Chapter 32 #3
But those thoughts swirl far beneath the surface, where nobody, especially Luke, can ever see them.
“You make a lot of noise, Ian,” I say flatly, keeping my eyes on his.
“No shit,” comes a thick Scots accent from behind me. “Fucker never shut up the entire time he trained us.”
“That’s a good thing.” Holding Welch’s eyes, I slice his shirt neatly from his body, then slide the tip of the blade down his torso from neck to navel, leaving a thin line of blood in my wake. “I always enjoy the screamers.”
I slip the knife under the top button of his jeans and give him my blank psychopath’s stare as the metal falls to the floor.
Flicking up the tab of his zipper, I use the knife to slowly push it down, holding Ian’s eyes the entire time.
When the razor-sharp edge of the blade makes a narrow slit in his blue boxer shorts, I see the first flicker of fear stir behind his contemptuous stare.
“Oh, look.” Still holding his eyes, I slip the flat of the blade beneath his flaccid, unimpressive cock.
“There you are, Ian.” I flop his cock out of his pants, leaving it dangling pathetically in plain view as I step back and eye it dispassionately.
“Do you know,” I say idly, “I don’t think that tiny cock of yours is going to fill your very big mouth.
Which is good, since it means you’ll still be able to talk while you’re chewing on it. ”
With lightning swiftness, I get close, letting Ian see the soulless psychopathic smile that made me infamous. Then I push the hard edge of the blade up against his perineum, with enough force to cut into the thin membrane.
Ian lets out an involuntary high-pitched sound that no man could ever be proud of making.
“Christ,” mutters one of the men behind me.
Ian’s eyes shift desperately to Luke. “I’m one of your own,” he croaks. “You can’t let her do this.”
“Correction.” Luke folds his arms, eyeing him without a hint of discomfort. “You were one of our own. Now you’re just a piece of shit who helps traffic women into slavery. I’ll happily stand here and watch Miss Melikov cut your cock off. I’ll even cheer her on while she makes you eat it.”
A murmur of assent comes from the men behind me.
I twist the knife, and Ian yelps as blood drips over the blade.
“Or,” Luke says, and Ian’s head snaps up eagerly, “you can start talking. Maybe, if you’re lucky, she’ll agree to let us finish you instead.”
Ian stares over my shoulder to the faces of the men behind me, pride warring with fear in his eyes.
“We might let you keep your cock, but don’t think we’ll go a great deal easier.
” For once there’s no trace of humor in Paddy’s voice.
“I saw the women who came out of that container in Avonmouth. Most of them could barely feckin’ stand, let alone talk.
For that alone, I’d see you dead, and count it a good feckin’ day’s work. ”
There’s a moment of tense silence.
Ian turns resentful eyes to Luke. “I’ll tell you whatever the fuck you want to know,” he says bitterly. “Just get this psychotic bitch away from me.”
“Oh, that isn’t how this works,” I interrupt lightly. “Luke is going to ask you questions. I’m going to make sure your answers are truthful.”
I dig the blade a little deeper, just to make my point.
“Fuck,” Ian gasps, eyeing me with open terror. “Ask, Macarthur. Just fucking ask.”
Luke folds his arms and stares the man down. “Why does Rhys Stewart want Zinaida dead?”
“Because she’s got so much dirt on everyone in power that the law can never touch her. Rhys said anyone with that kind of power is a threat to our national security. He needed someone off book to take her out, so he came to me.”
Luke’s lip curls. “And you fucking believed that?”
Ian looks at him sullenly. “We both know it wouldn’t be the first time someone has made that kind of ask, Macarthur. And he handed me one hell of a paycheck.”
“What’s the connection between Stewart and Lowbridge?” Luke fires the questions with hard detachment.
“Rhys told me that Lowbridge had a connection inside the Melikov bratva who could give us information on the target’s movements.”
It’s odd hearing myself described as a target. But Luke doesn’t flinch, so neither do I.
“Did you ever meet this connection?”
“No.” Welch shakes his head. “I dealt with a middleman called Bogdan Kozlov. He told me that the connection was a girl who’d been trafficked by the Melikovs as a child and wanted revenge.”
Traded as a child?
I keep my face blank, but my mind is racing.
Eva came to Sophie’s House just over a year ago, beaten, bloody, and bearing a trafficking brand on her shoulder. She didn’t offer details on her story, and we didn’t ask too many questions.
