Chapter 39
Hunter
Logan yanks out his eye. He screams like a bitch. He tosses the eye onto the nearly broken table, wipes his hand on a napkin, and makes a disgusted face. “It’s just… eww.” He looks back at Chris. “Don’t cry like a weak cunt, for God’s sake. You’re a mafia boss, have some dignity, bro.”
Chris sits in front of me, tied to an old wooden chair, drenched in his own blood, all his teeth gone. We’re in an old garage on the outskirts of Toronto. It’s not ours, but it’s the safest option for now. There’s no human residence within a two-kilometer radius.
“Now let’s try again. So tell us, lovely Chris, why did you erase our memories?” Logan asks calmly.
I’m sitting five feet from him. Interrogation isn’t my field, I don’t have the patience for it. I’ve been holding myself back from killing him for the past hour while Logan has been pulling his teeth out one by one. And still, he doesn’t speak.
Now he’s heaving and looks like he could faint at any moment, which is the last thing we need. If he loses consciousness, we’ll have to wait for him to wake up before we can get any answers from him. More wasted time. And time is the one thing I can’t afford to lose right now.
I have to leave for Naples as soon as possible.
For the past four nights, I’ve been calling her every day to make sure she’s okay.
Still I don’t know if she is, because she’s drunk every time I call.
It doesn’t matter what hour it is, she’s always drunk.
When I ask her about it, she says she hasn’t touched alcohol, but the unnatural way she speaks and the constant giggling are enough to tell me she’s lying.
Chris’s slurred words drag me out of my thoughts.
“To use you as weapons.”
“We already worked for you, why wipe our memories?”
“You weren’t working for me. You’re not the Blackwood brothers.”
“Wait, so I’m not Logan? And he’s not Hunter?”
Chris nods.
“But we look like them.”
“I changed your faces.”
Logan looks at me, brows raised. He looks back at Chris. “Then who are we?”
“You’re Il... yas.”
Logan leans his ear closer to Chris’s mouth. “I’m what? I shouldn’t have pulled his teeth.” The second part he mutters to himself.
“Ilyas.”
Logan straightens, frowning. “And who’s that?”
“A thief.”
Logan raises a brow. “You’re saying I was a thief?”
Chris nods, breathing harder. We don’t have much time before he blacks out.
“So why’d you need a thief?”
“You stole the King of Saudi Arabia’s crown.”
“And you got impressed with my skills, so you wiped my memory and made me your man. Got it.” He jerks his thumb in my direction. “And what’d he steal that made him eligible?”
Chris’s remaining eye turns to me, then just as quickly, back to Logan. “He broke into Alessio’s security.”
“Ah, and that made him even more desirable. What was his name?”
He looks at me again. This time, he holds my gaze.
“Salvario De Falco.”
The words hit me with brutal force. I frown, glaring at him. He trembles in his chair. Logan slaps his face back toward him, breaking his eye contact with me.
“You’re lying. I’ll give you one more chance to answer nicely. The next time won’t be nice. Who is he?”
“Not lying.” He shakes his head. “He... is... the Butcher... of Naples.” His voice fades; he’s losing consciousness.
Logan grabs his sweat-soaked hair and yanks his head back. “Then who the fuck is that man in Naples?”
“My man.” The words barely come out before his head becomes dead weight in Logan’s grip, his mouth falling open and his eye slipping shut.
Logan shoves his head back against the chair and looks at me. “Shit. This is seriously fucked up. What do we do now?”
Matleon
“What’s your real name?” I ask, calmly, though it’s the last thing I feel.
What I’m actually feeling is the need to rip off his skin and tear out every vein, muscle, and organ—one by one—until nothing remains. And I know even that won’t be enough for what he’s done to my sister. No amount of torture ever could be.
“Hunter Blackwood.”
“Who sent you?”
I already know the answer, but I want to hear it from his mouth. He doesn’t speak. The moment he hesitates, he cries out. The bastard is in a torture chamber, wires connected to his head, triggering endless pain in his pain circuits every time he refuses or tries to lie.
“Chris Flisher,” he heaves.
“Why?”
“To kill all of you.”
I drag a hand through my hair, losing my calm again. Zo puts a hand on my shoulder. I step aside, and he takes my place at the chamber.
“What was the plan?” Zo intones.
“To marry the king’s daughter, infiltrate the system, and wipe everything out from the root.”
“Why did you drug her?”
“To take complete control of her.”
“What about the real Salvario? Where is he?”
“Hunter is Salvario.”
Hunter is Salvario. Salvario is Hunter. How brilliantly this fucker Chris has played us. I just hope Salvario hasn’t killed him yet. Someone burned his estate and took him. The fire shows it was done by the Butcher of Naples. Now it all makes perfect sense.
“How do you have his memories?”
“We extracted them under hypnosis before wiping them.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out and see my head of security calling. I step out of the chamber and take it.
“Sir, Hunter Blackwood is at the main gate. He wants to see you.”
“Keep an eye on him. Tell him to wait. I’ll be there in half an hour.”
“Yes, sir.”
I end the call and turn back toward the chamber. Zo steps out.
“I’ve had him put in a cell for now.”
“Okay. Let’s go home. Salvario is there.”
He nods. We head for the elevator.
“What else did he say?”
“When they took Salvario from his mansion, he had already lost part of his memory, that’s why Hunter doesn’t have all of it, just pieces.
Later, they wiped that too, changed his face, and a few other things.
As for him, he learned every habit of Salvario, memorized his memories, had full-body surgery, and was trained to become what he is now.
That’s what took them so long. Otherwise, their plan was to send him here a year ago. ”
I don’t give a shit about how they played Salvario. But they should not have touched Wen. And especially not drugged her.
When Remi was bringing her to San Diego, along with that piece of shit, she lost consciousness on the plane after throwing up several times.
I admitted her to the hospital as soon as she arrived.
Her tests showed she’s been drugged, and the number of doses she’s received so far is enough to destroy a nervous system.
She’s conscious now and at home, but the state she’s in is worse than being unconscious.
The only man who could have done this to her is that motherfucker. He tried his best to act like he did nothing and had no idea how this happened, but we don’t believe him.
We know Wen well enough to know she’d never take drugs on her own, and even if she wanted to, she’d have no way to get them. The only other person in that house is May, and she’s loyal to the bone.
I have only one regret: that I couldn’t see through his lies from the start. This is the first fucking time someone has managed to deceive me, and my father too. The bastard came too prepared.
Right now, my entire family is on the verge of a mental breakdown over Wen’s condition, including Dad. I’ve never seen him cry like that. Even the memory of the state I left her in when I came here an hour ago is enough to twist my gut. I clench my jaw, blinking back the sting in my eyes.
We’re all fucking failures.