Chapter Thirteen - Stitch
“How many days do you think we’ve been in here?” I could hear the shakiness in my voice but it was too damn late to worry about that now. We’d been beaten two times just for fucking sport. Gunnar’s hero moves getting us out of the wrist cuffs was a fucking waste of time. As soon as Carlito saw we got free, he had his thugs beat the shit out of us and now they kept us tied up. I swore as soon as we got out of this place, Carlito was a fucking dead man.
“Don’t know,” Gunnar gasped before spitting out what I could only guess was blood. “Maybe two or three days.”
It was hard to tell because one of Carlito’s henchmen had put black tape over the windows so we couldn’t tell when it was day or night. The thick cement walls made it hard to hear anything so it could have been three days or three weeks for all we knew. “I think that fucker broke a rib.”
Gunnar huffed out a bitter laugh. “Take in a deep breath.”
“Why?” That sounded like the exact wrong thing to do for broken ribs.
“If it hurts like a motherfucker, your ribs are broken. If they only hurt like a son of a bitch, they’re just bruised.” With the amusement in his voice I couldn’t tell if he was fucking with me or not, but I did it anyway. “Shit that hurts! But they’re not broken.”
“Good.”
Gunnar actually sounded like he meant it, which was hard for me to believe since he’d made no secret out of the fact he thought this was all my fault. Which it was.
“You’ll live long enough for me to beat some sense into you.”
I huffed out a laugh, not because anything was funny with us both kidnapped, beaten and bloody, but because it was such a damn Gunnar thing to say. “Your compassion is overwhelming, bro.”
“I’m compassionate as fuck,” he shot back, spitting again. “I’m gonna wait until we’re safe and healed first.”
Yeah, I suppose that was fair. “What the fuck are we gonna do?” Neither of us could take any more beatings before something broke or ruptured, resulting in our eventual deaths.
Gunnar sighed and I could hear the sound of the wooden chair he was tied to groaning under his massive size. “Find a way out of this fuckin’ place, that’s what.”
The door opened and the lights switched on, temporarily blinding me until the only thing in my vision was the crazy bastard called Guapo. He was at least six feet tall and built like a fucking refrigerator with a long, ugly fucking scar from the left corner of his mouth all the way to his ear. I could only imagine the painful story behind it, but it didn’t make me warm up to the fucker. “What the fuck do you want?”
The bastard grinned and it wasn’t just basic happiness, no, it was the smile of a man who enjoyed causing pain. “I could beat you until you’re just a puddle of meat and blood, but El Jefe wants to talk to you.”
The sound of Carlito’s bitch heels sounded loud on the concrete floor in short, quick steps, getting closer until he reached us.
“I have a proposition for you.” He gave us each a death stare and stepped in front of Gunnar. “Between the two of you, you seem to be the smarter man, so let’s make a deal.” The little fucker laughed like he’d just told the best fucking joke around.
“Ain’t exactly a deal with me tied to a fucking chair, is it?” That was Gunnar, tough until the very fucking end, even with ropes wrapped around his wrists.
Carlito threw his head back and laughed. “Well I would be stupid to release you when you have that look on your face. Like you want to kill me, no?”
“I can’t say for sure how fucking stupid you are. Jefe. What the fuck do you want?”
Instantly his demeanor changed from playful to serious, hands folded in front of him as he kept a respectable distance between himself and Gunnar. “What I want is an exchange. Your lives for…let’s call it a favor.”
“Again, not a fucking favor if my life is on the line.”
Guapo sent a fist flying right into Gunnar’s stomach, but that tough son of a bitch didn’t let out so much as a grunt. Carlito barked, “Let him speak!”
“You hit like a bitch.” Gunnar spit blood, barely missing Guapo’s pointy ass leather shoes. He couldn’t help but taunt the stocky fucker.
Guapo leaned in, eager to land another blow but Carlito put up a hand to step in. “Are you ready to listen?”
“My ears ain’t taped shut, are they?”
Carlito’s brown eyes narrowed but he banked his temper, probably because he realized that was as good as he’d get from Gunnar. “Right. Well I have a shipment here but I need it to be someplace else.”
Gunnar scoffed. “Where exactly is here?”
“Come on now. Let’s not play games.”