TIGERLILLY- THE BRAVO BOYS [book two]

Chapter FIFTY FOUR

River O'Riley

I stand in the corner of the hanger at the private airport owned by The Red Dragon, one shoulder propped against the corrougated tin wall, unable to take my eyes from the torture that is being inflicted infront of me..

Fei's cruelty extends far beyond the depravity of anything I've ever witnessed.. Ronan's lessons were like playtime compared to the limitless bloodlust of the Triad leader..

Limb by limb Li Jun had been bound in black tape and nailed to the fixtures of the makeshift timber seat beneath him, placed in his own personal hell confinement.. Piece by piece, I'd watched as his flesh has been peeled away in thick layers to expose the visceral bloody muscle framework beneath, chunks of his meat missing from knee to neck..

For hours on end he'd been poked through several times over with razor sharpened bamboo sticks.. The scent of metal and death in the air is heavy, so much that I feel the sick sensation of bile rising up my throat as he chokes on his own blood.. Scarlet splatters spray from his mouth to paint the concrete beneath his feet and still, Jun refuses to confess the truth that would afford him a swift death..

"This ends with the truth.. Are you such a coward you cannot confess to the choices you have made, Jun?" Fei twirls a folding butterfly knife between his fingers, growing impatient.. "Do you not stand by your conviction to betray me? Wángbādàn! Nǐ yǐwéi nǐ shì shéi?!"

"I--I am not the coward--Xiao--you are the one who is--weak! Too weak to do what has to be done!" Li Jun coughs, wheezing his words.. "Nǐ huì hòuhuǐ de! The tide does not cease to flow with me-- There are others who will take my place-- and your whore daughter.."

"Wǒ dū nìle.." Muttering that he's had enough, Fei ignores the ominous threat that rasps from Li's lips as he turns to me, extending a blood soaked hand in invitation.. "You! Come!"

"Aye, sir?" I rise to my feet, following orders but unable to follow his example and remain so unaffected by the way Li Jun talks about Frankie..

What does he mean 'the tide doesn't cease with him'?

Is he talking about his deals with Beckett?

Or is there a bigger picture that I am still missing?

If there are others who mean to do My Wallflower harm, I'll find them.. I'll find them and I'll cut their fucking eyes out too..

Pacing forward to stand beside The Red Dragon, I swallow my roiling nausea and Fei hands me the blade and points to the dead-man who is somehow still breathing.. "I will hear a confession, Mr O'riley.. That was our deal."

"Aye'Sir." I wrap my fingers around the double hilt of the balisong blade and in that moment I am transported decades in reverse.. Back to my youth, a frightened young lad, disarmed and ill-equipped to cope with the very first interrogation I witnessed, when I was forced to participate in the brutal slaughter of an IRA rat..

I didn't understand my purpose back then or why Ronan saw it as such an important right of passage.. I knew nothing about the vile nature of torture.. All I knew was how to do what I was told to avoid taking a beating..

But now, I am well versed in the art of pain, practiced and hardened by all I've seen and the ways I have been used by the machine to do damage in the name of duty.. Today's lesson is just a fresh reminder of the unyielding blackness that lives in me..

I know in my heart that am not a bad man.. Though I am all too aware that I'm not a good one either..

Somewhere in between is where I belong and this moment is the culmination of an entire life spent walking the thin line between right and wrong..