Chapter 32
HATCH
“Igotta tell ya.” I grunt as I crouch in front of my prey and rest my forearms on my thighs. “Ain’t nothing quite like hearing your girl tell you she had to kill to survive to make you want to torture the absolute ever-loving shit out of some asshole that hurt her. Amiright?”
Frog snivels behind the duct tape covering his mouth as moonlight streams in through the glass door, highlighting the tear trailing down his cheek.
It’s a mockery of the vulnerability Lucy showed me just before dawn this morning, and it both pisses me off and makes me smile.
In fact, seeing this toad of a man stripped down to his skivvies and zip-tied to one of Harry’s kitchen chairs brings me a complicated sort of peace that I didn’t know existed.
After Lucy’s confession, she squirrel-brained again and spent the next thirty minutes babbling about anything and everything before finally getting tired. Meanwhile, I sat there murderous and seething.
I walked her to her houseboat before the sun rose, dropping her off at the door like it was a first date. She was exhausted but lucid, the worst of the Smoke finally gone.
Most importantly, she didn’t recognize me even in the budding light of day.
Even though I was itching to throw her over my shoulder and carry her somewhere safe, I kept my chill about it. She needed sleep after what she went through. Frankly, so did I.
Once I got back to the bungalow, it was the ass-crack of dawn, so I wasn’t surprised when I couldn’t get in touch with my family or Kian. I crashed on Harry’s lumpy couch and managed a few hours of fitful sleep before sunset.
Now I’m wired.
Nobody has returned my calls. Nobody has answered my messages. And it’s freaking me the fuck out.
If I didn’t need answers, Lucy and I would already be on the mainland, her on the back of my motorcycle and Dinah in my sidecar. As soon as I get them? We’re gone.
It’s Monday, so the club is closed tonight. Lucy will sleep well into the evening and be awake by the time I’m done here. And according to X’s text earlier, Castle’s still off-island for a business meeting.
Or he’s a coward who knows I’ll kill the first chance I get. Honestly, either one’s possible.
I’m about to find out.
Blood drips from Frog’s busted nose and a cut on his arm that still has a shard of mirror glass embedded in it, forming a small puddle on the time-yellowed linoleum.
Harry leans against the paneled wall near the doorway, arms folded and a bored expression flattening the wrinkles on his face.
“Quit playing with your food and ask him the questions already. You’re gonna stain my floor if you don’t get that mess cleaned quick.”
I huff and roll my eyes before pointing my knife tip toward a particularly orange-ish section of what I’m pretty sure was once a white section of the floor.
“It’s already stained, you big grump. You’d know that if you had an actual lamp in this place.”
“I told you to get your own goddamn lamp. And blood is different, and you know it, you ungrateful little shit.” He sucks his teeth. “I wanted to kill him out right but nooo. You had to go on and mess up my damn floor when all I was doing was trying to help out Alice.”
I grimace.
After X called Harry, my landlord had Frog hauled here, then trussed him up for me like a stuffed turkey ready for carving.
He really is doing me a solid—especially since he did it without any other information, knowing it could put him on Castle’s bad side.
He has a soft spot for Lucy, though, which says a lot about the fact that Frog was only a little roughed up before I got around to him.
I imagine Harry probably held back for the sake of the cause so I’d still have something left to interrogate.
“Fair enough.” I nod. “I’ll re-tile the floor after this, how about that?”
“Damn right you will. All by yourself too. I ain’t got time to clean up your messes.”
“Jesus, you’re an asshole,” I mutter.
“Takes one to know one.”
I chuckle, then say sincerely, “Thanks for the assist, by the way.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He swats the gratitude away like I knew he would. Harry’s never been one for pleasantries. “Just get on with it. Dinah don’t like being left all by her lonesome for too long or she’s liable to escape.”
He gestures toward the half-covered gap in the warped wall and the tools scattered around it.
Note to self: help Harry repair all the fucking holes in this house, goddamn.
Moving on, I grab the edge of Frog’s duct tape and rip it off in one jerk. He croaks out a groan that makes both me and Harry wince.
“Goodness gracious.” Harry grunts. “You really do sound like a frog.”
“Fuck you, grand—”
I punch Frog in the stomach hard, wheezing out the rest of his retort.
“Don’t you dare disrespect my friend like that. You know how many wars he fought for your freedom?”
I cut an inquisitive look at Harry and whisper. “And which wars were those again?”
“Listen here, boy, I will knock you into next week if you don’t stop with all that sass. If Fancy found out about that sorry mouth of yours—”
I suck in a breath. “Ooo, that would mean you’d have to call her, so…” I pretend to weigh my chances. He glares at me, and I snort.
But all the levity drops as I grab Frog by the jaw and force his head to look at Harry. “Apologize.”
“F—”
I squeeze, digging my fingers into the hollows of his cheeks until he yelps.
“Ahhhh, sorry! I’m sorry!”
“There’s a good boy.” I let go and pat his sweaty cheek with the back of my hand. “Now. Why don’t we cut to the chase and you tell me why Castle put Alice in the Smoke and Mirrors Room with you?”
One of his eyes is swollen completely shut—courtesy of either me or Harry, I’m not sure—but he narrows the other one into a glare.
“Fuck. Y—”
“Ah, ah, ah.” I take my knife from the countertop and wag it in front of his face, then pat his split lip with the blade before slipping an inch into his mouth.
His breath hitches and his entire body goes rigid as a corpse. With careful pressure, I shave a paper-thin slice from the tip of his tongue, extracting a strangled noise from him throat.
“Answer the question,” I say calmly. “Or I won’t have any use for that disgusting slab of meat. And you want it to be useful. Don’t you, Froggy?”
I draw the knife out slowly, and he shudders as the metal clears his lips
“Again. Why did Castle put Alice in that room with you?”
The bastard spits blood onto the floor, making Harry curse at the large crimson glob. Damn I must’ve cut a little deeper than I thought.
Oops.
Finally, though, he speaks.
“You know, ever since you got here and started hiding behind that mask, Castle’s had a side bet going.”
“Oh yeah? What kind of bet?”
He laughs wetly through his ruined nose. It’s smashed so badly it really does look like a pig snout now.
“On how long it’d take you to reveal yourself to that McKennon bitch.”
Harry and I both freeze. The smile slips from my face as I slowly stand.
“What?”
“You heard me. You were taking too long to get on with it, I guess, and he wanted to force your hand.” He coughs blood onto his bare chest. “Castle knows all about you two. Lucy McKennon and Hatton Fury. Two of the seven most wanted heirs in the entire country.”
His bloody grin widens.
“And y’all fell right into his lap.”