Free Limitless by Robert J. Crane

thought of having to ask Marshwin or even Wexford to set me up with pocket money for a hotel was about as appealing to me as the thought of drinking straight out of the Thames. “What did you have in mind?”
    Webster looked embarrassed for just a flash. “Well, my mum has a place on the outskirts. It’s got an extra room, it’s not too far, and she’s a bit lonely…”
    “Your mom?” I asked, in just a little disbelief. I thought about it for a quarter of a second, and the image of me pushing Halstead’s face into Mary Marshwin’s carpeting came back to me. “Sounds good,” I said.
    “A word of caution about my mum, though,” he said, and I could tell that some regret was already settling in. “She’s a bit… um…”
    “It’s fine,” I said and tried to give him a reassuring smile. “Whoever she is, trust me when I tell you that she’s probably an absolute angel compared to what I’ve dealt with in the past myself.”

Chapter 14
    Philip could smell the fear in the room. He liked that smell. The scent of piss and blood, the anticipation of what was about to happen. It made him quiver under his suit. He wasn’t going to get his hands dirty, not on this one, but he was more than happy to stand back and let Liliana do her level best to make Angus Waterman scream until his head burst.
    “I got nuffing to tell you,” Angus said, his Adam’s apple bobbing from where he sat tied to a steel chair. It had a nice aesthetic, Philip had thought when he’d bought it. It wouldn’t look out of place in a modern flat.
    Or here, bolted to a concrete floor, with a shuddering, naked, fat-arsed man attached to it via steel handcuffs.
    “I don’t need you to tell me anything, Angus,” Philip said, giving him a thin smile.
    “Oh?” Angus looked from him to Antonio, who stood in the corner in the shadows, arms folded as he leaned against the wall. The bomb maker looked thoroughly bored, as if he might keel over from the tedium right there. “Then why are you bothering with me?”
    Philip took a breath as a way to measure his response. Then he took another. Fear was created in those moments between words, in that heady silence that came before Angus saw something that would take his own breath away.
    Like now.
    Liliana pulled the old man along on the chains suspended from the ceiling. He was hooked upside down, still, long strips of skin still missing and the muscle beneath exposed under a thin layer of blood. He hung, well, just a lump like the sides of beef and pork that had probably been suspended in this very warehouse when it was open for operation. It was handy, having the ceiling tracks so they could pull someone along like that.
    The rattle of the chains drew Angus’s head around just in time to see Liliana dragging the old man into his view. Angus’s face drained of the slight color it had possessed before, and he was left smacking his lips together. “What is this?”
    “This is your future,” Philip said, not letting even a hint of a smile creep out. “Though I daresay yours is perhaps not as long, torturous or even robust as his.”
    Angus’s lips pursed together hard and Philip enjoyed the sight of it. The bigger man was clearly fighting for courage. But there wasn’t much courage to be had here. After all, courage sprouted from hope—hope that one could accomplish something, hope that maybe he would be able to hold out for rescue.
    There wasn’t any of that here.
    And Philip was going to enjoy every minute of watching Angus come to that very realization himself.
    “Is that…?” Angus’s voice sounded small at first, then gained in strength. “Is that you, Janus?”
    The old man made a feeble croak. “Yessss…”
    “Good God, what have you done to him?” Angus’s look went to a more deeply horrified place.
    “Flayed him,” Liliana said in that dead tone. It caused Angus to look over at her, as though he were taking notice for the very first time that she was even here.
    “You