Rule 39: There Is No Such Thing As Coincidence (Tony DiNozzo Love Story)

Breaking the Horse's Back

Erin's POV

    After being shoved in a black town car thirty minutes ago, blindfolded, gagged, and bound, I'm finally drawn out of the backseat and forced to walk. I find it slightly difficult with the ankle cuffs, but move well enough as I'm pushed further. I focus on my other senses and try to hear or smell anything to get me to figure out where I am. The ground I'm walking on is smooth, concrete, there's a slight echo that surrounds us and I figure that it must be a large warehouse, or something similar. There's no defining smell except a very faint smell of cigar smoke and beneath it a metal smell. Not the metallic smell of blood, but a faint rust smell. We have to be in the Industrial Warehouse district to have this smell and to have this kind of space.

    The echo of our steps reduces and I know we've stepped into a smaller room within this large building. The blindfold over my eyes is stripped away and I look around quickly, there are three men in the room, Ivann is not here. There's a chair on one side of the room and a table at the other. There's a rolling metal surgeon's tray with knives, torch, ice picks, and a few other items near the table. A tripod with a camera sits between the table and the chair.

    "Сядьте," (Sit down.) Timofei says. I walk towards the chair and sit down. Another man I recognize as Grigori, straps me to the chair. The cuffs are attached to the hooks imbedded in the concrete floor, the chair sitting above them. My arms sit in between my legs, my hands resting over the lip of the seat.

    "Где Ivann?" (Where is Ivann?) I ask. Timofei says nothing as he takes his coat off and hands it over to another man. He turns to me as he rubs his hands together.

    "Вы не ломай меня," (You won't break me.) I say. He pauses and his lips pull together, he glances behind me and Grigori moves towards the tripod.

    "Посмотрим," (We will see.) he says. An excruciating pain shoots through my jaw and travels through me, tossing my head to the right side. My vision is blurry and I look up to see Timofei smirking with his hand resting by his side still in a fist.

    "Ты мертв," (You're dead.) I say as I taste blood on my lips. He grins and nods before his fist rises again and I'm hit once more.

    One after the other, his large hands barrel into my skin. My face and body is already feeling sore and aching as I sit up after another hit and take deep ragged breaths. I hold his glare, forcing myself to disassociate from what's happening so that I may have a chance of surviving until Ivann has his chance at me, and so the team can find me before I'm dead.