20. Grey #2
His body language was furious, but his eyes were terrified when he looked back at me.
Sometimes in a fight, the eyes were an excellent tell.
A fighter could fake you out with their hands and feet, but few trained their eyes not to give their thoughts away.
At least of the more mediocre fighters, and Jorge was mid at best.
He was also terrified for his sister.
I flipped the switch and knocked on the glass. The glass cleared, giving us a perfect look into the room as the speaker turned on.
Andre leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, watching Blanca with boredom. He was sending a message. As much as she had been a part of our lives over the years, she wasn’t in our lives. She didn’t matter.
For such a tan girl, she was pasty under the flickering fluorescent lights. She kept her gaze on the table and her hands locked in her lap.
Glancing at Andre, she couldn’t take it and looked back down. Her lip started trembling and her chest stayed still. She was holding her breath.
“Your brother is on the other side of the glass,” Andre stated. “Do you know why you’re here?”
Blanca sucked in a quivering breath as she glanced at the mirror. Her brows kissed as she searched for him, but all she would see was her own reflection. “No.” It came out weak, unsure.
“Grey’s out there with him, too. He’s already told him why you’re in here. Are you sure you don’t know?” Andre reached to his side and unstrapped two of my knives.
Mine were the best made, because I made them.
She saw the knives. The fear leaking from her was so stringent; I felt it out here. Jorge had been with us for a decade, and we’d known Blanca only a few years less. She’d know exactly what this room was for. She always cleaned it after we had used it for the past few years.
“What the fuck?” Jorge whispered next to me, pressing a hand against the glass. “I can’t let him cut her up,” he whispered, as he glanced at me, his dark brown eyes glistening. “You know that. I can’t let him do that to her.”
“You will—if it comes to that. You also better hope she tells us the truth and makes it convincing. This is not the time to fuck us over, not when Vicente has set every assassin in the Institution after us.”
Jorge swallowed and nodded.
“N—No.” She peeked up through her lashes, trying to watch his movements without making it obvious.
Andre had always been her favorite. The entire compound knew she’d had a crush on him a few years ago.
Blanca didn’t bother hiding it, not until Amorette showed up.
This was hurting her for more than one reason.
Andre fingered the smaller knife, spinning it in a slow circle.
The light hit the blade and the reflection flashed across the gray walls.
“Here are your choices. You can tell me the truth, your motives, and any other goddamn piece of information that’s useful to save your brother.
Or…you can pussyfoot around, I can slice you up, and Grey will most likely have to kill Jorge so he doesn’t reach you. ”
“Stop!” She slammed one hand on the table. “Jorge hasn’t done anything! He’s been loyal to you four for years! Grey would never hurt him!” Every sentence out of her mouth was a scream of disbelief.
Next to me, Jorge whimpered.
“You have done something? Is that what I’m hearing?” Andre asked, his voice barely audible through the speaker.
The door to the hallway blew open, and the knob cracked against the concrete. Amorette stormed in like she’d been in a catfight and barely won. Her skin was flushed and sweaty. Her mouth was set in a severe frown as she searched the room.
Her gaze softened on Jorge but hardened when she looked through the glass. Lafe was on her heels, not looking any better.
“You want to be in here? Don’t do anything stupid, or I’ll cart you out,” he warned, staying on her ass as she approached the glass.
Andre sighed as he turned toward us. “I’m assuming that’s Amorette. What’s it going to be, Blanca?”
Her face crumpled as she faced us. She was going to take the hard road; it was written all over her face.
“This is ridiculous,” Amorette muttered as she stormed around me to reach the door. I caught her around the waist and caged her in front of me.
“This is important. You’ll stay out of this or the next time we play,” alluding to our time on the plane, “I’ll do more than restrain you and build up your pleasure.
I’ll spank your ass so hard, you’ll cry big, fat, beautiful tears.
Then I’ll fuck you raw,” I murmured against the side of her head and turned us so she could observe.
My arms were steel bands around her, and unlike with Lafe, she didn’t attempt to escape.
“This is going to hurt you, worse than it will hurt them,” Andre said as he picked up the shorter, fatter knife—the one with the serrated edge, similar to the knife I used in the fight against Bruno.
Amorette dug her nails into my forearms, but I didn’t give a fuck.
She wasn’t going to put us in danger because of her soft feelings.
Blanca was trusted, although, unfortunately, things have changed.
Whenever they did, we needed to protect ourselves in a way that discouraged others from making the same mistakes.
“I did it!” Blanca screamed. Her next words were so jumbled from crying she was almost impossible to understand. “I didn’t give him any information! I swear. I fucking swear!”
“What’s she saying?” Amorette asked, her own emotions breaking through in her question. Blanca’s outburst was in Spanish, and our wicked little love wanted to know what was happening.
Lafe started to answer, but I shook my head. This might be to our advantage for the moment.
“Go on,” Andre said in English.
“A few months back, when we all went onshore, a man cornered me. He said he worked under Vicente and that he knew about the bitch who had infiltrated the compound. I..I..” She tried and failed to see through the glass.
“I didn’t realize then. I was so damned angry and thought she wasn’t good for us.
For you all. I was wrong.” Blanca gazed up at Andre with pleading eyes.
“I never gave him any information. I just couldn’t. ” Her words tapered off to a whisper.
