Karl: Again Rowan ????????
I don’t even bother texting them anything else. I put my jet black Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ with full-length jet orange racing stripes in drive. Revving the engine and punching it out of the garage, I’m hoping to outrun my worry for Emma’s safety.
This person is getting bolder, and if they really have her father, this ups the game to a different level.
* * *
There’s no way I could go back to the Tombs without checking on her.
Standing over her sleeping form, each inhale and exhale of her chest settles a calm in me. She’s home safe. But it also renews my anger that someone would dare think to threaten to take her from me.
As if she senses me, her body turns, and her face scrunches, wrinkles forming along her forehead. Strands of midnight blue hair fall into her face, blocking my view of her lusciously plump pink lips.
Bending over, I brush her hair back and kiss her furrowed brows.
My heart constricts with a feeling more incredible than obsession when her face relaxes, and she lets out a sigh as if my presence puts her at ease.
She always responds so beautifully for me, her body naturally recognizing our connection. Soon she’ll do this when she’s awake. Pressing a light kiss to her lips, I turn and leave.
Now it’s time to get some more answers. When we met earlier, Liam was able to locate the car that delivered the package to Monty’s. It didn’t take much more for him to locate the person driving and the cunt who did the delivery. They’re both waiting to be questioned.
I’ve already called dibs on the delivery person. The guys can share the driver. I want the bitch ass fucker who was brave enough to leave the package.
I pull up in front of the Fraternitas building and make my way to the basement. Hopefully, the guys started questioning them because while I want answers, I’m more interested in their agony. Fuck their answers.
When I cross the threshold, I’m met with the animated voices of the guys. Karl’s head is the first to pop up, his movements manic, leg bouncing a mile a minute as his finger drums a steady beat along the table.
“Took you long enough,” Karl snarls, his patience hanging by a thread. Now that he’s falling for Riri, his only recourse to expel his pent-up rage is when he has someone under his blade.
Joining them at the table, I simply reply, “I needed to see her and know that she’s safe.”
His brown eyes soften. “How was she?”
“She was sleeping peacefully when I left. Tabby let me in and said she’d gone to bed pretty early. She’s been having more panic attacks, so she took her meds and went to bed early.”
Karl grimaces, nodding his understanding. Then we both focus on Liam and Rowan, engaged in a whispered conversation.
I interject, ready to move this part along, “Okay, what did I miss?”
“Well, we began our interrogations,” I take in the specks of blood on their clothes as Liam speaks. Good. I want to move through this part expeditiously. Liam continues, “And as expected, they aren’t saying anything related to who hired them. They keep mumbling ‘our time will come.’”
Well, that’s not ominous.
I roll my eyes and ask, “Our time for what exactly?”
Rowan slams his bruised fist against the table, interrupting whatever Liam is going to say next. “They won’t fucking say.”
He’s under more pressure than we are. The bruises he tries to hide are evidence of his dad’s growing frustration with his inability to find answers.
Donald Calloway doesn’t like failure, and right now, in his cold dead eyes, Rowan is failing with a capital F.
He doesn’t care that they are the leaders of the Fraternitas. He expects us to have answers and complete assigned tasks by any means necessary.
Gauging where we are in the interrogation process, I query, “So are we calling this another dead end, or are we going to try again?”
“You wanted the delivery person, and Liam will question the driver.” My auburn eyebrows shoot up, surprised at Rowan’s announcement.
I was certain Karl would want the driver for himself.
“Liam wants to try a different tactic, so we all figured you, Karl, and I could work on the delivery person and let Liam have a go at the driver.”
I almost feel bad for the driver. Liam doesn’t usually participate in the interrogations, preferring to remain behind the keyboard. Let’s just say the driver will be praying to meet his maker in the first twenty seconds.
A cruel smile lines my face, reveling in the hurt both of these dead shits are in for. Cracking my knuckles, I rise from the table to prepare my tools.
Let the screams begin.
LIAM
The man strapped to the chair in front of me is mottled with bruises. I know he thinks I’m here to be his executioner, and offer him martyrdom for his cause.
He’ll die by my hand, but not before I’ve extracted all the information he and his partner have withheld. I’m almost at my wit’s end with this damn group constantly being one step ahead of us and having people more scared of whoever’s behind the iron curtain than they are of us. That’s where they always fuck up. We’re the big bad in this world. It’s almost too bad he won’t live to truly understand that.
“Our time will come. Our time will come. Our time will come,” he mutters. It sounds almost like a credence. A really fucking annoying one at that. The only time coming for him is death. I’ll reap answers and then his soul subjecting him to an afterlife of restlessness.
I say nothing, letting him continue his muttering. Instead, I walk to the large oak closet door and open it. Everything I’ll need is inside. I grab one of my kits, but I’ll need a few more things for what I have in mind.
Pulling the cage off the shelf, I place it and my kit on the metal utility cart. I still need acid, bamboo, and the blowtorch.
August and Karl love their whips and knives. I like to fuck with your mind, body, and soul. It’s why I’m here now. Sometimes the direct approach doesn’t garner the desired effect. Pain is a useful tactic in extracting information. But there are levels to how you inflict pain. Physical violence is one way. Psychological is a whole different animal and I’m the apex predator in that domain.
The man is still babbling when I return, rolling the cart to the covered machine off to the side of the room. Each squeak of the wheel leads him to mumble a little less. I can feel his eyes tracking me, trying to figure out what I will do next.
He won’t have to wonder much longer.
Once I reach the device, I flick on the light. The gasp from across the room tells me he recognizes some of what’s in store for him.
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.