CHAPTER 289: THE BEGINNING OF THEIR END

The wristwatches were brought forward first.

Black. Matte. Seamless.

They looked almost harmless—like something a soldier would wear, or an athlete.

But I knew better.

I designed them.

Clara whimpered when a guard clipped one onto her wrist.

Caden tried to yank his arm away; the guard slammed it down until bone hit metal.

I leaned back in my chair.

The watches were the real beginning.

They weren’t just monitors.

They were the reason these two would survive things that should kill them.

It tracks every necessary parameter: body temperature, metabolic rate, healing coefficient—or rather, the lack thereof. It alerts us the nanosecond they approach actual, permanent death so we can intervene. It injects a meticulously calculated cocktail of specialized liquids—nutrients, water, and potent medicinal compounds—a constant drip-feed to keep them alive and breathing. They must endure every agonizing second. They will feel all the pain, and they will never, ever get the sweet release of true healing.

Just enough to keep them alive.

Alive and breathing long after their bodies begged to stop.

Their mouths were gagged with cloth—tight knots, suffocating silence.

Not because I cared about the noise.

But because desperation is louder when forced behind fabric.

The two enforcers—lumbering men with expressions as dead as their victims’ future—stood poised stepped beside each chair. They held thick, braided whips. Another placed a bucket at their feet — oil, not water. It gleamed thick and golden under the lights.

The enforcers turned, their eyes finding mine. They bowed deeply, a gesture of respect and subservience I barely acknowledged with a slight tilt of my head.

The first crack sliced the room open.

The sound was sharp, tearing through the industrial quiet. The first lash landed across Clara’s lap, followed instantly by Caden’s. They arched against their bonds, their bodies convulsing. Their screams were thick, wet sounds strangled behind the cloth—a sound that was, to me, extraordinarily soothing. It meant the pain was real, immediate, and overwhelming.

Oil was thrown across their laps mid-way through — every strike after that was louder, sharper, skin tearing easier.

I watched, counting the rhythm, ensuring the blows were delivered hard enough to tear the skin but not so severe they caused immediate deep tissue damage requiring massive intervention. They needed to suffer, not bleed out prematurely.

Exactly five minutes into the session, I raised my hand.

The whips instantly froze mid-air. The silence returned, filled only by the ragged, painful sounds of their breathing.

The enforcers quickly removed the cloths binding their mouths.

The dam broke instantly for Clara. Tears streaked down her raw cheeks, mixing with sweat. "Adrien, please! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I beg you, stop this!" Her voice was hoarse, desperate, pitifully weak.

Caden, predictably, chose defiance.

He spat blood at the floor and snarled, "You sadistic bastard! You think this defines victory? Go to hell!" he snarled, straining against the chains.

Both reactions were equally irrelevant.

A scientist in sterile white moved forward with a wheeled cart. He was quick and practiced. A syringe plunged into Clara’s neck, administering a clear, viscous liquid. The process was repeated with Caden. It was a potent mix of endorphin blockers and stimulants—designed to keep the mind lucid and the body sensitive, maximizing the reception of pain and delaying the onset of shock-induced unconsciousness.

The next phase was necessary maintenance. The men moved to the extremities. One by one, their fingernails and toenails were removed. It was a tedious, focused task, accompanied by wet tearing sounds and fresh, loud screams that ripped through the room. The pain was excruciatingly pure, and the blood loss, minor enough to be easily managed by the compounds I had them injected with.

When it was done, Clara was shaking uncontrollably.

Caden had bitten halfway through his own lip.

When the last nail was gone, two massive glass structures began to descend from the ceiling on heavy hydraulic lifts. They were perfect cylinders, thick as bank vault doors and tall enough to encase ten standing men. They settled quickly, locking Caden and Clara into individual, soundproof cells. These were not mere containers; they were meticulously built instruments of eternal agony.

Inside the chamber, Clara continued to scream, hitting the glass with bloody palms—

but it was as quiet as watching someone drown behind a window.

The lights inside the tube shifted.

The internal systems activated.

Wires. Ports. Injectors. Vents.

Then the frequency began.

It wasn’t music in the melodic sense. It was a single, non-stop frequency note specifically designed to tear at the human nervous system—a persistent, agonizing hum that wouldn’t stop. It would be their constant companion, a sound that drilled into their minds, even when their ears eventually bled.

I stood.

I’d seen enough.

Their suffering didn’t require my eyes — only my authorization.

I stood, smoothing the front of my suit jacket. "Cam," I said quietly. He was by my side in an instant.

Everyone bowed as we passed—scientists, guards, technicians—heads lowered in the presence of their king.

We walked down the sterile hallway, the distant, low hum of the glass chambers slowly fading behind the heavy containment door.

This is only the beginning, I thought, savoring the meticulous complexity of the punishment. The glass tube is far more than a cell. It is an evolutionary machine built for torture.

I reviewed the schedule in my mind. The systems are all automated, but the scientists were hired for their creative zeal in manipulating the variables.

Soon, acid will be poured into those tubes. Not enough to kill them instantly or compromise the vital support functions, but just the right calculated dose to peel the outer dermal layers away. It will burn, exquisitely. And as soon as the skin is gone, the internal medicine will accelerate healing, only for the acid cycle to begin again.

The chambers had infinite capacity for misery. The glass will fill itself with water, reaching the brim. They will feel the panic of drowning, the desperate need for air, and the agony of suffocation. Just as death is about to claim them, the water will drain out, pulling them back to agonizing life.

The tubes can also achieve a perfect vacuum, sucking the oxygen out of existence. Once the brain begins to shut down, the atmosphere returns. It can alternate the temperature: superheating the air until the heat blisters their lips and cooks their insides, or dropping the temperature until they are paralyzed, nearly frozen solid, their organs slowing to a stop. And so much more than they can imagine.

This punishment would be carried out once every week. A meticulous, scheduled descent into hell. It gave them just enough time for their bodies to partially recover, for hope to a foolishly take root, only to be systematically ripped out again. That was why I hired the most brilliant, most clinically insane scientists money could buy—to watch over them like guardian angels of pain, ensuring those two lasted long enough to feel everything they had done to me resonate in their very bones.

Even this, I knew, was a small price to pay for the true cost of their treason.

And when they finally did die—be it a year later, a month later, a decade later, it didn’t matter—their story wouldn’t end. Their bodies would not receive the dignity of a coffin, a stone, or a final word. Their remains would be donated for scientific experiments, becoming human artifacts for those who study the limits of the human body under duress. No funeral. Just a final, functional contribution to the cold nature of science.

"Adrien, Aria has called."

Cam’s voice sliced through my thoughts. We were in the car now, the city lights blurring past the tinted windows. The engine’s hum was a gentle thrum compared to the frequency I had just condemned them to. I blinked, the sterile white chamber receding from my mind’s eye, replaced by the soft leather of the car’s interior. One world of calculated vengeance, another of... something else entirely.

"Put her through," I said.