Chapter 11 #2
“I’m going to take Ellery home. I like them,” Bane says.
“They’re not going anywhere. They stay here until I get answers.”
Bane disregards me, just goes up to the chain holding Ellery in place and undoes it.
“You can come with me. George doesn’t control me.”
“Stop calling me George!”
He pays me no notice and starts to move toward the door, but I don’t let him.
“Stop Ellery, Nova,” I bite out, and Nova’s arms go around the bitch while I grab onto Bane.
Ellery gives a great fight, but Nova has precision and training. She takes Ellery down easily, putting her arm around their neck and making Ellery pass out instantly.
Bane gasps as he struggles in my arms, but I’m taller than him, stronger. He’s slippery, but I have years of training under my belt. I wasn’t the best surgeon for nothing.
“Behave,” I growl, and Bane screams, loud and obnoxious.
My hand slips into the pocket of my scrubs and I pull out a syringe, jabbing it roughly into his neck. His eyes widen, and then he scowls.
“I’m going to make you pay for that,” he slurs, and then a moment later, he’s out, snoring loudly. Nova stares at me, Ellery thrown over her strong, capable shoulder. So, she did listen to me after all.
“You good?” she asks, and I nod.
“As good as I can be. Let’s vacate the premises. I don’t want management to get involved.”
“I’m sure they’ve seen worse,” she says as she pulls open the door and steps out. “But yeah, probably best not to linger.”
We move out of the motel room and down the stairs, people turning their gazes as we move past. Perhaps Nova was right. Maybe no one here cares if someone has been abducted and held captive in a motel room, or that Nova and I are carrying two people over our shoulders.
But it doesn’t matter what they think because moments later, both are in the backseat, slumped over, and we’re headed down the road.
I don’t want to take Ellery to the Costellos, but I fear I have no choice.
Bane will make sure I have no peace in the matter.
He’ll stalk me until he has the answers he wants.
“Head back to the Costellos,” I say as I pull out my phone and dial Anthony’s number.
“Yeah?” he answers.
“I have a delivery. I need a place to work on them until I get the information needed.”
He’s silent. “And who is this person?”
I stare out the window, watching as we pass traffic exiting the off-ramp of the freeway. “Someone who knows Henry.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me you found someone?”
“I don’t want you interfering. He hurt what is mine, and I want answers.”
Anthony is silent. “He’s been hurting this entire family. Bane included.”
“I know, but I found them first. I want the information they give first.”
“You can have it, but then I want a turn. And I want you to share anything that concerns this family.”
“Fine.”
“I want someone present while you’re interrogating them.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“I don’t.”
I huff and purse my lips. “Fine. But no interference. I take this by myself until I get what I need.”
“Deal.”
I hang up the phone, and Nova peers over at me. She has piercing, knowing eyes.
“You gonna hurt them?” she asks, and I stare out the window.
“If they don’t give me what I want, I will peel them apart. Piece by piece.”
Bane wakes up furious. He’s not even groggy, which I half-expected him to be. But of course he’s not. He’s just mad.
“You are going to die, Georgiy,” he hisses as he swipes at his mouth and tries to stand from the chair I’d placed him in. He wobbles slightly, and I go to help him, but he just swats my hands away.
“Do not touch me, traitor.”
My hands recoil, and something twists in my chest. I don’t like to be touched, that much is true, but I don’t like being told I can’t touch what’s mine.
“Bane.”
“Do not utter my name.” He glowers at me and then moves toward Nova, who is watching us intently. I wish she’d leave, but she sits like a hawk, watching over Ellery, who is refusing to open their eyes.
I haven’t even gotten started on them yet. Not while they pretend to be asleep. I know they’re not though. They keep peeking open one of their eyelids to see if we’re still around.
I plan on waiting as long as I need.
I will get my answers one way or another.
“Make him beg for forgiveness,” Ellery says between closed lips, like some kind of ventriloquist.
I want to slice them off their face.
“I think that’s a great idea. And why the hell is Ellery chained to the bed?” Bane asks, and Nova raises her eyebrows as if asking the same question.
“They’re a menace,” I reply.
“No, they’re a friend.”
“You don’t even know them. You shook their hand once.”
He ignores me. “Untie my new best friend.”
I feel my eye twitch. “Not until I get the answers I need.”
Ellery takes that moment to pop their eyes open and meets my stare. “I’ll talk to him. Not you, douche.”
I grab my scalpel and move toward them, but Nova stops me.
“Let Bane talk to them. He’ll get what you need,” she says.
