When Night Falls (Complete)

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WARNING: This book contains graphic torture scenes that may not be suitable for some readers. I don't think they're that bad but well.

IDRIS

Death or imprisonment? Idris would choose death any day. A life in confines is no life at all. Living in chains strips one of their free will. And what's living without free will?

But death. Death is instantaneous. Well, not when he tortures his victims. But it delivers them from captivity. It sends them to the afterlife with their dignity still intact. Why waste away behind a cell when you can be relieved of such punishment?

That's why Idris bestows the same fate upon all his victims. Such as the one in front of him.

This one has been confined to a chair. His ankles have been tied respectively to each leg, with hands bound to the back. He won't be doing much moving with how tight those ropes are.

"You're awake."

The victim searches for the source of the greeting until Idris comes into view. Instantly, he begins squirming within the rope. But try as he may, he's as good as mice to a trap.

Both Idris and his guard, Croff, eye the captive up and down with a couple of their men all armed and at the ready. They dragged him into an empty warehouse miles away from where anyone can get to him. But it's not like he could escape if they were any closer to civilization anyway.

"I'm hurt, Mateo. I heard you've been meeting up with outsiders to plan my downfall." Idris shows him a couple photos in black and white. In them is an unsuspecting Mateo chatting away with the enemy, his back to the camera. "What I'm trying to figure out is why."

Mateo can no longer keep his anger down. "You killed my fucking brother, psicópata!"

This is news at first. Idris shares a look with Croff that runs long overdue, to the point where the tension starts to give way to an awkward setting.

Then Idris asks, in Spanish, "He had a brother?"

Croff shrugs. "This is the first I'm hearing of it."

"I always knew he was crazy."

Mateo struggles within his confines again, too vexed at being mocked. But Idris pays him no mind. He thinks Mateo is fabricating tales out of thin air, that he's being accused of crimes he never committed. Until it finally clicks.

The memories come in still images, because they've been buried deep behind some hidden door in his mind. There's a gun and a man covered in blood on the floor. He remembers there being pleading and screaming. He remembers pulling the trigger.

"I did, didn't I?" Idris says while thinking it over. He'd gone and forgotten all about it.

Mateo violently tries tugging himself free from the rope, but to no avail. "I swear I'll have your fucking head, Idris!"

Idris dismisses the captive's threat and pulls out a gun from his pocket, but Croff decides to take matters into his own hands and strikes Mateo hard across his face, leaving him dazed and in a state of semi-consciousness. When his senses gradually begin returning, he spits out a mouthful of blood and slowly brings his eyes up to Idris.

Mateo still doesn't cower in fear. "Go to hell."

"I would love to," Says Idris with a smile too ridiculing for Mateo to look at. "But it's too crowded with people like your dead brother."

This makes Mateo boil in so much anger, it practically shoots steam out his ears. But this is no longer Idris's problem. He motions for one of his men to cut Mateo's hands loose, then does the unthinkable and hands him the gun.