PART III
1999
CHAPTER ONE
Olga Madanovic’s eyelids fluttered while she slowly regained consciousness with an onslaught of pain that took her breath away. She came fully alert with a long, low moan. Her face felt burnt – she remembered the punches the rat-faced man had inflicted. Olga’s stomach cramped and a wave of nausea hit her. She retched and tried to lean over the floor, but the ropes held her too tightly and she soiled her clothes. Something wet ran from her nose and onto her split lips. She touched her tongue to it. Blood.
Olga was bound hands and feet to a chair. She cocked her head to look with her left eye at the metal-barred window set high in the wall of her cell. She couldn’t open her right eye; it seemed to be swollen. There was no light outside. Only darkness.
The man. Where was the rat-faced man? The beatings had been terrible, but somehow she’d endured. She tried to slow her breathing, to remain calm. Maybe he’s finished with me, she thought, a shred of hope fluttering in her brain.
Olga started at the sound of footsteps. Someone approached her cell. The metal cell door squealed open and then the rat-faced man appeared in the doorway. He stepped into the tiny room, the door creaking as he slowly closed it behind him. Leering at her with his gap-toothed smile, he took a pair of pliers from a canvas bag sitting in a corner of the cell. He licked his lips as though he were about to eat his favorite meal. He moved to Olga and took hold of the little finger on her strapped-down right hand, then placed the jaws of the pliers on the finger’s first joint.
Olga stared down at her hand. She tried to shake her head, but the tape securing her head to the high-backed chair allowed minimal mobility. She groaned through the gag in her mouth. She knew what was about to happen, but felt a sense of disbelief.
The man ripped the gag from Olga’s mouth. “I want to hear you yell, my pretty,” he said in Serbo-Croatian, licking his thin, purplish lips. He squeezed the handles of the pliers and the tool’s jaws bit into Olga’s flesh, then into bone.
Her screams reverberated off the damp stone cell walls. The pain shot through her, seeming to explode in every nerve ending of her body. She writhed helplessly against her bonds.
“Are you going to confess now, my pretty?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Olga moaned. “Plea-a-a-se! Why are you doing this to me? I’ve done nothing wrong.”
The man answered her by moving the pliers and crushing her thumb, a smile creasing his face. His eyes seemed to sparkle with pleasure. “Lying puta. Who are you working for? You are a spy. I know it! I can smell it on you. Tell me!”
“No-o-o-o!” Olga screeched when the pliers bit through the flesh of yet another finger, crunching bone, splattering blood – a crescendo of pain. She felt her heartbeat accelerate higher and higher. She wanted to live but knew the rule: Hang on as long as possible.
The cell door creaked open and the rat-faced man turned abruptly toward it. A shadowy figure entered. Ratface walked into the shadows next to the door. Olga heard him whispering. Ratface came back to her, stepped behind her chair, and freed her from the too-tight ropes that bound her wrists and head. Then he bent down in front of Olga and untied her ankles.
She groaned when blood rushed to her hands and feet, bringing more pain to her body.Olga looked down at her mangled fingers and suddenly felt faint. She toppled from the chair to the floor, fighting to remain conscious.
“She stinks,” Olga heard the newcomer say. “Clean her up.”
Ratface picked up a bucket of water from a corner of the cell and threw its contents over her.
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EVIL DEEDS
Misterio / SuspensoEvil Deeds is the first in a 4-book series that follows the Danforth family from the kidnapping of their 2-year-old son in Greece in 1971 to present day. The book (and series) is a roller coaster ride of action and suspense. This book, as with all o...
