Three Hearts Left Intact

Chapter 74: Good Cop Bad Cop

James leaned forwards grunting as a pain shot through his head, whilst looking intently at the two men before him. "For the last time, I don't know what your talking about! Now let me go!"

Mallix glared backwards at Alex who stood anxiously tapping his foot at a rapid rate. "It's funny, I always knew you were a liar James, you've always been one. But you're not getting away this time, I know you have information about Kaila and Lain. And I want to know what it is you know!" Mallix demanded.

Before James could even get a word in, Alex stepped out of the room calmly in search of something. Giving him only a few seconds of attention, Mallix was soon focused back on James.

"Get it through your thick skull Mallix! I.Dont.Know.Jack.Sh**!" James shouted spitting in his brothers face.

"That's it!" Mallx threw his hands up, climbing onto the bed getting over James body while beginning to throw fist after fist across his face. With James helpless to defend himself, Mallix was able to unleash his fury with no disturbance.

The strongly built man grunted each time his fist came into contact with his brothers cheek. Taking away little droplets of blood with each hit, by the time Alex came back into the room Mallix's entire hands were consumed by the thick red substance.

Dropping a roll of duct tape and baseball bat onto the floor, Alex rushed over to Mallix trying to pry him off his brother. "Mallix! Stop this!" He yelled trying to grab hold of Mallix's flying arms.

"ENOUGH ALEX! JAMES NEEDS TO LEARN HIS LESSON FOR LYING TO ME! FOR MANIPULATING US! FOR ALLOWING MY GIRLS TO BE TAKEN AWAY FROM ME!" Mallix got off James and got in Alex's face, backing up his strong but smaller built friend into the wall.

Alex looked into his eyes seeing how dark and consumed by grief they were. "This isn't you M! The Mallix I know wouldn't resort to violence this easily to fix problems! The Mallix I know tries to listen and logically solve through issues before he decides to put his fists up! Snap out of it!" Alex put his hands out onto Mallix's hot shoulders to keep him at arms length away.

Mallix just stayed silently staring at Alex, feeling how hot his skin felt against his friends touch he knew he had a point. "He knows Alex," his voice was raspy and hurt, "I know he does. I just need to get it out of him. If I can do that, then I get to see my girls sooner." Mallix softly said to Alex trying to leave James out of their conversation.

"And we will get it out of him Mallix, but we can't do that if you kill him. I mean look at what you did to his face." Alex signaled.

When Mallix turned to look at the mess he made, he saw James with a swollen face. The entire area was covered in a red liquid. Without having to examine his brothers face, Mallix could tell he had broken his nose and busted his upper lip badly. "He's no good to us if we can't get any information out of him. Let me handle this one." Alex carefully said watching closely for any resistance from Mallix as he eased his hands off of his cooling shoulders.

He was surprised when his giant of a friend nodded his head slamming his back against the wall as he began breathing heavily. Alex fixed himself and cleared his voice as he stood at the end of the bed looking down at James.

"So what...," he mumbled out from behind his puffy lips. His voice clearly shaking, "you...you guys playing," he stopped needing a break to breathe from his mouth as a wheezy noise came out, "playing good cop, bad cop."

"Yeah something like that." Alex's calm voice became tougher and more affirmative, "let's start things off simple. So tell me James, do you know what the Cave is?" He watched James smirk lightly as his lips perked up.

"No," he licked his lips, having a metallic taste linger in his mouth as he wincing in the pain it caused, "I have no idea what that is?"

"No, well then I guess you won't have a problem with me just checking through your phone right?" Alex smirked himself grabbing a phone from off the bedside table.

Easily getting past James predictable passcode, Alex opened his recent calls list while making sure to give James a front row seat to his doing. "Here's what's going to happen, we're going to go through this list together and if I spot a number that seems suspicious then I'm going to let your brother here grab that bat I grabbed and let him get his anger out." His smirk changed to a smile as he sat down on the bed making sure James could see his screen perfectly.

The second Alex began to scroll down James eyes widened, "stop it!" He shouted pulling against his restraints wanting eagerly to get his phone back.

"Mallix grab that duct tape for me," Alex asked seeing Mallix get off the wall and grab the item. Signaling it for James, Mallix nodded and ripped a small piece of it off before slapping it onto James mouth. "Thanks M, much better. Now I can focus." Alex said continuing to scroll through his phone.

He had only gone through the list for a few seconds and already Alex recognized numbers from Cave agents. Rather than alerting Mallix of the news, Alex kept to himself seeing that James would be nothing but mush from the amount of contacts he had in his recent calls. James was shouting under the tape in protest but that didn't stop Alex from continuing. The further down he went the more scarce the numbers became. By the time he stopped scrolling Alex noticed one number in particular.

"Who's this?" He held the phone to James pointing towards a number.

Suddenly James's mumbled shouting stopped, he didn't say anything nor moved. Instead he just looked between his phone and Alex. "What's wrong James? Cat got your tongue. Well I think I know a way we can fix that, I say we call this number and see what they have to say to you." Alex smiled knowing how the Cave worked.

James was no longer silent, beginning to scream even louder than before wanting more than anything to get the phone away from Alex. "What? Don't want me calling them, do you?" He waited as James hesitantly nodded at him. "Then start talking." He demanded yanking the tape of James mouth.

Grunting as the tape peeled off in one clean swoop, Alex held the phone up. "Who is this?" Alex asked as Mallix got in closer eager to find out answers.
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Let me know what you think. Thanks Lexx signing off