No Mercy
1200 Words
⚠️ *Content Warning*: Graphic violence, forced confinement, torture, and forced witnessing of murder. Reader discretion advised.
I could only watch and wait in the room that had nowhere for me to be.
I noticed the camera hidden behind my bed. That was how he caught me last time. But I couldn’t stay here. Not anymore. My child wasn’t going to have a father like him.
The room had no clock. Time stretched and pooled around me like water I couldn’t drink.
I stopped counting. Numbers made the walls closer.
So I watched small things: dust in the light under the door, the sag in the mattress, my breathing too loud in the silence.
The camera was a black eye that never blinked. I learned to feel it. If I looked away too long, I forgot I was being seen. And if I forgot, I might hope.
Hope got people killed in this house.
The Don didn’t need timers and alarms. He didn’t need to remind me I was watched. The absence of sound was the reminder. The way the door never opened unless he wanted it to. The way the food appeared through the slot like it was dropped from another world. I was not a person here. I was inventory. A problem to be managed. A womb to be kept safe until it produced what he wanted.
So I didn’t count tiles. I didn’t count seconds.
I counted ways out.
And every night, the number stayed at zero.
On the fourth day, the door opened.
Not the butler.
Two soldiers. No faces I recognized.
_“Don wants you.”_
They didn’t wait for me to stand. They grabbed my arms and pulled. My bare feet dragged on the marble floor.
They dragged me down the hall to a place I’d never been before. The air changed halfway down. Colder. Smelled like bleach and something under it. Copper. And maybe blood.
The room was concrete. No windows. One light bulb hanging bare. Metal chair in the middle. Man zip-tied to it. Face already ruined. I didn’t know him.
On the floor was a girl. Twenty maybe. Collar on her neck. Chain on the collar bolted to the wall. She didn’t look up when we came in.
Don was there in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up. Clean. No blood. He leaned against the wall, looking at a tablet. Like we’d interrupted his business.
He didn’t look at me when I came in. Spoke to the soldiers.
“Hold her. Make her watch.”
The soldiers shoved me to my knees. One on each shoulder. Holding me down. Making me face the chair.
“W-what--” I started.
He looked up from the tablet. At me. His face was empty. No anger. No smile. Nothing.
“You want to know the kind of man I am,” he said, voice same as always. Calm.
“I am here to show you.”
He nodded to the soldier by the chair.
The soldier had a hammer.
“Where’s the money, Luka?” the soldier asked the man in the chair.
Luka was crying already. “Don, please. I don’t have it. My wife-- she’s dying. Cancer. I needed the money for surgery. Please, she won’t last the month without it. I was going to pay you back, I swear--”
_Crack._
The hammer came down on Luka’s left hand. Finger snapped sideways.
I tried to close my eyes. The soldier behind me grabbed my jaw. Forced my head up. Forced my eyes open.
“Uh uh,” Don said softly. “You watch. This is for you. This is what I do to people who steal from the family and try to run.”
Luka screamed. Pissed himself. The sound went through my teeth.
Don walked to Luka. Crouched down. Wiped blood off Luka’s chin with his thumb. Studied it. Like it was interesting.
“See, this is the problem with pigs,” he told me, not Luka. Still talking like we were at dinner.
“No honor. You steal from me, you pay with pieces. That’s the rule. You knew the rule. Even for dying wives.”
He stood. Nodded again.
_Crack._
Second finger.
The girl on the floor flinched at the sound. Didn’t make noise. Just flinched. Like she’d heard it before.
Don saw me looking at her. He smiled. First real expression since I came in. Small. Pleased.
“Elena was twenty,” he told me. “She’s been here three years. She used to run too. Now she knows better.”
Elena didn’t react to her name. Kept staring at the floor.
“Please,” Luka sobbed, blood running from his mouth. “Let me call her. Let me hear her voice one last time. She doesn’t know--”
_“Next time you steal from me,”_ Don said to Luka, _“I take your daughter’s fingers.”_
Then he looked at the soldier. “Actually. No next time.”
He nodded once.
The soldier grabbed Luka’s head. Twisted.
_Crack._
Louder this time. Final.
Luka’s body went slack in the chair. His head at the wrong angle. Eyes open. Staring at nothing.
Elena gasped. A broken sound tore out of her throat. She lunged forward, chain yanking her back by the neck. She collapsed on the concrete, clawing at the floor, shaking her head. No tears. She’d cried them all out years ago. But her whole body shook. That was her father. Dead in front of her. And she couldn’t even touch him.
The room went quiet except for the bulb buzzing and Elena’s ragged breathing.
Don checked his watch. Sighed. Like Luka’s death made him late for something.
“Dump him at the hospital anyway. Let his wife see what happens when you steal from the family. Maybe she’ll die faster. Save everyone time.”
He walked to me. Crouched down so we were eye level. I could smell his cologne. Expensive. No blood on him. Ever.
“You understand now?” he asked. Quiet. Just for me.
“This isn’t anger. This is business. This is omertà. There’s no police. There’s no running. There’s just me.”
He stood. Told the soldiers, “Take her back.”
They dragged me up. My legs didn’t work. They carried me.
Last thing I saw was Elena. She finally looked up. At me. Her eyes were empty, but her face was wet. She wasn’t looking at nothing anymore. She was looking at me. And she mouthed one word.
_Run._
Back in my room, door closed, I sat on the floor. Didn’t cry. Didn’t vomit.
I understood.
He didn’t bring me there to scare me. He brought me there to show me he doesn’t get scared. That he enjoys it. That breaking necks is as easy as checking email. That even dying wives don’t buy mercy.
That I was locked in with a man who thinks pain is a lesson.
I put my hand on my stomach.
Staying meant my kid calls him Dad.
He was waiting for my child to be born. To become the next Don. A title I never asked for.
- Writer
