I slit his throat, sending calmness and peace through me. Marco’s screams turned into sickening gurgles as George placed clamps to keep his chest open.
“We have to work quickly,” George said.
Michelangelo screamed for his brother, cursing my name and promising that I wouldn’t get away with what I had done. I looked over my shoulder at him, smiling at the hot tears streaking his cheeks.
“Who the hell is going to stop me? You can’t,” I mused. “If you think Wilson is going to give a fuck about two men on the bottom of the totem pole being murdered, then you don’t know him very well.”
Marco's heart stopped beating only a few moments after he was cracked all the way open. I watched as George and Caleb worked in unison to gathered Marco’s kidneys, liver, pancreas, lungs, and heart. The men put the organs on ice in multiple coolers they’d brought and had placed on two metal carts.
We did the same thing with Michelangelo, his body giving a little more blood splatter than his brother’s. Nyxin, Saint, and Bruce looked a bit green around the gills at all the blood that now pooled on the tables and the black tarp on the floor, but it didn’t bother me. I’d spilled so much of it since I’d joined that business that maybe I’d been desensitized to it all. It had actually calmed me down more than it should have, but that was something to unpack another day.
Soon, the only sounds in the room were George and Caleb’s tools and George’s instructions for handling the organs. I glanced over at Marco, his torso empty aside from his intestine’s halfway out of his body, his eye sockets empty, and his bloody mouth agape.
While George worked to remove the organs in the torso, Caleb worked to retrieve Michelangelo’s eyes. I moved away from the table, pulling off the bloody plastic gown and face shield, tossing it into the trash bag containing the men’s belongings. Bruce handed me a wet towel and smirked at me.
“Feel better now?” he asked.
“For now,” I answered as I wiped my hands, also tossing the bloody towel in the trash. “Still have more people to deal with before I’ll be fully satisfied.”
George and Caleb gathered the rest of the organs, packing them in coolers.
“Do you fellas have the clean up handled? Caleb and I must transport these organs immediately,” he said.
I waved him off. “We can deal with what’s left here. Thank you for your help.” I looked at Caleb. “And thank you for yours as well.”
“Thank you for allowing me to help,” he said with a nod.
“I’ll call you when they’ve been delivered,” George said, clapping me on the shoulder. “You take care of yourself out here.”
I gave him a small smile. “Don’t I always?” I replied.
He chuckled and shook his head. “Okay, you sly devil. Stay out of trouble and don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything else.”
“Will do,” I said with a parting nod.
Once the heavy door was closed and locked, we all looked back at the bodies. Killing was always fun and games until it was time to clean up the mess.
“Should I get the axe?” Saint asked, breaking through the silence.
Cutting them up would make it easier to transport them out of here. The sooner we got back to the house, the sooner I could get some sleep before moving Aurora to her next punishment, as well as planning what would happen to the next victim.
“May as well,” I said, taking off my suit jacket and tossing it over an old chair. “Once we’re done here, it’s back to the drawing board for the next victim.”
And I couldn’t fucking wait.
AURORA
I thought sitting for twenty-four hours with a dead body was terrible, but that was nothing compared to the torture box from hell.
My legs hurt, my feet were killing me, and I was scratched by the stupid nails any time I tried to lean on them for a little reprieve. My voice was hoarse, my mouth and throat dry from lack of water. I shivered involuntarily, my teeth chattered, and my fingers and toes were a little numb from the chill in the dark room.
It was only day two of Hell week, and I had already begun the descent into deliriousness. Trapped in darkness with no water, no food, no sleep, and no human contact, I felt myself teetering on a thin line between sanity and losing my mind.
Everything in me wanted to sleep, but there was no way I could. Anytime my heavy eyes closed long enough to doze off, the nails would wake me up when I’d bump into them, jolting me awake. There was no way I could sleep when I was in the Retribution room yesterday because I didn't want to close my eyes around a dead body. If I'd only known what would happen soon after, I would’ve taken my chances.
I shifted my weight from foot to foot, hoping to give one foot a break from the uncomfortable rocks I stood on, not that it helped any. I could only stand on one leg for a few moments before I ran the risk of my other leg either giving out due to weakness or losing my balance and falling back on the nails.
During the first few hours, I’d tried to figure out if there was a way out of the box. At first, I’d thought I could try to knock the box onto its side, but I quickly realized that it didn’t matter which way I tried to knock the box down, a bed of nails waited to pierce my skin.
Hopelessness started to settle in. All I’d wanted was to get out of this fucking box. I glanced down at my bandaged wrists. I tried to pull the bandages off, but they were stuck to my skin. Pain shot up to my forearm no matter how gently I pulled. I ground my teeth. It was likely a precaution Bennett and the doctor took in case I got any ideas. I groaned. I wanted to scream, to punch something, but I just didn’t have the energy—or the ability in a box full of nails.
“Please let me out,” I whispered, rest
ing my head against the small window.
I angled myself so I could rest my head against the window as comfortably as possible and try to get some semblance of sleep without hurting myself. I needed rest, food, and a long soak in a hot bath. Better yet, I wished I could wake up from the nightmare that was my life.
“If you let me out, I can get you out of this nightmare,” a voice said.
“Go away, Stephanie. Your bullshit has gotten me into enough trouble,” I mumbled, not bothering to open my eyes.
“Why don’t you open your eyes?”
“You’re not real,” I mumbled. “You’re not real. I’m already starting to go crazy.”
“Look at me,” the voice hissed.
Stephanie’s voice didn’t sound like that. Who the hell else was Bennett’s fucking past bringing up to torture me?
A part of me wanted to think he’d set something up to make me think I was hearing shit. All week he’d accused me of making things up, threatening to have me committed since I was “seeing and hearing things,” and he had no need for a pet who decided they wanted to be lunatic. It wasn’t like I'd asked his dead girlfriend to come talk to me. I had my own problems, and I could do without her drama.
I jumped at the sound of a loud crash, my eyes flying open to stare into a pair of black eyes. I screamed in shock, falling against the row of nails behind me.
“Fuck!” I screamed, waiting for the pain to subside.
“Are you so weak that you can’t even look at yourself?” the voice asked.
I closed my eyes and tried to calm my racing heart. At the rate I was going, I would die of a heart attack from freaking myself out.
“Don’t give Bennett what he wants,” I whispered to myself. “He wants you to go crazy in here, but don’t give him want he wants.”
“What he wants is to turn you into someone like him,” the voice said. “He wants you to be as dark and corrupted as he is.”
“He can’t make me do anything,” I snapped.
“I’m glad you’re acknowledging I’m here. Now look at me if you’re brave enough.”
Rules of Bennett: The Complete Collection Page 30