HIS REGRET (Ex-Husband wants Me Back) novel Chapter 985

Consciousness returned along with a searing pain that shot from his head to his feet.

Silas slowly opened his eyes. His vision swam for several seconds before finally catching the reflection of light shimmering across the surface of the water below him. Blood rushed to his head.

It turned out... his body was hanging upside down, both wrists tightly bound to iron chains suspended from the ceiling. Every time he tried to move, the chains creaked softly, making it even harder for him to keep his balance.

He took a deep breath, trying to make sense of what had happened.

Beneath him, a large pond stretched across nearly the entire room. Its surface churned constantly as dozens of catfish swam into one another, occasionally sending small splashes echoing through the underground chamber. The damp, fishy smell mixed with the scent of pond water filled the air, making the atmosphere feel even more suffocating.

Silas turned his head. A few meters away, someone else was hanging in the same position.

"Falcon?" His eyes widened.

The man was still alive.

But he was in far worse condition than the last time they had met. Falcon's face was covered in bruises that had yet to fully fade. His lips were split. Several of his teeth were missing, while both of his hands bore wounds that showed he had endured days that had been anything but easy.

Falcon slowly raised his head when he heard his name. Their eyes met. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

It had never crossed Silas's mind that they would meet again under circumstances like these. He quickly looked around, only then noticing two other people on the opposite side of the room.

Cale and Chris.

The two of them sat facing each other at a simple wooden table. A chessboard, already well into the middle of a game, lay spread across its surface. A hanging lamp directly above them focused its light on the board, while the rest of the room remained submerged in shadow.

Cale merely studied the chessboard calmly, as though the two captives hanging several meters away were nothing more than part of the room's backdrop. Chris was just as composed. His fingers touched one of the pieces before moving it forward a single square.

"Check."

His voice was flat.

The corner of Cale's mouth lifted slightly. "A good move."

Silas frowned. He had no idea what was happening. Before he could say anything, one of the guards standing near the pond glanced toward the table, waiting for further instructions.

Chris gave a slight nod.

Without a word, the two guards immediately turned the chain winch. The chain suspending Falcon's body slowly began to descend. At first only a few inches, then lower and lower until the man's face was nearly touching the surface of the water, which continued to churn with dozens of catfish below.

His eyes remained fixed on the chessboard.

"...it's not enough to defeat me."

One of Chris's chess pieces was removed from the board. Chris clicked his tongue in annoyance, then gave another slight nod to the guard.

The moment Falcon understood the meaning of that nod, his entire body tensed. "Wait!!!"

The chain creaked once more.

"Don't—"

His words were cut short as his body was once again slowly lowered toward the churning pond. This time, he didn't scream. He merely gritted his teeth and kept struggling to free himself, but every movement only made the chain swing more violently.

A few seconds later...

the water swallowed him once again.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Cale and Chris continued their game as though nothing existed that was worthy of distracting them from the chessboard between them. To Falcon, every nod felt like a punishment. But to the two of them, it was nothing more than the consequence of a wrong move.