Fifteen
Lukas
Leaving Amelia before she awakes is harder than I thought it would be.
But I have work to do, and not for Bastien.
This is for me.
I dress in the dark, silent in her room, watching her sleeping peacefully. Then I unbuckle one of the cuffs, so she can free herself more easily after I’m gone. I want her to know I took the trouble.
I like that she doesn’t even stir, as if she’s comfortable with me at some subconscious level, though I do miss seeing her deep green eyes before I abandon her. So beautiful.
But leave I must. I’ve failed her trust. I thought I’d been perfectly clear to Serranto. Evidently, I was wrong.
It’s time to go and correct that oversight.
I let myself quietly out of her door, closing it behind me with a click. That might’ve woken her, but it’s four in the morning. With any luck, she’ll sleep on.
Once outside, I pull out my phone and call the 24/7 number that puts me through to special operations at Sentinel Risk.
Caller ID introduces me. “Mr. Van Wyk, sir.”
“Log into Northbridge’s database and pull the guest list for the gala on the seventh of this month. I want the address of Steven Serranto.”
There’s a warehouse in Red Hook that Northbridge owns, the title buried under a holding company or two. It’s quiet, out of the way, with a basement room soundproofed from the world outside. I’ve used it before, but it’s Haynes’s place really. He won’t mind me borrowing it.
There’s a faint glow on the horizon when I pull up.
Serranto glares at me when I open the trunk.
His wrists are bound with cable ties and there’s a welt on his cheek, but the ride has given him time to gather his bluster.
“I don’t know what you’re playing at, Lukas, but you need to know I have friends. ”
“I don’t give a shit. Get out.”
“They won’t take kindly to this,” he barrels on. “Take me back to my apartment, right fucking now, or I swear—”
I reach in, drawing my blade down his chest, leaving a bloody red line. He yells in shock and pain, fear replacing his defiance.
“Get out, or the next thing I cut comes off.”
“You asshole,” he gasps, but swings his legs over the lip. I help him with a grip on his hair, pulling him upright. He’s still trying to get control of the situation. “I’m not who you think I am, Van Wyk. I’m not just an art dealer—”
“Stop running your mouth, and get in the warehouse.” I shove him forward.
Twelve feet to the door, but it’s too early for anyone to be around. Besides, if anyone sees me with a half-naked paunchy man wearing just boxers, they’re thinking worse things than the truth, and won’t be the least bit inclined to investigate.
It’s dark inside, and Serranto curses as he stubs his toe on debris on the floor.
I almost laugh, shoving him ahead of me to the back of the space, down a staircase to the basement.
He stumbles on shaky legs, taking in the concrete walls, bare bulbs and large empty space.
I slam the steel door closed behind us, shutting out the world.
“What the hell is this place? Who the hell are you, Van Wyk?”
I ignore him.
There’s a table with some equipment. A steel chair bolted to the floor draws the eye. But I don’t need any tools beyond my karambit.
This is personal.
I kick him in the back of his leg and he falls heavily, knees smacking into the concrete and pulling a cry. “Tell me, Serranto. Why do you think you’re here?”
“I don’t know, goddammit!” His voice is high and strained, eyes white as he looks up at me.
I raise my karambit, focusing on the blade and not on him. “You can do better than that.”
“I told you I work with the Volkov Bratva. Don’t you get it? I’m protected!”
I lean in close, smelling his fear. “Not right now you’re not.”
“You think you can take on the fucking Russian mafia? You can’t, you fool! They own me, they’ll own you!” He draws in a shuddering breath. “Listen. We don’t have to do this. Ask me your questions; I’ll answer what I can. Then take me back, and I… won’t say anything.”
I laugh. “You know how convincing that was?”
“Jesus, Lukas—”
I grip his hair, pulling back his head, then slowly carve my blade down his cheek.
The white of his cheek bone glistens through the cut before blood fills the gap, spilling down his chin and dripping onto his flabby stomach.
He screams with every inch, struggling ineffectively.
I stop short of his mouth, wanting him still able to speak.
“All right, all right! I’ll tell you everything!” he gasps when I release him, spitting blood onto the floor. He’s wobbling where he kneels. I might yet have to string the bastard up if he collapses on me.
“You know what? I don’t give a shit about everything.” I walk behind him, forcing back his head and meeting his panicked eyes. He’s not yet scared enough. “What I really want to know is why you ignored my instruction.”
“About what?” he cries.
“You’ve forgotten?” I ask in disbelief. “After I told you, in no uncertain terms, to stay away from her? Was I not clear?”
Light dawns in his expression. “Jesus… this is about Amelia? About a fucking whore?”
