Page 59 of Keeping My Enemies Closer: Pt. 1

“I haven’t,” I wheezed, praying that he’d believe me.

Then, because he was twice my size, he lifted me to my feet, then tossed me across the room, my back hitting the wall before I crashed onto the floor, my shoulder screaming in pain as it took the brunt of my weight.My mother was still screaming behind the tape, but she couldn’t help me any more than I could help her right now.

“Where’s the fucking money?”he hissed down at me.“I will not keep asking.”

“Maybe she needs to see us carve up her mother,” the second guy suggested, and it was enough to make my stomach begin to roll with genuine fear.

“Is that what we need to do?”the first guy asked.“Do we need to make an example out of your mother?”

“N...no,” I choked out.

“Then tell me where the fucking money is,” he ordered.

“I sw...swear...I haven’t gotten any money yet,” I insisted.“I haven’t been paid.”

My mother’s screams had my head rearing upward, and I watched in horror as blood dripped from the side of my mother’s face, shards of glass raining down over her, scattering around her feet.The second guy had grabbed an empty glass, then had slammed it against my mother’s head.

“Oh, God...”I cried.“Please...we don’t have any money.”

“Well, as you can see, we don’t believe you,” the first guy taunted.

“You can...you can check the entire house and see,” I begged.“You’ll see.”

“We have,” he replied, surprising me.“You think we’ve just been sitting here, having tea with your mother?”

“Then you know that we don’t have any money here,” I said, imploring with him to believe me.

“Which only tells me that you’re hiding it somewhere else,” he surmised, but he was so wrong.

“I haven’t gotten any money yet,” I repeated.“Please, you need to believe me.”

“Actually, I don’t need to believe anything that you say,” he replied coldly.“Especially, since I know everything about the auction.”

A crippling fear rose up to strangle my throat, and while I wasn’t an expert in situations like this, it wasn’t a good thing for him to be telling me so much.If they were planning on leaving us alive, then they wouldn’t want to tell us anything that we could tell the police.If they were planning on leaving us alive, then they’d do their best to make sure that we couldn’t identify them in any way.So, the fact that he was telling me that he knew about the auction, knew about how much money I’d made, and just the fact that he knew who I really was...these two men had no plans on letting us live once they got their hands on the money that I didn’t have.No matter what, these two men were not going to let my mother and me live once it was all said and done.

Not caring that my mother was going to hear the truth about what I’d done, I said, “Then you know that it was Kasimir Korolev who bid on me.”

“And?”

“And since the auction was sponsored by the Korolevs, he didn’t have to pay,” I semi-lied.“He doesn’t have to pay if he doesn’t want to.”

“You’re lying!”he yelled again, and before I could assure him that I wasn’t, he had me by the hair again, but this time, he threw me into the living room, separating me from my mother.

“I’m...I’m not,” I cried out between gasps of pain.

The guy shook his head as he said, “I was hoping that we wouldn’t have to do this, but it looks like you’re giving me no choice.”

“What...what are you going...going to do?”

“I’m going to see just how much you love your mother,” he answered sinisterly, and that’s when I finally threw up all over the floor.