Strictly Business

Strictly Business: Chapter 20

Shane waited at the back alley as instructed. Two men wearing black ski masks stepped out from behind the dumpsters when they saw him. "Tie him up and blindfold him," the taller man instructed his stockier counterpart.

"What do you want? Where are you taking me?" Shane demanded backing away.

"You want those photos? You better stop asking and start obeying. Hand over your mobile phone."

Shane looked the the two men over. He gave them his phone and put his hands behind his back quietly. The stocky man tied a black blindfold over his eyes and slipped a cable tie around his wrists and pulled it tight.

The two of them led Shane roughly to a beat up old van parked at the end of the back alley and shoved him inside the back.

"Let's go," the tall man instructed the driver. The stocky man kept an eye on Shane at the back.

Shane laid uncomfortably on the floor of the van. He could hear the van driving through the city. They drove for quite a while before he heard the change in traffic noise outside the van. They are entering a quieter area, probably still urban judging from the fact that the road was still smooth but definitely less traffic.

The van stopped at last and Shane felt himself being pulled out of the van roughly by the men. They led him a couple of paces and made him stop. Shane could sense that there was something solid in front of him. A loud cranking rumble made him jump. It was a door, a fairly large one as it was loud and slow as it moved on it's rails. Shane was led inside. Their footsteps slapped loudly on the rough concrete and echoed. Where am I? Shane wondered as he tried to peer around the blindfold. He could sense that the area was spacious and very dark, probably empty too from the sound of the echoes.

Suddenly light shone through his blindfold. The men stopped him again and took off his blindfold and cut off the cable tie. He blinked several times, blinded by the large light hanging above. He looked around as his eyes adjusted. They were in a huge empty warehouse or hangar. Old tattered boxes were piled in one corner and there was dust everywhere.

A cough sounded in front of him and Shane directed his attention to the strange set up in the centre of the warehouse. There was a small folding table on which was placed a laptop. A man also wearing a black ski mask sat in front of it. There was a small video recorder mounted on a tripod beside the table. This was guarded by an extremely fidgety skinny man whose glittering eyes stared at him through the holes in his ski mask. He gave a high pitched giggle and bounced on his feet. Shane counted 6 men in total, all wearing black ski masks.

"What do you want?" Shane directed his question to the man seated coolly in front of the laptop. He seemed to be the leader.

He reached out and turned the screen of the laptop to face Shane. The whole screen was filled the nude photo of Elizabeth he had received earlier, the screen dissolved to reveal another. A cruel slow slideshow of nude photos of Elizabeth.

Shane gave a howl of fury and started forward. The masked men beside him held him back. "WHAT DO YOU WANT??!!" he roared, struggling against their hold. Every part of him wanted to smash the laptop to pieces. The small skinny guy beside the camera giggled wildly. Shane's fury seemed to excite him further. The leader glanced at him annoyed but ignored him.

"To destroy these photos for you." the man said calmly. Shane stopped struggling. "On one condition. You stand there and let us beat you up," he got up from his seat. "See we got a nice big sum of money from someone who wanted to see you beat up. Even provided us the camera to take a video of it. Guess he has some sort of weird fetish, I don't really care to know. You stand there and don't retaliate and let us thrash you until we are satisfied and this laptop and the memory card with all the photos will be destroyed. You try to fight back and all these photos will be posted on the Internet faster than you can swing a second punch. Got it?"

"How do I know if you or the guy who paid you don't have more copies?" Shane asked furiously.

"You have got to trust us." the man shrugged as he walked towards Shane. "The guy who took these photos would not be dumb enough to leave incriminating evidence like this around him and as for me, I'm not interested in these photos or your feud. Sure they are nice to look at but I prefer cold hard cash. Your choice."

Shane stared at the man for a long minute. "Fine. I'll agree to your terms. Just make sure you keep to your word."

The leader held up his right hand. "Scout's honour."

Shane tensed as the men circled him menacingly, some of them swinging bats. He looked at the leader in front of him. "One swing from you..." he warned.

Before Shane could react the stocky man behind him gave him a hard blow with his bat to his legs, making his knees buckle. The other men swooped in and starting punching, kicking and hitting him with their weapons. Shane cowered on the floor, his arms around his head. The blows rained on him and he grunted in pain. The leader sat lazily in his chair, watching. The skinny man operating the camera got more and more excited by the scene. He was itching to join in and kept glancing at the leader.

"Stop." the leader commanded after a few minutes. Shane struggled to his feet. Blood was pouring from his head, mouth and cuts from his arms. He grimaced as he tried to stand upright. Every part of him was screaming in pain. His ribs hurt as he tried to take a deeper breath, it feels like at least one of his ribs is fractured. Probably his arms and legs as well. He blinked from the blood dripping down his face. His vision is blurred and there's a slight ringing in his ears. He stumbled a little.

"Very good Mr Preston. You have kept your end of the bargain and so shall I," he announced as he doused the laptop in lighter fluid and threw a lighted match on it.

"Now does that..." he stopped short as the skinny man rushed forward towards Shane. Shane's eyes widen in shock and he gave a gasp of pain. The skinny man stepped back and started laughing maniacally. Shane grasped his left abdomen where blood started to blossom. He doubled over and collapsed to the floor again.

"What the f***?! Eddie what did you do?!" the leader shouted in shock. The rest of the men were stunned and all of them looked at Eddie. He was still laughing hysterically and in his hands was a large bloody box cutter .

"F***!!! where did you get that?! What's the matter with you?!" the leader went over and snatched the cutter from Eddie's hands.

"Err Boss I think he just took a couple of shots of Big C and now he's all lit up," the stocky man confessed.

The leader let off a string of expletives. Eddie was still laughing.

"Boss what are we going to do?" the tall man asked nervously.

"Get the f*** out of here of course! Get everything, leave nothing behind. Quickly, you f***ing morons!!" the leader barked. "And you, watch over Eddie before he does something else stupid," he instructed turning to the stocky man. "Pack up! Quickly!"

The men quickly rushed to gather everything and remove all traces of them being there and scampered out of the warehouse.

Shane sprawled in the middle of the silent warehouse, slowly bleeding out onto the floor.

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Note: Big C = cocaine, All lit up = high on drugs. These are all slang or street talk for drugs.

Dear readers,

Please don't murder me. I do not mean to leave you so cruelly on such a cliffhanger but I may not be able to update as often as I did. I'm actually in the midst of preparing for my wedding in July and as you can tell, it's close. I'll be very busy so I might be able to write as often. I've already been taking precious time to write so many chapters so far because this story is just screaming to be written (thank God for Evernote!)

I have the next few chapters in draft so if I have the time I may upload when I can. If not the story may continue in mid July.

Please do continue to support this story by reading, commenting, voting and fanning. I'll still eb able to reply.

Thanks,

daydreamerzz