Page 1 of He is Poison

Chapter 1

Pain at the back ofSeth’s skull was making him want to throw up the lasagne he had just… how longago? He had no idea and was just as clueless about where he was. The smell ofcurry from the bag over his head was making him more nauseated with everybreath he took. Sensation rushed back to him and assaulted nerve endings allover his body. Everywhere apart from his hands. He could barely feel hisfingertips, arms tied behind the chair he was sitting on and numb from the ropedigging into the skin of his wrists.

His breathing sped up,making the bag over his head cling to his face every time he tried to inhaledeeply. Seth didn’t know where he was, who had abducted him, or what his futurewas to be here, but he wasn’t as ignorant as to state he didn’t know what washappening at all. Even if there was no personal fault of his, he could be surethat being tied to a chair with a bag over his head had a lot to do with beinga Villani.

A crunch of dirt undersomeone’s shoes snatched all his focus, and he stopped trying to move his numbfingers. “Who’s there?” He hardly recognized his own voice, now shaky and witha higher pitch than usual.

Instead of answering,his captor slowly walked around the room, extending Seth’s anxiety into aneternity of imagined future torture.

“What’s happening?” Sethgroaned, this time in Italian.

Light blinded him for asplit-second when someone pulled the bag off his head. As soon as his eyesstarted adjusting to the dim illumination of the single lightbulb, he looked upat the man in front of him. He was a chubby, short Asian, but with theconfident way he was holding a gun in his hand, Seth wouldn’t dare underestimatehim. In the dark, empty room, with Seth unable to defend himself, thissituation could quickly take a turn for the worse.

Seth swallowed andquickly glanced around the room. No windows.

“Who are you?” he moanedin English again.

The stranger squintedand cocked his head to the side. “Seth Villani,” he said with a strong Mandarinaccent.

Seth swallowed hard.“Yes?” Only then he realized there was a barely audible breath somewhere behindhim.

“I hope we didn’t snatchyou away from any important assignments,” said the man in front of him as hetook a step closer. Too close for Seth’s liking.

He tried to even out hisbreath, but he was hurting all over and wasn’t sure if he should play the toughguy act, or play nice. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“Unfortunately, we haveunfinished business with your father.” The abductor ran his fingers through hisshort pitch-black hair. "You are quite an asset in the argument he and Iare having."

“But I… I have nothingto do with it! I left Italy five years ago.” Seth slouched in his seat and foronce, he wished he wasn’t a big guy. He wished he could be small enough to justdisappear. Shrink into the chair. He knew all too well that talking to the manin front of him was like trying to eat clear soup with chopsticks. Any argumenthe might have would slip right through.

“I’m afraid, Mr.Villani, you have a lot to do with it.” His words had no emotional coloring tothem whatsoever. He looked above Seth’s arm, to the faceless third person inthe room, and gave a curt nod.

A sharp snap turnedSeth’s blood into ice, and he tried to look back in panic. Why the fuck wouldthey not understand he didn’t even talk to his father much? He was done withthe Family. A glint of blade made Seth inhale deeply when he spotted it fromthe corner of his eye.

“Just tell me what youwant!” he screamed, but the stranger shook his head, stepping back with a blankface.

Seth lost his breathwhen someone’s hands brushed against his, and even with the numbness, he couldsense someone squeezing his little finger.

“He’ll give it to you!He will! Just let me go!” Seth squealed and tried to writhe away, but it turnedout the chair was attached to the floor. Screwed to it like some freaky torturedevice.

A sharp pain exploded inthe side of Seth’s hand, and the person behind him pulled on the finger, as iftrying to rip it off. The blade cut through Seth’s skin without mercy, andSeth’s cries, his screams at the top of his lungs, couldn’t change a thingabout his situation. He imagined the pain would have been even worse if hishands weren’t so numb, but nothing prepared him for this never ending ordeal.The butcher behind him got stuck on the bone, and Seth cried like a child, hisarms shaking uncontrollably.

Losing consciousness wasbliss.

Seth’s days and nightswent by in a pitch-black room, with him falling in and out of sleep or walkingin circles. If he stayed here for too long, he feared he would get heartarrhythmia. The only times he got a glimpse of light from the corridor was whensomeone brought him food, and he awaited those moments with both dread andexcitement. He got used to the damp air, the smelly mattress he was given forsleeping on, the scant comfort of the thin blanket. Whenever someone enteredhis cave of solitude, change was imminent, and change could mean either a mealor another severed finger. There seemed to be a regularity to the visits, butSeth eventually lost track of time. Another thing he lost was his appetite. Heate because he knew he had to, but if he ever got out, he would never haveanother tikka masala in his life.

With all the time on hishands, he had more time for thinking than he ever wished to have. He followedorders and kept quiet, since he already knew the people who held him werecapable of anything. Seth fantasized that he could take on one of them, butthen what? Even if he stole the gun from the first guy, he was underground, Godknew where, and there had to be at least a dozen more Triad scum out there.

Another thing heagonized about when he lay sleeplessly was his mother’s funeral. He’d learnedabout her death only hours before he was taken. She had been ill for a longtime, he knew it was coming, yet the fact that he couldn’t even pay his lastrespects made him nauseated with guilt.

His boyfriend wasprobably worried sick, but as much as Seth felt sorry for Peter being left inthe dark, thinking about him helped Seth focus on something other than the painin his hand. He kept replaying the last weeks together in his head over andover.

The wait had no end.Days? Weeks? Without windows, Seth didn’t even know if it was day or night. Hedesperately tried to make out a pattern at first, but his captors seemed torandomly wake him up, whether just out of cruelty or to deliberately confuse him,he didn’t know. They would tear the blanket off him, scream in a language hedidn’t understand, bang on the radiator with a baseball bat, breaking thesilence and turning Seth into a pile of shaking goo.

The pain was less of anissue than that. Seth became so used to it, he forgot about it now and then,but the furious throbbing in his hand always came back with a vengeance. Ittook three beatings for Seth to realize questions would be met with violence,so he stopped talking to his captors altogether.

The day he got draggedout of the room started out like one of those horrible moments meant to confusehim, but there was no baseball bat, no unnecessary noise. Two men dragged himout, and the bright white lights of the corridor had him squint to shield hiseyes from the painful glow. After a short cold shower, he got an ill-fittingsuit that was a mockery of tailoring and shoes that were too large for hisfeet. He had no idea what was happening. Would he be shipped off to somewhereelse? Surely they wouldn’t bother to let him bathe just to kill him? He daredto ask about it but was only told to dress faster. Maybe his family finallychose to act? As much as he didn’t want to have anything to do with them, he’dnever had warmer thoughts about his father than now.

Seth was led down anarrow corridor with a low ceiling so full of cables and pipes it seemed to beadorned with industrial-themed Christmas decorations. They finally got to adoor at the end of it, and bright light blinded Seth for a split-second when itopened.