I have to restrain myself from driving my blade through his eyeball right then and there. But a clean death is too good for this bastard.
Instead, I tighten my grip on him while I stand on his ankle, slowly increasing my weight until he gasps and whimpers. I watch his face the whole time, feeding off his pain.
“I suggest you are very careful what you call her.”
“Yes… yes,” he sobs, lips trembling.
It’s not enough. I grind my heel until something in his ankle gives way with a crunch. He cries out, the sound echoing through the bare room.
“You bastard,” he grunts through the pain. “I will see you fucking dead for this.”
“You really are a stupid asshole, aren’t you?” I tell him. “Which of us is on their knees, bound and bleeding?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Blood from his cheek glistens on his lips, and he spits it on the floor. “Whatever you do to me, the Volkovs will do worse to you.”
“You’ve made me break my word. You made me into a liar, to someone who matters more than you ever will.”
“I’m sorry!” he moans.
“It’s too late.” I set the curved edge of my karambit against his arm.
“You… can’t! Not over a goddamn—” He stops himself in time. “…woman! I’ll leave them alone, I promise!”
“The gallery?” I ask, pressing down. Cutting deep. “The exhibition?” He struggles, hissing in pain. It shifts his arm enough for the line to not be straight, and I frown in irritation. I should’ve tied him to that damn chair.
“I can undo it,” he gasps out. “Her artists are new… easily manipulated.”
So that’s what he did.
“Let me get this straight. You discovered Amelia was running an exhibition, and you scared off her artists?”
He looks at me like I’m insane. “It… hardly matters. It’s just—”
“You left her with nothing,” I say coldly. No wonder she was hurting so much. Not as much as Serranto is going to hurt, for what time he has left.
“It’s one fucking exhibition!” There’s not even any remorse in his voice. Just an attempt to save himself.
“And when is it?” Amelia said next week. She didn’t give me the day.
“You made your point, Lukas. Jesus… you’re fucking crazy. Let me go, and I’ll—”
“When. Is. It.”
“Wednesday, all right? Wednesday night.”
“Five days, counting today.” I clench my jaw. “You pulled it from under her with long enough for her to suffer, but not for her to fix it. You did that deliberately, didn’t you?”
“No, it… wasn’t like that.” He closes his mouth with a snap, glancing away.
“Oh?” I ask. “Explain, then.”
“It’s… as you said,” he mutters. “I… did it like that.”
I scoff. “You think this is the first time I’ve had a man bleeding beneath my blade? You think I can’t tell when you’re full of shit?”
“I did it on a whim,” he says. “She pissed me off. I just… reacted.”
Amelia told me enough that I’ve guessed the truth, but I still want to hear him say it. “That’s your second lie. Now, I’m going to cut a strip of skin off your arm.”
“No!”
I kick him over, face down onto the concrete, then drop a knee onto his back.
He squirms beneath me, unable to do anything but wriggle with his hands tied.
I take my time, cutting along the lines I’ve already made, straightening them, joining them.
Sliding my blade under the skin and lifting, slowly peeling it away.
It doesn’t come easily; it never does. It’s messy, bloody, and his screams don’t stop, each one echoing off the walls while the next comes.
There are a lot of nerve endings beneath the skin.
“That was a four-inch strip,” I tell him when I’m done, wiping my blade on his back and standing up. He lies on the floor, sobbing. “You have thirty seconds to tell me all of it. If you lie again, the next strip will be eight inches.”
“Her sister,” he gasps out. “I blackmailed Lucy. I knew she’d do anything if I threatened Amelia’s gallery.
” His tone turns bitter, even through his pain.
“Lucy blocked me, but Amelia was behind it, I know she was.” He writhes on the floor, his anger rising.
“All I want to do is make her helpless and dependent on me, then I can get Lucy back and you can have your fucking Amelia. I’ll be finished with her. ”
“You know what I find amazing?” I ask, watching him flop around like a landed fish.
“What?” he spits out.
“How utterly stupid you are.”
He glares up at me.
“The fact that you think there’s still something to negotiate. That you won’t be dead in an hour.” I consider that for a moment. “Maybe two.”
“You’re bluffing, I know you are,” he insists. “You won’t kill me, not when the Volkovs will rain down hell on you.” A laugh, short and mirthless. “Don’t you get it, Lukas? I’m untouchable.”
I gesture with my karambit at his arm, where the blood flows freely. “Touched you.”
It’s not a good choice of words, because it reminds me of what else Amelia told me.
As if I could forget.
“On that subject,” I say coldly, “did you or did you not threaten to fuck Amelia?”