The Hardest Thing

told—not because after a couple of days with Martin Kingston’s cock stretching my ass I’d turned into an obedient sub, but because Ferrari had taken the safety off and looked as if he might decide on a swift execution if I didn’t follow orders. He stood in front of me, cool as a fucking cucumber. Marshall Land’s business methods were brutal, but obviously effective. I wondered how many more Trey Peterses there had been over the years? How many more secretaries silenced? How many witnesses taken out of state?
    “Boss getting jumpy, Ferrari?” My eyes were at crotch level. “Send you to clean up his mess again?”
    “Shut up, Dan.” He didn’t sound angry—more like a tired father telling off an annoying four year old.
    “Where’s Jody?”
    “Who?”
    “Stirling. Marshall’s boyfriend.”
    “Oh, him.” He smiled, as if he’d remembered something funny. “You don’t have to worry about Stirling anymore. We’re taking good care of him.”
    I tried to sound cool. “Have you killed him?”
    “What? Dan, really, you surprise me. Of course we haven’t killed him. We like to look after our employees—especially when they’ve done a good job. We like to reward them.”

    So Jody was lying all along? His kidnapping was a setup? Ferrari saw the confusion on my face, and laughed. “Sorry to burst your bubble, asshole. Hey!” He clicked his fingers. “One of you meatheads shut this freak up for me.”
    I braced myself for the blow, expecting the butt of a gun to the back of my head. But no—one of them held me in a stranglehold while the other prepared a hypodermic needle.
    “Just a little prick, Dan,” said Ferrari, laughing and scratching his balls. “Goodnight, asshole.”
    I felt the scratch in the crook of my elbow, felt a nauseating heat rushing up my arm to my heart, and then someone switched off the lights.

The Room 10
    I was lying on my back and I was cold. My hands and feet were secured to—what? A bed frame? Felt like metal. My arms were away from my body, my legs spread. Underneath me was a blanket or thin mattress. Apart from the straps at my wrists and ankles, I was naked.
    I ran a mental checklist. It’s basic training; you assess your injuries in order to evaluate your chances of escape. Starting at the top: no major pain in the head. I ran my tongue over my teeth: all present and correct. No cuts to the lips, and the jaw was mobile. No obvious injury to the torso and arms, and when I wiggled my fingers they seemed to work. Clenching my thigh muscles I worked down my legs: everything where it should be, right to the tips of my toes.
    I couldn’t yet remember what happened and how I got here. You don’t waste your effort on memory; you think about now and the next five minutes. Am I injured? Is my life in immediate danger? Survival first.
    Basic checks done, I turned my attention to the
outside world—which, at the moment, was reduced to a single brightly-lit circle in which hovered a face. It took a few moments before the dazzle and the jumble of features arranged themselves into something recognizable.
    Enrico Ferrari.
    “Stagg.”
    His voice sounded flat and distant, like next door’s TV. The whole scene had an air of unreality, something viewed down the wrong end of a telescope. Far, far away was a naked man strapped to a metal bed frame, another man bending over him…
    “Wake up, Stagg.”
    The voice and picture were getting closer, and I felt myself coming in to land.
    Ouch. The ties at my wrists and ankles were digging into the flesh and they fucking hurt. My back ached; how long had I been out? And I was cold—freezing cold. I started to shiver, the body’s first instinctive attempt to warm itself. That stopped me from speaking for a while. I screwed up my eyes, and when I opened them again Ferrari was gone. Just a circle of bright white light and the faint ghost of an image where his face had been, strange purples and greens hovering around my retina. Eyes. Noses. Mouths.
    “Hey!”
    My voice sounded ridiculously loud in my head. No echo. A small room, then, furnished or at least carpeted.
    I was still shivering, and from the pain in my throat when I spoke I figured that I had a fever of some sort. Maybe just the drugs wearing off… That’s right. I remember the sting of the needle as it punctured my
skin, the dizzying descent into unconsciousness. Ferrari arriving at the apartment… Whose apartment? I couldn’t quite recall. Someone I had lost…