The underground chamber was thick with the scent of damp stone, rot, and iron. The torches lining the walls flickered, casting dancing shadows across Damien's face, making him look less like a man and more like something that belonged to the dark. Each step he took echoed ominously, the sound bouncing off the moss-laced stone like whispers in a tomb.
Damien stared at the man, the dim orange light deepening the shadows around his eyes. A small smile slowly spread across his face, curling at the edges with an expression that was far from warm. "Spare you, you say?" he echoed, voice smooth, almost amused.
The chain rattled as the man shifted, trying to inch away despite the restraints cutting into his wrists. His body trembled, slick with sweat and streaked with dried blood. "I will if you tell me what it is you did wrong," Damien continued, calm and measured.
"I... I don't know... I didn't... I was just dragged here... I promise... I," the man stammered, his voice hoarse and broken. It sounded barely more than a whisper.
Damien crouched slightly, his long coat brushing the filthy ground, his eyes never leaving the man. "I'm giving you a chance here," he said, voice dipping into something tender, as if speaking to a child. "One chance to walk away untouched. You've already been touched, but you get what I mean. You can't afford to throw it away."
The man swallowed hard, his throat working visibly. "I really... I..." he licked at his cracked lips, "I don't know. Please. I'm sorry." He had great difficulty talking with his bodied lips.
Damien stood from his crouched position. The smile faded slowly from his face and it was replaced by something void, something colder and unreasonable. He tilted his head slightly as he examined the man who continued begging under his breath, his eyes cold and depthless. The man continued whispering pleas between choked sobs, blood trickling anew from his busted lip.
"Do you remember her name?" Damien asked, his voice low and something calm like that stillness before the storm.
The man blinked rapidly, his gaze unfocused. "W.. what?"
"Her name," Damien repeated.
There was a pause and then a small shift in the man's posture. It was a ripple of dread, his body tensed and his words got caught in his throat.
"So you do remember," Damien said quietly. "You know what I'm talking about."
His lips curved again, but the smile was crooked, warped, wrong. A dark glint passed through his eyes like something ancient had stirred. He stepped closer, the light catching on the sharp lines of his cheekbones.
Damien bent slightly so their eyes met. "Ava Sinclair."
At the sound of her name, the man whimpered like an animal caught in a snare.
"I didn't know who she was," he choked out. "I thought… I was drunk, I didn't know…"
A sharp sound cracked through the air. Damien had backhanded him with his gloved hand, a lazy, casual motion, but the force sent the man reeling into the stone wall. Blood spat from the man's mouth.
"Spill another lie and you'll lose your ability to talk," Damien said, voice now stripped of all softness.
The man, coughed violently, trying to catch his breath. "I didn't know you knew her," he gasped. "I swear… otherwise I wouldn't have touched her. I wouldn't dare. Please, Mr. Blackwood. Don't do this. We're business partners."
Damien tilted his head, eyes narrowing. "I'm not the villain here. We only did business once, Adam. And I don't make a habit of keeping useless people."
He crouched again, lower this time, inspecting Adam as if studying a specimen. The man's face was swollen, his nose a misshapen lump, both eyes blackened to slits. It was far beyond recognition
Though Ava hadn't said a word, Damien had known. The second she returned that night, he noticed that her posture was off and her eyes darted. Her movements were rigid and her voice a little too even. Even her scent was faintly tinged with fear and the unmistakable stench of another man.
Adam whimpered, his lips trembling as he tried to speak through swollen tissue. Tears had now mixed with the blood on his face. "I didn't... I didn't know who she was…"
"No," Damien interrupted. "You didn't care. You know she is mine and you just wanted to test boundaries, that's why you approached her in the first place."
Adam coughed, a sound that brought up phlegm and blood. "I didn't knowshe meant anything to you. If I had known…"
Damien stood, brushing imaginary dust from his coat, and turned to a long rusted table on the far side of the dungeon. Spread across its surface were tools that gleamed dully in the flickering torchlight, hooks, blades, surgical clamps, pliers, and instruments whose purpose had long been forgotten by the modern world.
From the cell door, the butler stood quietly at the open cell door, watching with the indifference of a man long accustomed to horrors.
Damien turned slightly, glancing back at adam. "Bring him out."
The butler nodded and moved to adam and nlocked the chains from the wall with a click that echoed like a gunshot.
Adam was dragged helpless out of the cell, his body limp, one leg useless, blood trailing in smeared streaks across the floor. His hands were still bound, and he let out a guttural groan as he was dropped in front of the table. The butler dragged him up to his knees to make sure he was in front of the table
The second prisoner in the adjacent cell whimpered at the sound, but neither Damien nor the butler spared him a glance.
Damien turned slowly, his gaze falling on Adam again.
"You could have walked away, Adam," he said softly. "But you touched what was mine."
Adam shivered violently. "Please..."
Damien picked up a slender scalpel, its edge glittering.
"Now," he murmured, almost lovingly, "let's make sure you remember her name."