Getting into the warehouse, Desmond headed straight for a restricted section and stepped into a metal elevator tucked at the back. The ride was silent except for the low hum of the machinery. When the doors slid open, they revealed a dimly lit underground room.
Two men in black stood at the entrance.
"Welcome, boss," they greeted in unison.
"Where is he?" Desmond asked, his voice low and clipped.
"We've got him tied up."
They led him into another room. There, under the harsh glow of a single hanging bulb, sat a man bound to a chair. His shirt was torn, his face marked with bruises. His eyes darted up the moment Desmond entered, but he quickly looked away.
"Has he said anything?" Desmond asked, his gaze never leaving the man.
"No, boss. He's refused to talk," one of his men replied.
Desmond's jaw flexed. With a flick of his hand, one of the men stepped forward and began laying out various tools on the table metal rods, pliers, a coiled length of wire. The sound of steel clinking against the table filled the air, each metallic note making the prisoner stiffen.
Desmond stepped closer, his presence heavy.
His cold aura making the man tremble in fear.
"You know," he began, almost conversationally, "I don't enjoy wasting my time. And you're wasting a lot of it."
The man swallowed hard but kept silent.
Desmond's eyes narrowed. "A few months ago, one of my products was sabotaged. It cost me millions to fix the mess and even longer to get my stock back up. You were there. You helped make it happen. So…" He leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper, "you're going to tell me who sent you… or you're not walking out of here."
The man's breathing grew rapid, his knuckles white against the rope binding him. Still, he said nothing.
Desmond gave a slight nod to his men. One of them picked up a length of wire and stretched it and handed it over to him, he took it then put it between his gloved hands, letting it twang. The prisoner flinched, beads of sweat forming on his forehead.
"You've got three seconds," Desmond said coldly. "One… two—"
"Liam!" the man blurted out, his voice cracking. "It was Liam's company! They paid us to sabotage the product. Said if your launch failed, they'd take over your market!"
Desmond's expression didn't change, but a dangerous glint sparked in his eyes. He straightened slowly.
"Finally," he murmured. "See? That wasn't so hard."
The man breathed a sigh of relief thinking it's over but the next second he felt extreme pain on his fingers as his thumb was cut off.
With a smirk on his face Desmond said, send this to Liam a gift from me personally.
Turning to his men, he said, "Clean this up. I have… a meeting to arrange."
As he walked back to the elevator, the faintest smirk played at his lips. Liam had just made the worst mistake of his life.
Stepping out of the building he made his way to his car entered then drove off to his office he still had a lot of work to deal with.
On the way to his office the image of Daisy sitting under the flashed in his head.
Shaking it off he mentally told himself that he will check up on her tomorrow to make sure she didn't catch a cold.
Not because he cared he just didn't want her to use cold as an excuse to put a hold on the design they needed at least that what he told himself.