Searching for His Lost Love

13 Why are you here

Apologizing to his partner for the distraction and suggesting that they meet again for a business dinner at a restaurant that had such a high price point he knew the other man wouldn’t refuse to get a free meal out of him for he then took leave and headed to inspect the situation outside of the room.  Opening the door Blaine found himself at once seized by the urge to burn the place to the ground.  The scene before him burned itself into his memory as he looked upon it.  Lisa lay curled upon the floor in a broken heap.  Her white dress was no longer pristine as it had become soaked practically from the hips down in various shades of red wine.  He couldn’t decipher where the wine ended and the blood running down her arms and onto the dress began.  She cried among the remains of the wine bottles and clutched her hands to her chest.

At first he thought she cradled them to her, bending her curvy frame to protect them because they were injured and then she held her hands out to Ryan as if clutching a baby bird.  Blaine felt irritation war with the anger when he saw Ryan by her side and was about to turn away when he heard her shaking voice say something about a broken ring.  Intrigued to find out what she was talking about he turned in time to see that when she unfolded her mangled fingers the best she could and revealed her prize it was the ring he himself had put on her finger just three years ago.

He watched in stone silence as Ryan promised to fix her treasure, the one thing from him she had taken with her, and carried her away to tend to her injuries.  The moment they were out of sight he turned his attention back to the crowd and his eyes immediately connected with a familiar pair of brown doe eyes.  He felt a muscle in his jaw twitch before Dana lurched into action and began attacking a man in the crowd accusing him of having injured Lisa.  Once he had a target Blaine couldn’t stop his body from reacting and slamming the man in his sights against the first immovable object they came to.

The man’s panicked attempts at clawing his fingers from his neck were futile; Blaine couldn’t feel them with the ice of rage flowing through his veins.  They dared to touch what was his!  He would make these pitiful wastes of space regret the day their pathetic bodies made the decision to breathe their first breath of life.

He felt his fingers flex on instinct and the mad before him stilled as their eyes met.  He almost laughed as the man looked to the others for help.  Please make a move was all he thought as he relished the idea of beating each of them to a quivering mass on the floor like they had done to Lisa.  “Tell me this you useless piece of s**t.  How exactly did you do it?”

The man looked at him with sweat dripping down his paling features as his eyes flicked to Dana but his lips stayed silent.  Blaine squeezed his neck a little more and the man’s eyes bugged out of his head like a stress ball.  It didn’t take much pressure and as soon as Blaine allowed him to breathe again he spilled in great detail how him and his buddies had tortured the blind woman they had found on the floor.  He didn’t spill a word about Dana’s involvement in the situation and she found herself hiding a cruel smile at the power she held over others.

Blaine dropped the man in a crumpled heap at his feet after his confession was over.  With a stoic expression promising pain and retribution he looked down at the man as he slowly turned the ring on his finger around and around.  The turning of his own thoughts mimicking the action his fingers did on his other hand.  The thought of Lisa crawling around on the floor frantically searching for her half to their wedding set burned a fire in his heart that he couldn’t quite understand and didn’t honestly attempt to interpret.

Looking at the waste before him he vaguely wished that killing weren’t illegal so he could take care of matters in the way his heart screamed for him to.  He told himself it was because she was his to mess with and not because he had any true feelings for her.  Smiling as an idea of retribution came to him Blaine called to his assistant Mark.  In a cold voice that left no room for argument he stated.  “Mark, go get seven bottles of the strongest alcohol this place has to offer.”

Dana watched him with wariness humming through her and her instincts told her not to move a muscle unless his predatory gaze were to turn to her.  There was an air of danger but no one knew what Blaine was thinking much less what he would do to them.  Mark arrived with seven bottles ranging from vodka to black barrel whiskeys, each one of them top shelf and one hundred proof.  Blaine looked them over and gave Mark an approving nod before speaking again.  “Good, these will do very well.  Now smash them all right there on the floor.  Make sure those bottles smash well.”

Mark didn’t hesitate or question his boss in the slightest.  He could feel the fury emanating from him and his self-preservation brokered for no argument.  He slammed the bottles against the floor ensuring that each one was reduced to a pile of glittering daggers surrounded by a pool of pure jet fuel.  The smell of the alcohol immediately filled the space and threatened to steal the breath from each of them as it burned their eyes and lungs.

Looking at the shattered bottles and the glass that now lined the floor like a field of shining daggers Blaine felt his lips lift in a smile that must have looked like one from their nightmares.  Good, they should be scared he thought as the men before him flinched.  He turned to them and his voice left him as a low rumble of danger.  “Now you men, if you can be called that, are going to roll up your pant legs.  You are then going to surround that pile of glass like you did that woman earlier and with just as much excitement as you showed in attacking her you are going to drop to your knees and crawl through that glass and debris like you made her do.”

The room was so silent at his order that you could have heard a fly breathe.  He knew that the glass would cut them as it had cut her, the pain might be manageable for them but the pain as the liquor soaked into their now ravaged flesh would be the torture of it all.  The men trembled as the thought crossed their brains and they immediately began begging.  “Please sir, we didn’t mean to disrupt your evening.  Whatever deal we may have interrupted please, we can make up for it.  We are so very sorry for any trouble, please don’t do this.”

Blaine felt his lips lift in disdain at them. Did they really think he was doing this because they had caused too much noise?  He couldn’t help it as he kicked the one who had chosen to speak for the group in the chest causing the man to be slammed against the floor coughing and wheezing for air.  “Did she also beg you to leave her be?”

His eyes hardened to cold grey steel as he scoffed.  “I don’t have time to negotiate with you.  I will give you just two options.  One you can do exactly as I have instructed you to for as long as I deem necessary or you can watch as I do a hostile takeover of each one of your families companies and single handedly dismantle them piece by piece leaving your families in ruin.  The choice is yours but I think you will find the answer is a simple one.”

They stared at him shell shocked before they began to silently roll up their pant legs and do as he had instructed surrounding the pile of shrapnel that would surely tear through their skin as quickly as acid.  In moments the sounds of their tortured screams filled the room.  Blaine stayed as still as a statue as he watched them go through the pain they had caused themselves.  Turning to Mark he left instruction before changing his focus.  “Mark, they are not to be allowed to get up or stop until they have spent twice as long crawling through that as they had made Lisa do.”

Mark nodded his understanding before taking a look at his watch.  He turned to the men on the floor before him as he smiled.  “Oh don’t worry guys; you only have twenty more minutes left.”

Dana felt herself tremble at the pain on the men’s faces.  She had never seen Blaine be so ruthless and angry.  He was like a demon released from hell to seek vengeance on the world she knew.  She found it hard to calm herself and when she finally managed it she turned away from the eyes of the men on the floor only to lock gazes with Blaine’s steel cold grey stare.  She forced a shaky smile and swallowed before she was able to voice a word.  “B…Blaine.”

He cut her off before she could utter another sound.  “Dana, why are you here?  Did you have anything to do with what these scumbags did to Lisa?”

His icy voice caused her to shiver and her brain faltered in finding an answer.  Her self-preservation started to kick into overdrive.  She worried about what he would do to her if he thought the punishment he already doled out to strangers fit the crime they had done.  What would the punishment be for her if he found out that she had sought destruction of Lisa?