Finally, Matthew and Nic reached the ground and only level of the facility. When the door opens, they are immediately greeted by the brightly lit hallway that leads in only one direction.
Forward.
But one should not be fooled by that futuristic hallway. Because behind its walls were rooms and more hallways that were concealed by hidden doors and could only be accessed using a biometric scanner, voice recognition, and user code of the rightful people.
Matthew and Nic walked continuously and stopped after a couple of meters. They turn to face the wall and it turns out to be a concealed door. Doing the same process that Matthew did earlier, Nic opened the door and what greeted them was the striking opposite of the hallway where they came from.
The hallway in front of them was dark, wet, and cold. And for someone who comes across that hallway for the first time, they would definitely feel their skin crawl and a sense of eeriness would stop them from ever stepping inside.
Because the hallway looks like it was straight out of a thriller movie where the serial killer would keep his victims, torture them, and then cut them into pieces.
Though that was close to the real purpose of that hallway except for the part where the bodies were cut into pieces.
That part of the underground facility was where the torture rooms are. Why does this part of the facility exist? Or why the facility exists in the first place?
Because Matthew and Nic belong to a family that doesn't believe in the justice system of their country. They belong to a family that has always been the envy of a lot of people.
And as a wise person would say, envy is evil. The envious people see the people superior to them as their enemies and instead of focusing on improving themselves, they would rather focus on other people's failure, or worse, make other people fail.
They would start to think of evil against other people and would start to plot against them.
Nic, especially, as a son of two of the most powerful people in the country even though they do not hold a position in the government, had witnessed many people who tried to put his parents down either through violence or malicious tricks.
A lot of people tried to harm them even so as to kill them. And since they do not believe that the justice system of the country would give them the justice they deserve, they put justice into their own hands.
But they do that in the most discreet way so that no one would know about what they did.
As the two men continued to take the dimly lit hallway, they could hear people screaming from the distance, people cursing, murmuring prayers, humming inaudible tunes, groaning, and moaning.
But they don't seem to be bothered about it. Not even with the stench smell coming from God knows where. The whole place, even though regularly bleached, smelled of filth and rotten.
"My, would you look at that?" Matthew said in a mocking tone as he and Nic stood outside one of the cells. Its heavy steel door was open for them to see the man bound on a steel chair in the middle of the room.
Matthew took his precious time to study the dark, damp and cold room though there is nothing much to see but the man in the middle who was looking at them as if he was going to kill them. "I say this room suits you," He added then he walked forward with Nic following behind him silently.
But Matthew knew that Nic being silent was deadly. Though he knew that no one would be dead…at least for now.
Matthew and Nic stood side by side in front of the man bound on a chair with their hands in their pockets. They were leisurely staring at the man in front of them who looked as if he was in his worst state. Though Matthew and Nic could say that he hasn't seen the worst.
The man was in his late thirties. He is drenched with sweat and God knows what body fluids are from head to toe. His hair that reached up to his shoulders was sopping and sticking to his skin. His face had beads of sweat. His clothes which he has been wearing for three days now were drenched and smelly. His eyes were restless as he looked at the two men in front of him with fury. He said something but since he was gagged, it came out muffled.
Matthew cocked his head to the side as if he was enjoying the man's misery and asked, "Are you saying something?" But he got a muffled string of curses as a response. He turned his head to look at Nic and saw him motioning to remove the man's gag.
Matthew happily obliged if that meant he could give the man the satisfaction of cursing them as if that could make a difference.
As soon as the piece of fabric that was preventing the man from speaking audibly was removed, he immediately asked, "Who the fuck are you?" Those were few words but if eyes could speak, they could have spoken all curses known to land as he glared daggers at the two men in front of him.
Nic who has an impassive look on his face replied, "It doesn't matter now, is it?" Nic was a very handsome man but behind that beautiful face, hiding was a devil. No one would dare mess around with him because he could be merciless, vicious, and cruel. He doesn't see eye to eye. If one messes with him, his family, or friends, he doesn't give forgiveness, instead, he asks for a return of the favor.
"What do you want from me?" The man spat out.
"We just wanted to return you a favor," It was Matthew who stated the phrase that seemed to have become their tagline. They might have copied the tagline from his mother who was a former assassin and used that phrase as a chant before she did the deed, but it seemed very fitting.
