I screamed out when I felt my body heave out a thick stream of vomit to accompany the blood.
A machine gun shot of laugher just off to my left forced me to finally use all the might in the muscles in my face and open up my swollen eyes.
The first thing I saw was a wall plastered with glossy photos of a hulking man posing on a stage who I quickly recognized as Anthony, complete with the purple Speedo I saw him wearing earlier.
“Fuck,” I exhaled.
I figured I would wake up in the hospital, doped up and hooked to the sweetness of an IV, not in some juice head’s childhood bedroom and personal shrine.
A laugh ripped out and I was able to track it down to the other side of the room. I laid eyes on Anthony sitting in a rickety office chair, shirtless and rippling with a bowie knife in his hand and more posters of himself flexing behind him.
“I would expect a poster of Batman or Odell Beckham Jr. in the bedroom of some kid in his mom’s house in the shitty part of Jersey, not a narcissistic art gallery,” I snarked through cracked teeth and bleeding gums.
Yeah, I couldn’t resist being a smart ass, even in this dire situation. I figured the guy was going to do whatever he planned on doing to me anyway.
Back to being fully awake, I tried to wiggle in my chair, but couldn’t budge. I felt the hard plastic of zip ties around my wrists and ankles.
“Dude, you need to understand it was nothing personal. Some dipshit in Bayone paid me to start a fight with you.”
“Oh I understand,” Anthony cut me off. “I don’t give a shit. This isn’t about you. It’s about me.”
“Well, based on your poster shrine that was pretty obvious.”
Anthony laughed and got up from his chair, revealing he was wearing just his customary purple Speedo.
“Please God man, just don’t do anything sexual to me. You can beat the shit out of me, again, I don’t care, just…”
“Shut the fuck up Adam!” Anthony screamed at me.
Adam? He knew my name. How the fuck did he know my name? I carried no ID with me, or phone when I did my work.
“I have a very specific agenda for how this is going to go,” Anthony said in a calm and composed manner which didn’t quite fit the situation of a grown man in purple underwear standing in front of a bruised and bleeding man in a childish bedroom.
