The Pan II

Chapter 10 - The Pan with Bat

Torin is back.

He steps inside and goes straight to the usual place, sliding the bat behind the cabinet where it has always been. He doesn't stop to look at it or think about why he kept it there. Some things don't need an explanation anymore. He grabs the trash bags instead and starts clearing the place, filling one after another until the old junk is finally off the floor. Broken pieces of furniture get pushed into a corner, empty bottles and forgotten wrappers disappear into black plastic bags, and anything that isn't worth keeping gets thrown out without a second thought.

Once the worst of it is gone, Torin crosses the room and pulls the curtains open. Daylight spills through the dirty windows, cutting across the dust still hanging in the air. He opens another window and lets the stale air out, then grabs a cloth and starts wiping down the surfaces. He isn't trying to make the place beautiful. He just wants it functional again, somewhere he can work, sleep, train, and keep moving without tripping over the remains of the life he left behind.

When the floor is finally clear, he turns to the cartons he had left behind and starts tearing into them. The gym equipment comes out first, the heavy bag hitting the floor with a solid thud before the gloves, wraps, and weights follow. The old leather still carries the smell of sweat and dried blood, and Torin pauses long enough to run a hand over the heavy bag before setting it up. Training will be part of the routine again. It always was.

Then he gets to the books.

Finance. Real estate. Law.

He stacks them across the table, dusting each one off before opening them. These aren't books he bought because he wanted to sound educated or fill a shelf. They are tools. He has spent enough time watching other people make money from property while he stood outside the game. Now he wants to understand every part of it, from buying and selling to contracts, financing, taxes, regulations, and the legal structures that decide who owns what.

The real estate licence comes first. He has already started going through the requirements, and he knows it will take time, but he isn't interested in taking shortcuts. He wants to know the business properly before he starts putting his own money into it. After that comes the bar exam. The thought of doing both would probably sound insane to anyone else, but Torin has never been particularly concerned with what other people consider reasonable.

He wants property and businesses to understand the law well enough that nobody can bury him in paperwork or trap him behind some clause he didn't bother to read. More than that, he wants control. He has spent too much of his life reacting to other people's decisions, and he has no intention of doing that anymore.

If he has to build himself back up one licence, one deal, one contract, and one piece of property at a time, then that's exactly what he'll do.

He is still reading when the door opens without a knock.

Brask walks in with the same two dogs at his heels, the same metal-rod guy beside him, and the same empty-eyed shadow bringing up the rear. For a second, it feels like someone has dragged the past back into the room and put it exactly where it stood before. They look at Torin like he is still the broken thing they left bleeding on the floor last time, like nothing about him could possibly have changed.

Torin doesn't give them the satisfaction of seeing him hesitate. He doesn't get to his feet slowly or ask what they want. His left hand snaps toward the stove, fingers closing around the handle of the frying pan he had been using only moments earlier. The metal-rod guy notices the movement and instinctively shifts his weight, his fingers tightening around the weapon. It is barely a twitch, but Torin catches it. More importantly, the man catches himself doing it.

At the same time, Torin's right hand finds the baseball bat leaning against the cabinet in its usual place. He doesn't look at it. He doesn't need to. His body remembers exactly where it is, and in one smooth movement he comes up with the pan in his left hand and the bat in his right.

There is no warning and no speech. Torin simply throws.

The frying pan leaves his hand like a fucking missile, spinning hard enough to catch the light as it crosses the room. Brask sees it coming and ducks on instinct, but the metal-rod guy isn't fast enough. The pan slams into the side of his face with a wet, ugly crack, the heat of the iron burning against his skin as he screams and staggers backward.

Brask turns toward him for half a second, just long enough to see the damage, and that half second is all Torin needs. When Brask looks back, the baseball bat is already coming toward him, swung with every ounce of weight Torin can put behind it.

The bat connects before Brask can raise his arms.

Bam.The first swing catches Brask across the side of the head with enough force to send him stumbling sideways, blood spraying across the room and spattering the face of the man behind him. Brask barely has time to recover before Torin is on him again. The bat comes down a second time, then again, each strike landing with the same cold, deliberate force. Brask tries to raise an arm to protect himself, but Torin knocks it aside and drives the bat into his ribs, then his knee, sending him crashing to the floor.

He doesn't stop.

Whatever hesitation might once have existed in Torin is gone now. He stands over Brask and keeps swinging until the man's attempts to move become weaker and weaker, until his body finally goes still beneath him. The room falls quiet except for Torin's breathing and the slow drip of blood onto the floor.

Torin looks up, his face streaked with red, the bat hanging loosely from one hand. His expression is almost bored, as though the violence has been nothing more than an interruption to his evening.

“Come inside, bitch.”

Leena steps through the doorway.

Her eyes immediately find her husband lying on the floor, blood spreading beneath his head and his body twisted where Torin left him. She looks at the ruined room, then at Torin standing over Brask with the bat still in his hand, his cheek marked with her husband's blood. Whatever she had expected to find when she walked through that door, this wasn't it.

Torin holds her gaze for a moment before lowering the bat slightly.

“Come here.”

Leena hesitates, then starts walking toward him. Each step is slow and uncertain, as though she is forcing her body to move while every instinct is telling her to turn around and run. When she finally gets close enough, Torin reaches out and grips her chin, forcing her to look directly at him. His fingers press hard enough to leave marks, but his voice is quiet, almost gentle, which somehow makes the threat worse.

“If the rent isn't here by tomorrow evening, I'm paying a visit to Misty. You understand me?”

The colour drains from Leena's face. Her lips part, but nothing comes out. She doesn't need to ask what he means. She knows exactly who Misty is, and she knows exactly what Torin is promising.

He releases her chin with a small shove, wiping his hand against his pants as though touching her has left something unpleasant on his skin.

“Take these shitheads out.”

Leena looks down at Brask and then at the other man, who is still conscious enough to moan through the pain, his face burned and swollen from the frying pan. She crouches beside Brask and tries to pull him up, but his weight nearly takes her back to the floor. She adjusts her grip and begins dragging him toward the doorway, stopping every few feet to catch her breath before going back for the other man.

Torin watches without offering a hand. He rests the bat against his shoulder and waits, his expression completely detached as Leena struggles to drag the two men out of the apartment.

Just before she disappears through the doorway, his voice stops her.

“Come back and clean this mess.”

She does. After the bodies are gone. She comes back with a bucket and a rag, on her knees in the blood, scrubbing. Torin steps up behind her while she’s bent over. One hand grabs a handful of ass. The other slides up and squeezes her tit through the thin shirt. Hard.

Leena’s breath hitches. She bites her lip. For a second, her hips push back against his hand, grinding just a little, like her body is trying to make a deal her mind already knows is shit.

Torin doesn’t let it go further. He shoves her forward hard enough that she almost face-plants into the bucket.

“Don’t waste my fucking time and pay the rent.”

She scrubs faster. Blood and water mix on the floor. Torin walks away, bat still in hand, and the apartment is quiet again except for the wet sound of a woman cleaning up the mess her husband left behind.

Outside, somewhere in the dark, a phone starts ringing.

Brask’s phone.

Someone answers.

And the voice on the other end starts moving with a gun.

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