Chapter 57

FIFTEEN YEARS OF HATE

The first thing he remembered was the glare of a powerful light forcing him to squint.

The second thing he remembered was the pain—from the pulsing ache in his skull to the searing fire in his chest, shoulders, and arms.

His eyes were shut, and the light made him shut them tighter.

He thought, I’m dead and I’m going towards the light.

He kept his eyes closed. Opening them and seeing where he was headed scared him. And scared was something he rarely felt.

But he wanted to look. He opened his eyes. They were sticky, and he had to blink away the sleep. He squinted, the big white light right in his face.

Am I here? he thought. Is this it?

“Here he is, the bastard,” said a voice. “Waking up, more’s the pity. You should’ve stayed sleeping, Faultless.”

Faultless? He wondered. Who’s—

And then he came fully awake, shaking his head. It was like birth—a violent, rapid, agonizing casting out. He jerked, his body stiffening. He gasped, the pain levels increasing.

“Take that away for now, Ryan,” said another voice, deeper, made craggy by cigarettes.

The light angled away from his eyes, and he saw where he was. A low-ceilinged room. No windows. Damp drizzling down the walls. A single light bulb meshed in wire. The floor was wooden. It creaked as people trod on it.

His sense of smell reactivated, and his nose filled with the musty odor of somewhere old, somewhere without light and air. The reek of tobacco also saturated the atmosphere.

Then he became aware of his condition. He looked up. Two chains hung from two rusty rings pinned into the ceiling. Faultless’s wrists were cuffed to the chains. He’d been stripped to his boxer shorts. Sweat and blood soaked his torso. The pain in his shoulders was volcanic. He gritted his teeth and groaned.

And then he clocked his captors.

Three of them. Two he recognized from the car. A young bloke, early twenties. Short in stature, but built hard and mean. He moved a video camera and tripod across the room. The light from the camera, which had moments ago blinded Faultless, now showed him more of his prison.

Four wooden steps led up to up a door. It was barred and padlocked. No way out.

The second guy was the black. The one who’d smashed him across the head with the baseball bat. He brandished it now, letting it swing menacingly next to his leg.

The third man came into view, moving into Faultless’s eye line.

It took a few seconds, but the years peeled away from the man’s face.

“Graveney,” said Faultless.

“You fucking, murdering bastard,” said Graveney. “You’ve made a big mistake coming back. You should’ve stayed exiled, son.”

“I was missing your friendly face, Allan. Just had to come home.”

Graveney smiled, but only his mouth moved. His eyes remained cold and steady.

“That’s nice,” he said. “Since you missed it so much, it can be the last face you see.”

Graveney clutched Faultless’s jaws and squeezed. Rage twisted his face. Spit came from between his gritted teeth. He went dark red.

He said, “My hate for you has been brewing fifteen years, Faultless. You made a bad mistake killing my brother. You know there was a truce. But you made an even worse mistake killing him, because he was innocent.”

He snapped his hand away.

Faultless flexed his jaw. It hurt, but he just added the pain to the already-mounting agony he was feeling.

He said, “I never put Tony down as an innocent, myself.”

Graveney shuddered with wrath. He punched Faultless in the ribs. The air was knocked out of him. Pins and needles surged up his flank. He felt his left side go dead, all the nerves in there locked up. Then the feeling in his body returned and revealed yet another new pain.

He coughed, every breath he took hurting his ribs.

“Before this is done, you’ll beg for mercy,” said Graveney. “And you’ll say sorry a thousand times for killing my brother. You’ll say sorry till you can’t speak no more, Faultless. And you know what, son?”

“What, mate?”

“It’ll make no difference, because you’re going to die, and it’s going to be long and very painful.” Eyes fixed on Faultless, he gestured with his hand as if he were beckoning a dog.

The younger thug appeared again, carrying the camera and tripod.

Graveney said, “This is my youngest, Ryan.”

“Lovely to meet you, junior,” said Faultless.

“Shut up, bitch,” said Ryan, drenching Faultless in spit.

“Set it up,” Graveney told his son, and while the younger man fixed the tripod and adjusted the camera, his dad went on. “It’s going to be recorded for posterity, your death, Faultless.”

“Nice, make sure you send the royalties check to Roy Hanbury. He’ll want to know what you’ve done.”

“You think Hanbury scares me? Hanbury’s gone good, Faultless. He’s gone all decent, now. He ain’t got evil in him no more.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Shut it,” said Graveney and then to Ryan, “Is it ready?”

The camera’s light shone into Faultless’s eyes again. He squinted and turned his head away.

Graveney said, “Buckley, fire it up.”

Faultless looked at the big black guy as he crouched over a sports bag. He stood and turned, goggles resting on his forehead. He carried a handheld butane blowlamp.

Faultless grimaced. Fear wrenched his stomach.

Buckley grinned, and his white teeth stood out against his black face.

Graveney flicked a Zippo lighter and held it to the lamp, and a tongue of blue fire jutted from the torch.

Every muscle in Faultless’s body tightened as Buckley moved towards him.