Page 43 of Drowning in the Deep
I’d managed though. I was stronger now, somehow, than I had been before. The longer I spent in the storage closet, the more I came to realize my father was trying to break me. One way or another, he expected me to start singing like a proverbial canary, and I refused to do that. I didn’t know anything that was going to help him anyway, but even if I did, I wouldn’t tell him. My resolve was strong as I sat there with my hands around my knees. No matter what the bastard did to me, I was keeping my mouth shut.
The door creaked open slowly, almost making me think I was hallucinating. The sound of my father’s footsteps was recognizable as he stepped into the room, a few of his assholes hanging back away from the door, their shadows falling over my former enemy on the floor.
“Well, look at that,” Father said, nudging the rat with his foot. “I guess you and I can agree on something. This is how we treat rats in the La Rosa family.” Using his patent leather shoe, he lifted the bloody body off the ground and launched it at me, and I flinched, letting out a yelp as I pushed it away before it landed in my lap. Again, his laughter echoed off the basement walls. “And to think, I was almost proud of you for finally growing a pair. Turns out I was wrong to think you were brave, Elisa.”
All I could do was glare at him. My throat was so dry, opening my mouth would’ve only resulted in a rusty croak. I said nothing, praying he’d just leave.
He wasn’t going to do that, though. Instead, he crouched down so we were almost at eye level. “Now, you’re going to tell me everything that’s been going on between you and Daemon Petrov. I want every ounce of information you have on that little bastard, and if you lie to me or withhold anything, I will know it. Now is the time, Elisa, to prove to your old man that you are loyal to me above all else, once and for all. If I find that you are choosing Petrov over me, the consequences will be severe.” He looked at the rat. “And you will not survive it. That little fucker has been a constant obstacle to Lillian and me, and now, you’re going to help me stop him.”
I shook my head, letting him know right off the bat that he wasn’t going to intimidate me into talking. When I opened my mouth, nothing came out at first. I wanted to spit in his fucking face, but I had no saliva for that. I managed to say, “I’m not telling you anything. I don’t even know anything anyway, but even if I did, you can go fuck yourself.”
It was not a surprise when he lashed out, slapping me in the face hard enough to whip my head into the concrete wall. A laugh slipped from my lips. I didn’t even feel it. I was so numb to the world at the moment it felt like a little tickle.
“You think that’s funny, you little whore?” he asked me, shaking his head. “Fine. I guess you need some softening up.” He stood, letting out a sigh like I had exhausted him. “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to go this route. After all, you are still my daughter. My flesh and blood, as they say, but if you want to be difficult, I can be difficult, too.”
I watched as my father gestured for his guys to go down the hallway and get something. Though I was trying not to let it show, terror was beginning to mount inside of me. I wanted to be brave and strong, but my father knew how to break grown men. Surely, he’d find something that would make it impossible for me to stay silent.
But what would I say? He asked me to tell him what was going on between Daemon and me. What did he want to know? We fucked a lot, and sometimes he locked me in a dog kennel? That was basically it. There wasn’t much more to the story that he didn’t already know. Granted, I hadn’t told him that Daemon killed Ragno in the library, but he already suspected that. I still wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of hearing it come from my own lips.
A few minutes later, the bastard brought in a hefty pole with a concrete ring weighing it to the ground. It had chains attached to it, and immediately, I knew what it was and what was about to happen. I’d seen enough mobsters abuse their enemies on such a device to know what he had in store for me.
My stomach clenched into a fist. What would Daemon do in this instance? Of course, he’d resist. He’d tell my father to go fuck himself in more ways than I could easily think of.
One of the two men grabbed my arm and yanked me off the floor. Father told them to chain me up with my back to the pole, my arms over my head. The rusty manacles bit into my flesh as he hooked me in. I could hardly move, the cuffs were so tight. The rough surface of the pole bit into my back as I stared at my father defiantly.
“All right, cunt. You ready to talk?” he asked as the other two men stepped out into the hallway.
I glared at him, my jaw set in a tight scowl. On the inside, I was beginning to tremble with fear at the anticipation of pain, but I couldn’t let him see that.
He struck me in the face a few times first, hard enough to leave my head spinning. His ring bit into my flesh, ripping my cheek open and leaving a trail of blood that mingled with the puddle the rat had left behind. I bit down harder to keep myself from crying out.
When that didn’t get the result he wanted, he punched me in the stomach repeatedly. I couldn’t help but gasp for air as he pummeled me, leaving me doubled over. When he punched me in the nose, I heard a crack and figured he’d broken a few bones. The pain was blinding, but I still resisted, wondering if Drake knew any good plastic surgeons in case I ever got out of here.
After several minutes of him pummeling me in every part of my body, my father pulled back. I watched through slitted eyes, puffy from being hit so many times, as he shook out his fists. He was breathing heavily from the exertion, fat fucker.
“All right, all right,” he said, stepping away from me. “I see how this is going to be. You think you’re some tough little bitch, huh? Well, let’s see how tough you really are.”
He turned around and said something to the two men standing in the hallway. One of them nodded, and then my father stalked out with the other one, leaving me hanging there while one of the big brutes stared me down.
My arms ached from holding them above my head. Not a square inch of my face wasn’t throbbing with pain. My eyes were swollen to the point I could barely see, yet I was remarkably calm. So far, I’d managed to handle everything he’d thrown at me, and I hadn’t even been tempted to tell him anything about Daemon.
The large man folded his arms and leaned back against the wall, looking bored.
“Sorry I’m not as entertaining as you’d like,” I told him. He only grumbled at me. An insane chuckle parted my lips. “You think the Bears are gonna win on Sunday?” He grunted again. “Don’t tell me you’re a Packers’ fan.”
Messing with him was a good distraction, but when my father walked back into the room carrying a couple of bottles I didn’t recognize, I grew confused.
“This is a little something I was introduced to in Mexico when I was dumb fuck of a kid trying to smuggle drugs across the border,” he explained.
I held my breath, not sure where this was headed, but it didn’t sound good. I realized one of the bottles was a large container of seltzer water. The other looked like fucking tabasco sauce.
“It’s calledtehuacanazo,” he explained. “Maybe this will be enough to make you understand I’m not fucking around.”
The two lackeys backed the fuck up as my loving father opened the bottle of seltzer water and dumped about an eighth of it onto the floor, splashing my bloodied shoes with it. Then, he poured the entire contents of the Tabasco sauce into the seltzer water before putting the lid back on. With his eyes glued to my face and a wicked smile on his ugly mug, he shook the bottle vigorously until all I could see was red foam—the color of blood.
I took a few deep breaths, trembling in fear. I didn’t know where this was going, but the look on my father’s face was enough to fill me with terror.
He took the lid off, and with one hand against the crown of my head, he shoved the spurting bottle as far up my broken nose as he could get it. Instantly, my nostrils began to burn, my lungs restricted, and my eyes glowed with the fiery flame of instant hell. I tried to gasp in some air, but it was no good. He had the bottle pressed against my face so all I could breathe was wave after wave of molten lava.