“I don’t want the information anymore. I want murder,” I say.
Bane rolls his eyes and sits in a chair right next to Ellery, pulling something from his pocket and loosening their restraints.
“There. Those were far too tight. I’m here to listen. Go on and tell me what you think he wants to know.”
Ellery eyes me and then flips me off.
“I’ll tell you what he wants to know if he apologizes to you for hurting you.”
Bane wiggles in his seat and then turns to face me, his arms folded across his chest.
“I’m waiting,” he says snottily. I want to kiss those sassy lips. I haven’t done that yet, but it seems I should rectify that soon.
My fist tightens around the scalpel. I could gut him with it—if he were anyone else, I’d put it right into his jugular and watch him bleed out.
But then I’d miss him.
“I apologize,” I murmur.
“For what?” Ellery snaps.
My nostrils flare, and I meet Bane’s gaze. “For leaving you without explanation and then drugging you when you showed up.”
Bane stares at me long and hard before nodding. “I accept your apology, but I do not forgive you. You’re dead to me.”
That makes something inside me shrivel.
But before I can address it, Ellery turns toward Bane. “That creepy reaper showed me a picture of a man. Henry, he called him, but I don’t know a fucking Henry. I’m not the Queen of England. But I do know a Samuel. Well, I think that’s his real name. I think they were Romanian? Wait, no, Armenian.”
“Samvel,” I say.
“Yeah. That’s it. I knew him when I was little. He had a twin sister, too. I remember because I have one too. A twin brother, just like Emma did. Anyway, we played together until one day they up and moved.”
I pull my phone out and open the picture Anthony sent to me. I hold it up to Ellery, and they roll their eyes. “I’m not talking to that traitor.”
I hand the phone to Bane, and he shows it to them instead. “Yeah, that’s Emma.”
“She goes by Virgin.”
“She always was a prude,” Ellery says, and Bane laughs.
“She kept passing out every time I went to remove something.”
“She isn’t tough at all. Her dad babied her.”
“Who’s her father?” I ask, but go ignored. Bane does the same.
It isn’t until ten minutes later, after chattering incessantly, like they’ve been long-lost friends, that he finally asks Ellery my question.
“So, who are the parents of this Samvel and Emma?”
“Dunno. They didn’t have a mom. I think this creep adopted them.
Never met the guy. Just knew what I knew from what they told me.
All I know is the dude was a shit.” Ellery leans up slightly and says lowly, “I’m pretty sure they had other people living in that house.
But I think the dad kept them hidden. I think he was into some shady shit, but my family wasn’t exactly the Brady Bunch.
I had shit of my own at home distracting me. ”
Bane bobs his head. “He sounds pretty terrible. Anything else you can tell us about them?”
“Nope. Just that they were always mischievous. Getting into trouble. I think their dad encouraged it because they never got punished for it. They said he was proud of the weird shit they did.”
“What weird shit?”
“Stealing, lying, one time they even murdered someone. Well, I think they did. They bragged about breaking into Ms. Lydia’s house, and the next day, an ambulance showed up and rolled out a covered body.”
“Hm,” Bane says, but doesn’t ask anything else. He just moves the conversation to something else unimportant. I’m left to listen to them chatter until it finally stops, and Ellery requests dinner.
I hate this person. The entitled twit.
But Nova agrees to stay with them while I go and fetch Ellery something to eat. Me. As if I’m a servant in this house.
But the way Bane continues to ignore me leaves me to do as I’m told, returning with a plate of food for Ellery and something for Bane and Nova as well.
I should have poisoned it, I think as I set it before them.
But I was never into apothecary. I could have gone into the field of pharmacology, but I quite liked taking people apart and putting them back together again.
I was good at it, too. I still am. Only this time, I rarely put people back together.
Usually, I’m what Ellery said. A reaper of sorts.
Doling out consequences and ultimately death.
I watch as Bane eats the food, his eyes never moving to mine. I stand there, looming, feeling uncomfortable in this room as I wait for him to finish. But he’s taking his time, nibbling on the meal Agatha prepared. I’m about to grab it and throw it out the window.
But before I can, he stands up and tries to move past me. My arm extends and snakes around his middle, and I pull him into me.
“Do not leave.”
“Hands off me!” he shouts.
I growl, wrestling him gently. He’s slippery. It doesn’t help that Nova and Ellery are getting involved as well. Their hands land on me, and I recoil. Bane must sense it because he slaps them away.
“Don’t touch him! He hates it.”