8: Honor

The dark room reeked of sweat and decayed blood. The only sound on offer was the struggled breathing of the tortured soul. The door opened. The white suited old man stepped in. He took a seat in front of the battered man.
“You ready to talk now, Carlos Rodriguez?”, Hudson spoke the moment he landed on the chair. The bound man was too demolished to display his shock. “Or should I say, Be-Ral?”, he added. Nothing in the room changed.
“Come on! I just broke the news of the day! Some reaction would be appreciated!”, Hudson irritably said. Still nothing. He let out a sigh and asked the men standing on guard behind him, “Did I miss anything?”. “No, sir!”, the guards dutifully responded. Hudson thought he heard something so he leaned closer to Carlos and let out a “hmm?”.
“How?”, Carlos barely let out. Hudson was a bit annoyed by the naïve question.
“Son, I am a billionaire who owns a private army. There are some other things too but I fail to see the relevance so I won’t mention them”, Hudson spoke, clearly disappointed. “Digging out the names of little shits like you, is the least you can expect from me!”, he added. Carlos was still soundless and motionless. Hudson stood up. “I’ve pulled out each of your nails. If you can still see, you’ll find that your fingers are bent the other way. Your feet have holes drilled in them and I don’t even wanna talk about what your face looks like”, Hudson said, pointing at each entry one by one. “Yet you didn’t give me nothing”, he added with discontent. Carlos would have smiled if his face had allowed.
“Fine! I’ll tell you how I got your name!”, the torturer said as he leaned on the backrest of the chair while standing up. “Those were your beloved Maria’s last words”, he added with pity in his eyes. The prey’s head shot up. The struggled breathing stopped for a moment. He stared at the torturer with desperation, hoping to see a crack and figure out the bluff. There wasn’t any. “A tenacious family, I must say! She broke after losing ten of her teeth. And the rat, I keep forgetting the name… Yeah! Juan! That fucker came for his mother’s rescue with a kitchen knife! So much spine for an eight-year old”, Hudson went on. Carlos struggled and screamed. Tears diluted the blood on his face. The torturer let him absorb the news for a while.
“What did you do?”, Carlos asked in a groan when he gave up straining the ropes and chains. Hudson shrugged and walked away from the chair he was leaning on. “That part of job, I don’t enjoy. You know I can’t leave them breathing to tell the tale”, Hudson said in his defense. Carlos sobbed. Hudson let him be.
“She gave me a little of something else too. I can trace my way from there but more unnecessary blood will be spilled”, Hudson expressed his apprehension. “I just want one man. You don’t want more Marias and Juans to suffer, do you?”, he added. Carlos stared at him with more disgust. The look convinced Hudson that he wasn’t getting anything from the man. He shook his head and walked out of the radius of the hanging bulb, into the darkness of the room. A moment later, he returned with a .44 magnum in his hands.
“You have proven yourselves. What I wouldn’t do to have a man like you at my side”, he put the gun at Carlos’s forehead. Carlos closed his eyes. “What a waste!”, he added and pulled the trigger. A deafening thunderous noise filled the room. Carlos’s body jolted backwards and he fell with the chair. A few drops of bloods splattered on Hudson’s perfect white suit. He cringed. He wiped the magnum with a napkin and placed it back in the case, sprawled open in the dark.
“Boys!”, he called out. Two muscular henchmen entered the room in urgency. They looked at the bound body on the ground, dripping out too much blood for a dead one, and their boss wiping the barrel of his hand canon. “Give this man a proper burial”, he ordered as he walked to the door. “He’s earned it”, he added.
As he stepped out of the room, his fancily dressed butler noticed the stains on the suit and ran out of sight to fetch a replacement. The exterior of the room had red brick wall and power saving lights. He took the stairs at the corner and climbed up to the ground level where everything had a golden tint to it thanks to the majestic chandeliers that hung from the ceiling. The butler reappeared with a fresh jacket identical to the one that was ruined by Carlos’s blood. Hudson switched the jackets and walked to the living room of his mansion where his wife Sandra smoked a cigarette, looking out of the window. Every room had a taxidermied predator standing at some corner. The living room had a bear in a roaring battle position. Every room had servants doing something to keep it perfect. The sun was setting. Day and night didn’t affect the interior of the mansion too much. Mansion was always brightly lit. Sandra wore a black mourning dress along with the net hat. She was in her thirties, had a slim physique and short hair.
“Any updates, Rick?”, Sandra asked as she looked out into the sharply trimmed hedges and green walkway that spanned acres from the building to the main gate of their estate.
“Had to put his ass down”, Hudson responded with a shake of the head. Sandra rolled her eyes. “Of course, you did. Entire Austin heard your .44 go off”, she said. “He give us something before meeting the maker?”, she inquired. Rick Hudson shook his head again. “We’re gonna have to stick with what his wife spilled”, he replied. Sandra was now silently watching the sun set at the far end of their land. He put his hand on her shoulder and she brushed him off. His phone rang. It was his right hand, Ronald Mosely, saved in his phone as RM. He answered the phone and a dutiful voice greeted him at the other end.
“We’ve located the journalist Mr. Donovan, sir”, Ron informed. “Located?”, Rick asked coldly. “I mean caught, sir”, the voice hesitated this time. “I’m coming. Where is he?”, Rick inquired. “Our cops tipped us off when he was escaping Arizona. He is being held at our warehouse at Mohave County”, Ron briefed. Sandra detected that they had got something by eavesdropping his husband’s side of the conversation.
“I’ll be there”, Rick said and hung up. Rick held his hand up to put it on Sandra’s shoulder but abandoned the idea and turned. He wept as he walked out of the mansion and so did Sandra.