Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 170

There was a loud crash as the door opened again, followed by several footsteps. It sounded like boots, and I heard a pair of feminine heels on the ground as well. None of that mattered, though. The only sound I cared about was the sound of a woman sobbing.

"Wait!" I said, perking up. Something was happening. "Who's that?"

Footsteps approached me, and felt someone grab the blindfold and rip it off my head. Light flooded my vision, causing my headache to flare up anew. I blinked, trying to focus and make sense of what I was seeing. As my vision started to clear, I could see the entire room now that it was well-lit. A man stood in front of me with hair cut close to his scalp. He was caucasian and wore a wife-beater that showed off massive tree-trunk arms and broad, well-muscled shoulders. A horrifying tattoo of a graveyard of bones covered the entirety of his right arm. He wore black canvas cargo pants, a handgun strapped to his thigh, and a dark blond goatee on his otherwise clean-shaven face. Partially dried blood caked the right side of his face, and I noticed part of his right ear missing.

Four other men in the room were similarly dressed and looked just as thuggish as the man in front of me. A woman stood to the side with a phone in one hand, texting furiously. She had hair the color of dishwater, which she wore to her shoulders with bangs. Wire rim glasses sat on the edge of her nose, and the tip of a small, pink tongue was pinched between pursed lips as she looked back and forth between the scene she was witnessing and her phone.

I didn't care about any of that. Only one thing held my attention-in the center of a rough semicircle of mercenaries knelt Natashya.

One side of her face was swollen and bruised. Some sort of makeshift rope or strap of something loosely dangled from her neck. Her exotic hair hung all around her in a wild mop of loose tresses mixed with dreads, giving her the look of a wild cavewoman who had just been dropped out of time. Her wrists were bound behind her, causing her breasts to stand out proudly in front of her. They were covered in bruises, as was much of her nude form. A leather cord had been shoved in her mouth and tied off, making it impossible for her to talk. To complete the horrific image, her mouth, chin, and cheeks were covered in blood.

Her mahogany eyes locked on mine, and she let out a guttural shriek, her gaze full of equal parts fury and terror. The scream turned into a sob near the end, but she never looked away from me "What the fuck!?" I shouted at all of them, unable to tear my eyes off what they'd done to one of the most beautiful souls I'd ever met in my life. "What the fuck did you do!?"

"Shut upl" the leader said, backhanding me across the face hard enough that my chair came close to toppling. He pulled the handgun out of his thigh holster.

"No!" A vaguely familiar voice said from behind me. Despite myself, I tried to look over my shoulder but couldn't quite make out who it was. "I'm the only one killing him!" It was the man who had spent hours torturing and pissing on me.

"Everybody relax!" Leader said. He crouched beside me and grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him. "I'm not going to kill him. Let some lawyers and executives try to get information out of a guy, and this is what happens. A fucking waste of everybody's time." He pressed the barrel of the pistol against my temple and stared directly into my eyes, and I realized I'd seen this man somewhere before. "I'm just going to give him some goddamn incentive"

He stared at me with absolute fucking hatred in his dark eyes and sald just loud enough for me to hear, "You don't know a damn thing, do you?"

I swallowed hard, very aware of the cold metal pressed to my temple and unsure whether I should respond.

"Good," he said, seeming to read the answer in my face. "This will make what I'm about to do all the more enjoyable, and I still get paid."

He stood up, turned away from me, and walked back to his men, speaking up loud enough for everyone to hear. "Since you won't answer the nice lady, I'm gonna do the asking."

The leader stopped next to Natashya and slowly turned, looking down at the dancer appraisingly. Then he raised his pistol and planted the barrel in her hair, casually looking over at me and flashing a small, crooked smile. Natashya screamed and flinched away from the gun, but the man simply grabbed a fistful of her hair and kept her in place. She glared daggers up at him, but I couldn't help but notice the fresh tears streaming down her face.

"No, no, wait! Hang on! told you, I don't fucking know anything!" I

said, looking around the room at the men, trying to find at least

one who would believe me. All of them had faces that could have been carved from stone.

"I'm going to count to three, and if you don't tell us what you know, I'm gonna paint the floor with whatever's inside her fucking head." Leader said. "That way, you know we aren't playing around. Still won't cooperate? Then we'll kill the other one."

Natashya screamed something unintelligible around her gag and then looked at me. She was trying to tell me something with those beautiful eyes of hers, but I couldn't even begin to decipher what it was. All I could think about was that she was about to die in front of me. I'd hoped they were bluffing. God... I would have given up anything if it meant they were bluffing. I would have given up everything.

Why couldn't have been better?

"One!" Leader said.

I tried to stand up, but the chair nearly caused me to topple again. "No!" screamed. "I don't fucking know anything! Just let her gol Kill me if you're gonna kill anyone!" I fell back, landing in the chair again with a crash that reverberated across the room.

What had I done wrong? What could I have done differently? Why were these people doing this?

"Twol"

"No, you son of a bitch," I screamed, feeling fresh tears leak down my face. "Fucking kill me! Just let her go! Please!"

I looked down into Natashya's eyes, and she looked up into mine and slowly blinked. There was so much I wanted to tell her. I wanted her to know how special she was. How much she had given me to think about. I wanted to let her know how much she meant to me. Not only for what she'd given me but what she'd given Emily. This woman... this goddess... she didn't deserve this

I tried to communicate that as stared at her, hoping beyond hope that this was just some horrible bluff, or even better, that it was simply a nightmare I couldn't wake up from.

"Please!" I said, one final desperate cry for mercy.

"Three!" Leader said.

"Nol" screamed and shut my eyes.

"No!" screamed and shut my eyes. Hoping with every fiber of my being that he wouldn't pull the trigger.

The deafening sound of a gunshot echoed through the room, and once more, I tasted blood.

To Be Continued...