Chapter 44
44
T he man’s tongue gives way as I sever the fleshy appendage from his body.
I don’t fucking care if he chokes on his own vomit and blood. What he just told me has my insides boiling with a fury I’m unable to contain. There’s no mercy to be granted today.
Right now, all I care about is the answers I’ve finally tracked down, and this piece of scum has just given me everything I needed to stitch together the mystery surrounding who took Poe.
I’ve finally learned who is responsible for giving her over to the people who kept her captive all those weeks. Who knew exactly how to interfere with the tracker that should have led us straight to her. Who drugged her. Who threatened to force themselves on her. Who did god knows what while she was out of her head, even if she insists they didn’t ever actually touch her.
None of that fucking matters. The video footage that was leaked, that allowed them to hunt her down and know how to get to her, all of the unknowns I’ve been trying to find a way to piece together are finally lining up to paint a sordid goddamn picture.
With the forceps still clutched in one hand and my crimson-slicked knife in the other, I leave the gurgling sound of the man drowning in his own filth in my wake and stride along the corridors toward Hawke’s office.
Kicking the wooden door open, I’m halfway into the room when his eyes lift from whatever he’s in the middle of doing on his phone to take in the sight of me barging in.
Hawke raises his eyebrows and casts a glance up and down my appearance before leaning his weight back in his office chair.
“You’re tracking blood all over my carpet again, Greyson. How many fucking times do we have to talk about keeping body parts contained to your workshop?”
I point my knife at him, with stained hands, the crimson caked around my knuckles where it’s half-dried already.
“Did you know?”
The man before me looks like the epitome of the man who lives and breathes this world. A master of secrets and deception and running rings around others with his bullshit.
In this, I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold back from the worst if I discover he or his goddamn brothers knew anything about what I’ve just learned.
“Whose tongue is that, Grey?” His jaw works as he surveys the dripping evidence of my discovery, and the resulting punishment handed out.
“Irrelevant.” I wave the knife, indicating for him to hurry the fuck up before I sink it into his carotid. “But they did give me information that confirms exactly which motherfucker needs to be treated to a slow and painful eternity of being sliced apart inch by inch. I’ll gladly devote the next decade or so to making sure they’re flayed down to the bone, while still breathing.”
“Care to elaborate?” His brows draw together.
“Poe. Those fuckers who took her. Did you know who was behind it? Leaking the security footage so they knew it was us they needed to impersonate in order to get to her? Knowing to go after her in the first place? They goddamn knew how to disable her tracker.”
Hawke gets up out of his chair and strides across the room to me with arms folded.
“You dare accuse me of being in on what happened to her again, and the only thing preventing me from turning that goddamn knife on you is Poe herself.”
“Then tell me when we go to fucking war, because I’m ready to torch it all.” I snarl. “Fuck the consequences.”
He scrubs a hand over his mouth, and I see the war raging deep within the sapphire of his gaze. For a long moment, Hawke stands before me, clearly fighting an internal battle—scrapping inside the goddamn ring as if it’s the tenth round—as he tries to put words to what it is he wants to say.
“I have a plan.” He flicks his eyes around the room and jerks his head. I know we can’t talk here, but he’ll give me enough without risk of anything being heard. “I just don’t know if it will be possible, but give me time. That’s all I ask.”
“Whatever you need. I’m there. Just hand me the fucking match, and I’ll light up whoever, whenever.”
Hawke nods solemnly.
“Looks like it’s time for me to call in the devil themself.”