Stalking to the table, I grab the syringe, then approach Madeline and plunge it into her neck.
Seconds later, she gasps awake and immediately attempts to pull from her restraints. Once she realizes she can’t get free, she takes stock of her surroundings. “What the hell am I doing here?”
“You’re here to answer questions.” Rowan begins, grabbing a corkscrew before slowly approaching her.
Madeline laughs. “You stupid little shits are in over your heads, and none of you fucks even realize it.” Her laughs promptly turn to cries when Rowan buries the corkscrew into her thigh and turns it.
“Now, where’s Elise?” Sebastian growls.
“You think one stab to my leg will get me to tell you fools anything?” she seethes.
A loud smack turns into a crunch before morphing into a shrill cry. I look to see August hammering away at the bones in Madeline’s leg. He pounds the hammer until her left femur is nearly nonexistent. His chin dips, and he smiles. “You have so many more bones to crush. Are you sure we’re in over our heads and that you have nothing to say?”
An idea comes to me, and I walk to the closet, grabbing the container.
“I’m going to give you one more opportunity to tell us where Elise is,” I explain, standing over her, my hand on the top of the dropper.
Madeline’s nostrils flare as she meets my eyes. “Fuck you and your opportunities. I’m not saying sh-.”
Before she can finish, I pour the bottle of hydrochloric acid down her leg, forgoing the dropper. Then I pour the lye on the newly exposed skin.
“Marinate for a while. I’m sure by the time we return, you’ll be singing a new tune,” I taunt, before signaling the guys to meet me by my computer.
“Did you really just tell her to marinate, like you just basted her with a marinade or some shit?” Karl snorts, wiping the blood off his blade.
I shrug, “I mean, with the lye, she’s pretty much cooking.”
He and August burst into laughter while I plug Madeline’s phone into my laptop.
“Do you think we’ll find anything on it?” Sebastian asks.
“Only one way to find out,” I reply without looking, my focus on the text messages pulling up on the screen.
Rowan’s finger lands on the screen, honing in on a set of messages. “Does that say what I think it does?”
I nod, confirming what he said but keep sifting. We can digest all the information later. But, for now, I need to know if there’s anything in here I can use to get Madeline to cooperate.
After what feels like hours, I store the information we’ve found on my drive and send the files to Colt for a more in-depth analysis.
“We need her to tell us what she knows about Elise. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough on her phone to discover her location,” I inform them.
Madeline screams from her spot on my table, and I’m tempted to shove a metal pipe down her throat to shut her the fuck up.
The last fucker on this table didn’t talk enough. Now, this bitch won’t stop squealing. If I were truly fucked in the head, I’d shove a knife inside her like she did to Summer- not that I cared for her. It was just a shitty way to die.
Looking at my watch, I notice it’s only been an hour since I doused her skin.
“Fuck, that looks fucking mangled.” Sebastian grunts when we finally reach the table.
Madeline’s skin is peeled away, exposing ligaments, bones, and tendons.
Grabbing a chisel, I round the edge of the table. “Let’s try this again. Where,” I lightly tap the bone. “Is.” I increase the force. She tries to move but can’t. “Elise?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she squeals.
She’s lying. Her eyes flit in every direction but mine, and her heart rate is galloping. That might have something to do with the needles being shoved under her nails by Sebastian, but I feel it in my gut- she knows more.
“Stop fucking lying to us,” Rowan snaps, taking the chisel from my hand and stabbing it through whatever is left of her right leg.
“I’m not lying,” she screams. “The only person I was ever focused on was Emma. It was my job to make sure she was in place, but never marry any of y-” Madeline stops the second she recognizes her slip up.
Not marry any of us? That’s not what Emma said. Her distinct words were that her mother wants her to.
Before we can question her, foam starts to leak from her mouth, her head falls to the table, and sightless eyes stare up at me. Once her face droops to the side, a tooth falls from her mouth onto the metal slab.
“Fuck. Shit. Fucking dammit,” I yell.
“Cyanide,” Karl growls.
I yank my hair from its bun, trying to cool some of my anger.
“What if Emma isn’t the endgame?” Rowan voices my concern.
August shoves his shoulder, “Don’t you fucking start that shit again.”
“I don’t mean our endgame- that’s a given. There’s no chance we’d ever choose anyone else,” he corrects. “What I’m saying is, what if Elise never planned for Emma to actually take power? What if, once Emma got it, Elise plans to kill her and take control for herself?”
Fuck. Have we been missing a vital piece?
“No, it’s something else. She was about to say make sure she never marries any of you,” Karl explains, pacing the room while he twirls his knife. “Maybe it was Vivian. Maybe Madeline and Vivian were working together behind Elise’s back.”
That theory held weight.
“In which case, they’re both dead. So, no more shadow within a shadow government,” August adds, chuckling a little to himself at his joke.
As the guys make their way to the door, I take one last look at Madeline’s dead body and hope her and Vivian’s death is really the end of people trying to kill Emma, but my gut tells me I’m far from right.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.