If Ian is telling the truth, then I guess it’s possible she was one of my father’s victims, though she would have had to have been extremely young. But many of those my father abused work for me to this day. They all know I had no part in their suffering.
It makes no sense.
“What was Lowbridge’s interest in the target?” Luke asks.
The target.
Somehow it sounds far worse when Luke says it. Like I’m already just a name in a file to him.
Isn’t that what you wanted, Zinaida?
For the first time since Luke began asking questions, Welch’s eyes slide sideways, a dull flush climbing his face. “Rhys told me Lowbridge’s business was being threatened by Melikov’s operations. He said Lowbridge was frustrated by the government’s inability to act.”
This time it’s the young Scotsman who steps forward, glancing at Luke for permission. Luke nods curtly.
“When, exactly, did you work out it was Lowbridge who was behind the trafficking?” He stares at Welch, and the longer the man’s silence stretches out, the colder his expression grows. “How fucking long ago, Welch?”
I press the knife into the cut I’ve made and put my mouth close to Welch’s ear. “You should probably answer him, Ian. Soon.” I press a little harder.
“Fuck!” Welch wants to struggle, but every movement only makes the knife cuts worse. He meets the Scotsman’s eyes, then drops his own to the floor. “Fine,” he says sullenly. “It was when Georgiy Ivanov died. I overheard Lowbridge telling Rhys that she’d done him a favor by removing his competitor.”
The Scot stares at him. “That was more than two months ago,” he says slowly.
“Before you hired me. Which means you fucking knew when you brought me in who I’d be working for.
And you lied. Straight to my face.” He steps back, his color paling.
“And not just you. Rhys lied to my face.” I can hear the shock in his voice.
“I saw that bastard a week ago, and he said he was glad to have me on board. Even thanked me for my fucking service like a bloody American.”
One of the other men steps forward. “How much did they pay you, Sandman?” I can hear the contempt and tightly restrained fury in his voice. “How much were each of those women worth, exactly?”
When Welch doesn’t answer, I twist the knife deeper. “I think I’d like to know the answer to that question too, Ian. Why don’t you share?”
“Fuck you all.” Welch’s face collapses in on itself like a sunken pudding.
“I was your instructor,” he says, his voice shaking as he turns back to face Luke.
“But did Makari Tereschenko come trying to recruit me when I left the army? No. None of those private security boys did. Rhys was the only one who remembered what I’d done. Who offered me a future.”
A future.
Suddenly I’m back in Tetya Ana’s apartment, with my father leaning over me. “I will make you famous, daughter . . .”
“A future?” Sliding the knife out from beneath Welch’s balls, I step back, holding the bastard’s eyes with my own.
“What about the future you took from those women, Ian? Or the hells you sent them too?” I slide the flat of the knife across his face, smearing his own blood over it.
“Did you see their faces when that fat paycheck dropped into your account?” I smear the other side of his face.
“What about at night, Ian? Do you see their faces then?”
“Fuck you,” he says again and spits on the floor. “You’re no fucking better than I am, with your whores and your secrets.”
“A limited vocabulary is a sign of low intelligence, Ian, did you know that?” I give him a dead-eyed smile.
“In your case, I’d say your IQ is even smaller than your cock, which is why men like Mak Tereschenko will always choose a man like Luke Macarthur over an insect like you.
As for my whores and secrets? Well, my whores not only choose their profession, but are also the highest paid in London.
As for my secrets, Ian—secrets are how women like me make sure idiots like you wind up in my basement with a knife at your balls, instead of putting a bullet through my head.
” I wave the knife rapidly in front of his face, my mouth curling when he instinctively recoils.
“Well, that was fun.” I hand the blade back to Paddy, who takes it, grinning, then turn to Luke. “But I imagine you’d like to take it from here.”
For a moment we lock eyes, and the savagery in Luke’s makes me tremble somewhere deep inside, in the place only he has ever managed to truly touch.
I conceal the effect he has on me behind the dead mask I’ve worn for most of my life. “After you’re done, you might want to see if your friends can stick around for the ball tomorrow night,” I say coolly. “They might come in handy for what I have planned for Lowbridge and Stewart.”
Luke’s eyes search mine. “And then?”
For a moment, the men in the room fade away, taking with them the bare concrete and blood, the darkness that has always been my life—and, whether I like it or not, always will be.
“And then,” I say quietly, “this will all be over.”