Three severed fingers lay twitching on the concrete floor, as if still alive. Eric Vaughn was a bloody wreck, his breathing shallow, his body trembling from the pain, but he refused to talk. The irony wasn’t lost on me as I looked around; the room he’d led us into—his torture room—was designed for him to break others, not to be broken himself. Two metal chairs stood bolted to the floor, their worn frames stained with memories of past victims. Along a steel table, an array of torture tools lay in organized chaos: ropes, blades, scissors, tasers, shackles, each one a testament to Vaughn’s twisted mind. Analia sat on that table, her eyes locked on Vaughn, dark with fury, her breath steady as his screams filled the air.
His shrieks echoed off the walls, piercing and raw, each one louder than