The man's eyes widened and they looked like it was about to pop out of their sockets. It was either because he was enraged or he didn't know what Matthew was talking about. Then he started to rant, "What the fuck are you talking about? Let me go! You bunch of kids! What are you spoiled brats who got nothing to do in your fucking spare time?"
Matthew, who had started to circle the man with his hands clasped behind him, snapped his head in the man's direction with an offended look on his face. "Kids?"
"Spoiled brats?" Nic said with an unamused look on his face.
Matthew was instantly in front of the man. "Are you fucking kidding me?"
The man snickered. It was supposed to be scornful but because of his pitiful state, didn't make it work. "Why? Aren't you? Just let me the fuck go! If you got nothing to do, go home and suck your mother's–," He didn't get to finish his sentence because his face was met with Nic's fist sending his head backward. It was a surprise that with the force that was exerted, his head didn't fall off.
"That felt good," Nic said instead of feeling the pain in his hands. Yes, they were weird people who found pleasure in inflicting pain on deserving people.
And by deserving people, that means criminals who were beyond salvation.
Matthew smirked when he saw the man's face scrunch in pain and blood started to drip from the corner of his mouth. With a mocking tone, he said, "That hurts? Man, we haven't started yet,"
The man only groaned in response.
Nic stepped closer and leaned his face forward so that he was at eye level with the man. In a menacing tone, he spoke, "Listen to me. Don't you ever compare us to you, you sick asshole! And don't you ever dare mention our mother or else, you're going to lose your ability to speak earlier than scheduled. You understand?"
"The fuck you–" Nic didn't like that instead of minding his words, the man seemed determined to get his head severed from his body. He landed another punch in the man's face before he could finish cursing them.
Matthew sighed audibly as he shook his head. "No, he didn't. Maybe he cannot understand words. Let's see if this will work," He said, and then Nic stepped aside to give Matthew some space.
The man asked for it, so they gave it to him. Matthew and Nic alternately throw punches at the man's face, chest, and stomach for the next couple of minutes until they are satisfied and the man was already on the ground unbound and trying to keep his consciousness. Though it was impossible with the number of punches he received from Nic and Matthew.
The man was barely recognizable. His face was filled with cuts and bruises. His whole body looked mangled until his consciousness started to slip away.
He was still alive, though. Nic and Matthew will never get the justice that they want if they end the man's life that easily. That was just a sampler. The man has to stay for weeks in that cell to make him suffer because they doubt if he will suffer once he is dead. Not even hell could be compared to what they have planned for the poor soul.
They were staring at the unconscious man in front of them when they sensed a presence behind them. Both looked in the direction of the door and found a tall man standing at the doorway.
Matthew's face immediately broke into a wide grin and cried, "Hey, Uncle Leo!" His voice was ecstatic as if he was so happy to see the man he called Leo. He didn't even mind that Leo looked cold and impassive. All of them had gotten used to his demeanor which was the copycat of his son, Timothy.
Leo looked at the unconscious man on the ground and then at Nic and Matthew. Then he asked. "Having a good time?"
Nic started to walk towards the door and smirked, "Always," He said.
Leo Hayes was among their parent's friends. He was Timothy's father and also the man who was running the underground facility. The facility was owned by Nic's parents but Nic and his friends had taken the liberty of using the facility.
Leo gladly tolerated them but with their fathers' consent.
Nic and Matthew had expected that Leo would come soon after they arrived because he would be the one to make sure that the battered man on the ground would get through with it. He cannot die. At least not yet. And Leo was there to make sure of that.
Walking out of the facility, Nic asked, "Where are you going?"
They stepped out of the facility and Matthew took a deep breath as if savoring the fresh air that was lacking inside the facility. He turned his head to Nic and replied, "I need to get back to the office. Taurus needs that strategy that I was constructing,"
Nic started to walk away toward where their cars were parked. Matthew asked, "You?"
"Going to see Mom," Nic replied, making Matthew smirk. They might be the mean guys in the underground facility but to the most important women in their lives, they were a softee.
He saw that Nic's clothes had blood stains and his knuckles had dried blood. So he said, "You better clean first, or else, you'll give her a heart attack," After all, their mothers don't know what they were doing in the facility or they were acting with plausible deniability.