Chapter 192

Chapter 192
James
“You called me here for this?” I stared down at the teenager strapped to the interrogation chair in disbelief. My father stood behind the chair with a gleeful smile on his face. Travis stood next to me, his arms across his chest, face stoic and intimidating the poor kid. By the time I pulled up to the massive colonial-style house i was already questioning what the hell I was doing here. The place felt out of sync with it’s surroundings. It’s pristine white siding and dark blue shutters looked like they belonged on the windswept shore of the Hamptons, not nestled in the dense forest. It was like someone had cut and pasted the house out of a luxury real estate site and dropped it in the middle of nowhere. It was unusual for Travis to set up in a place like that. He preferred interrogation rooms in his office or at the training center. 

Now, standing in the basement I realized exactly who set this up. The concrete walls were windowless and soundproofed, with harsh overhead lighting. There was a table off to the side that contains items so numerous I didn’t know where to begin. The atmosphere was thick with that sterile electric hum you only hear in movie interrogations. 

The metal chair in the center of the room creaked as the boy shifted his weight. It really looked like a black site scene without the Hollywood upgrade to it. This had my father written all over it. Sadistic fuck. Using theatrics for the sake of control. I took Travis’s silence as a confirmation, his tension more telling than anything he could of said outlaid. He’d called me and dragged me three hours into the Northern end of Delaware State Park not because he needed my help to interrogate some poor kid, but to help with my father, Marcus Knight. 

The teenage boy sobbed into the silence between the three of us. The sound echoed off the cold concrete like they were trying to escape if he couldn’t. His whole body trembled violently. My father, ever the monster in a designer disguise, lifted the cordless drill and squeezed the trigger. The mechanical whine shrieked through the room. The boy flinched away from the drill, twisting in the metal chair as far as the restraints would allow, causing my father to let out a sharp, gleeful laugh that made my skin crawl. 

Travis scrunched his nose as if he smelled something spoiled. I sniffed the air instinctively, searching for the acrid, moldy twang that always comes with fear. But that sense had died with Beau. I raised one eyebrow to ask Travis what the fuck this was about but he wouldn’t meet my gaze; like a man trying to shy away from what he’d already condoned. I knew Travis was struggling with this as much as I was.  My father brought the drill next to the boy’s ear. He revved it three times. Each burst of sound slicing through the silent conversations like a blade. The boy whimpered and squealed trying to shrink into the chair and further into himself. I exhaled slowly, the sound more resignation than breath. It was time to step in before my father crossed a line we couldn’t come back from. 

“Yo, kid.” My voice came out low but steady as I tried to sound human in a room that seemed to have forgotten what that meant. 

The boy whimpered, like my voice carried the same threat as the drill. The boy’s blindfold clung to his damp face, soaked in sweat and tears. My eyes shot to my father, my glare sharp enough to draw blood. He was looking over the table and hummed some giddy off-key show tune that clashed violently with the heavy tension in the room. He didn’t look up as he was too preoccupied with sifting through the tools like a kid picking out candy. 

My tongue moved along the inside of my cheek. I hoped he would get the hint to stop but my father’s sadistic excitement was clear. He was drunk on the cruel delight he always got when someone else was powerless under his control. Travis stood tensely, his focus pinpointed on my father and his anger radiated off him like heat from asphalt. It had to be killing him, the delicate dance of alpha politics. Travis was an alpha by his own birthright, but he was also on neutral ground. Forced to stand down out of some archaic code of mutual respect.

This was no-man’s land, rogue territory, so neither of them held the upper hand. It almost made my father more dangerous because any blood spilt wouldn’t come with a political price. Neither Alpha moved. The weight of their silence was a standoff in itself. Clearing my throat to break it, my voice was calm but edged like broken glass, “We all know why you are here. Why don’t you confess what you did. It will make things a lot easier for everyone and a hell of a less painful for you.” 

Beneath my charmingly smooth words was the same threat my father had wielded, just without the sadistic bloodlust. I was hoping the message was clear to the kid without inflicting more terror. 

“Or you can stay quiet,” my father said, the grin curling on his face venomous. “And it’ll be a lot more fun for us.”

He clicked the drill again, and the mechanical shriek it emitted added a musical quality to the boy’s scream. I closed my eyes, jaw tight, trying to shut it out. But the sound stuck to me like terror-soaked tar. It added to my long list of nightmare fuel.  

“Alpha,” Travis growled behind me, low and menacing. His voice carried weight and I could hear the strain in it. He leaned against the concrete wall like it was the only thing keeping him upright, first clenched at his side. His eyes not leaving the boy’s face. 

The boy sobbed uncontrollably for a while, until he could finally gasp through the panic. His voice cracked like a rock under pressure with each word, “I’m…sorry… I… I… I didn’t know…. Please… sir… I didn’t know!”