Jorge made an ugly noise and spun away from the glass. He raked his hands through his short, black hair. “ Dios mio !” he cried.
“She did it, didn’t she?” Amorette sounded like she couldn’t believe it.
“She did.” I kept my voice as gentle as I fucking could.
Andre glanced at the glass, then back at the table. In what seemed like a last-minute decision, he picked up the knives and placed them back in their holsters. “You know what this means?” He called, like he was speaking to us.
Jorge answered. “I do. I fucking know what this means.”
“What?” Amorette broke out of my arms, then snapped her head between Andre and Jorge. “What does this mean?” No one answered. “What does this fucking mean!” she yelled.
“Blanca is about to be made into an example,” Lafe said, his eyes solemn as he watched the girl break apart beside Andre.
Andre stepped out of the room, leaving a destroyed woman behind him. “I want to know the details. I want to know what she did, why she did it. Everything.”
I was impressed that he hadn’t needed to inflict pain to get her basic confession. She could be lying or planning to hide truths. But at least we knew this wasn’t a false claim by Matías.
“I get to decide how she’s handled.” Amorette raised her chin as she glared at Andre.
His pride was immediately on the defense. “What gives you that right?”
“She’s my friend. I care about her. She doesn’t have to be hurt or tortured to make a point.”
Jorge started laughing. Low at first, then it built until his entire body was shaking.
“No, a point does have to be made. It pains me. You have no idea how it pains me, but my baby sister,” his voice broke, “my baby sister just admitted to agreeing to be a plant for Vicente.” He turned around and met Amorette’s stare with dead eyes.
“Because of you, girl. She wanted you gone. I think she eventually changed her mind, but you were the reason she took that deal in the first place. You were the reason she put all our fucking lives on the line.”
“No, she wouldn’t have done that.” Amorette stepped back, and one of her hands fluttered toward her chest. She was being deliberately obtuse because this wasn’t the outcome she’d wanted.
“Fuck me, but she already did.” Jorge broke and twisted away from us. Most of our men were just as brutal as we were, but Jorge had always been a little too soft. Too human.
“She’ll stay in the birdcage,” Andre said in a tone that posed no negotiation. “I’m not making this decision now. Soon, but Jorge, you’ll stay with her.”
He nodded without turning back to us.
“Grey.” Andre glanced at me. “Take Amorette back to our apartments. Work is done for the day.”
Perfect. I’d take her back to my place and help her work off her terrible temper.
I started toward her, and when she tried to object, I bent forward and tossed her over my shoulder.
She struggled, but it was half-hearted at best. My wicked love just had a taste of what life in the Institution was really like.
Would she want to take over now?
She stopped fighting by the time we made it to the commons. Once we were in my apartment, I sat her on the couch. We needed to eat and, from the dark circles under her eyes, sleep.
I sighed. So much for fucking our troubles away.
When I brought her the food, she took the plate, moving the broccoli around without eating.
“A hunger strike won’t gain anyone any favors.” I nodded to her plate.
“Why would she do that? Blanca made a big speech in the bathroom about how I was the villain. Then she turned on the very people who protected her.”
I raised a brow. “That’s your answer. You were her villain. Getting you away was more important than letting things play out here. At that point, you could have easily been sent back to Maikel.”
She turned unimpressed eyes on me. “You would never have let that happen. Even then.”
A grin tugged one side of my mouth. “She didn’t know that.”
Huffing out a pitiful laugh, she forked a bit of chicken into her mouth. “Will this happen again? I’ll make a friend, and they’ll screw me over for any number of reasons?”
“Yep. Greed, jealousy, fear. Everything is a motivator. We tried our best to remove those motives for the people on the island, but you see how far Vicente’s reach is.
” I couldn’t bring myself to care that much.
This wasn’t new to us. It was why we’d always restricted our friendships.
They were tools to cut us with, and who needed that?
She nodded, pulling her legs underneath her while still holding the plate. “Did this happen to you?”
Wicked Love didn’t realize just how unattached I was to everyone and everything that wasn’t my fights or my brothers. “No. Unless you count watching Vicente scare away all the kids who wanted to play with us when we were young.”
“And what he did to your mother. That couldn’t have sparked any deep emotional issues,” she said sarcastically. She hated Vicente’s fucking guts; I didn’t blame her.
“How do you know about that?”
She stiffened. It took a minute, but when she raised her eyes to mine, she chewed on one side of her lip. “Parker told me.”
“Fucking Parker,” I sighed and shook my head. He loved making his messes.
“If you want to talk about it, I’d love to listen. I lost my mom too,” she offered.
That was cute. She thought her experience was similar to mine. I doubted that. My mother’s death didn’t bother me. I hadn’t actually thought about her in years. But I didn’t want to talk about her.
When I didn’t say anything, Amorette’s face fell.
“Not tonight. You’ll have nightmares. Another day, I’ll tell you the story.” It was a concession, since that was exactly what I didn’t want to do. It would hurt her, and I wanted to make her stronger, not weaker. At least for now. There would come a time when it would serve as a lesson for her.
“Let’s go to bed. Tomorrow you can figure out how to be Blanca’s hero.” I meant it derisively, yet the faint gleam of hope in Amorette’s eyes meant she took me very seriously.
She was too thick-headed for her own good, and it was going to be hell protecting her.
I couldn’t wait.