Chapter 11 #2
"I don't have time for games, boy. You will tell me where Cadence is, or things will become very unpleasant for you." David's eyes flicked to Bruce, then back to me. Despite the blood on his face and his bound position, he maintained an air of arrogant defiance.
"I want my lawyer. I'm not saying another word until I have legal representation."
"This isn't a police matter," Lynch said from behind him. "This is Trivium business. There are no lawyers here."
"You can't do this!" David's voice rose, a hint of panic creeping in. "I'm a Regent! I'm a Legacy! My family has been part of the Trivium for generations!"
"Like I give a shit," Bruce replied coldly. "But I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation. You've abducted and potentially harmed the granddaughter of The Gavel." David's face paled slightly at the mention of Bruce's infamous title, but he quickly rallied.
"Bullshit, you’re just trying to scare me. I'm not saying anything without my lawyer. My father will have all of you ruined for this."
The dining room door swung open, and Ryder strolled in, whistling a cheerful tune that sent chills down my spine. He carried a bundle wrapped in a colourful tea towel, which he placed on the table with exaggerated care.
"Sorry, I'm late," he said, his voice unnervingly light.
"Had to make a quick stop in the kitchen.
" With a flourish, he unwrapped the bundle, revealing an assortment of kitchen knives, their blades gleaming under the chandelier's light.
David's eyes widened, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed hard.
"What the fuck is this?" he demanded, but his voice had lost some of its confidence. Ryder selected a small, sharp paring knife from the pile and examined it with casual interest.
"Nice kitchen you have," he commented, as if discussing the weather. "Very well-equipped." He circled the table slowly, the knife twirling between his fingers with practiced ease. When he reached David, he leaned down, his face inches from the other man's.
"Where's Cade?" he asked, his voice soft but laced with menace. David's eyes darted around the room, seeking help or intervention. Finding none, he lifted his chin defiantly.
"Fuck you, Purcell. I'm not scared of you." Ryder's smile widened, a terrible, empty thing that didn't reach his eyes.
"You probably should be."
Without warning, he drove the knife into David's thigh.
David's scream was loud enough to be heard throughout the house, a raw, animal sound of pain and shock.
Blood immediately began to soak through his trousers.
I started forward instinctively, but Lynch's hand on my shoulder stopped me.
I looked to Bruce, expecting intervention, but his face remained impassive, his eyes cold as he watched David writhe in agony.
"Let's try again," Ryder said pleasantly, returning to the table to select another knife, larger this time, with a serrated edge. "Where is Cade?"
"You're fucking insane!" David gasped, his face ashen with pain and fear. "You can't do this! I'll have you arrested! I'll have you killed!"
"Wrong answer." Ryder approached again, knife in hand. "Cade. Where is she?"
"I don't know! I don't fucking know!" David's voice rose to a hysterical pitch. "And I don't care! That lower-class little bitch is tainting the very name of the Trivium! She shouldn't even be-"
The second knife plunged into his other thigh, cutting off his words with another scream.
Blood poured from both wounds now, pooling on the plush carpet beneath his chair. My stomach fluttered, the sight of blood exciting me, but I couldn't look away. Part of me, a dark, vengeful part I usually kept buried, was satisfied by his suffering.
"You're losing a lot of blood," Ryder observed casually. "Might want to start talking before you pass out."
David's head lolled forward, his breathing ragged. "You'll pay for this," he mumbled. "All of you. The snakes are coming. They're going to tear down everything you've built."
"Snakes?" Logan asked, speaking for the first time. "What the hell are you talking about?" David laughed, a wet, gurgling sound.
"You brought this on yourselves. After what you did to my cousin Thomas.
" The name landed like a bomb in the room.
Thomas Blackwood. The man we'd beaten half to death on the Trivium's orders.
I exchanged shocked glances with Logan. Thomas Blackwood was David's cousin? How had we missed that connection?
"Blackwood is your cousin?" Logan asked, his voice sharp. David nodded, a grotesque smile spreading across his blood-flecked lips.
"Family looks out for family. Even when the Trivium doesn't."
Ryder returned to the table, selecting a third knife, a thin, flexible fillet knife with a wicked point. He twirled it between his fingers as he approached David again.
"I don't give a fuck about your family drama, or about the girlfriend beating piece of shit," he said.
"I care about Cade. So I'm going to ask you one more time, and then I'm going to start removing parts of you.
Where. Is. She?" For the first time, genuine fear flashed in David's eyes.
He looked at the knife, then at Ryder's face, and seemed to finally understand the depth of his predicament.
"You can't," he whispered. "You can't do this."
"I can," Ryder replied, his voice eerily calm. "And I will. Starting with your fingers. One by one." He grabbed David's hand, stretching it flat against the arm of the chair, positioning the knife against his pinky finger. "Last chance."
"Wait!" David screamed, tears streaming down his face now. "Wait, please! I can't tell you! She'll kill me!"
"She?" Logan stepped forward, suddenly alert. "Who is 'she'?"
"I can't," David sobbed. "I can't. She'll find out. She always finds out."
"She can't hurt you if you're already dead," Ryder said reasonably, pressing the knife harder against David's finger. "Which is exactly what will happen if you don't start talking. Now."
"Damien!" David blurted out, his voice breaking. "It was Damien! He recruited me! He's the one with the plan!" I felt as if I'd been punched in the stomach.
"Damien?" David nodded frantically.
"Yes! Him! He approached me last year. Said we were ready to move. All I had to do was help him with a few things."
"Like terrorising and abducting a Regent’s Consort?" Logan's voice was deadly quiet.
"I didn't know he was going to take her!" David insisted. "I just helped with the notes, with setting up the Halloween thing. I thought we were just scaring her, making her leave Regents!"
"Bullshit," Ryder growled. "You knew exactly what was happening."
"I swear I didn't!" David was crying openly now, his earlier arrogance completely gone. "Damien handled all the details. I just did what he told me to."
"Where is this Damien now?" Bruce demanded, stepping closer. "Where would he take Cade?"
"I don't know! Maybe his father's house? That's where he said he was going to hide out until things cooled down!"
Lynch pulled out his phone, stepping away to make a call. I heard him murmuring to Killingham, who was still with the Marshall parents in the living room. Moments later, the dining room door burst open, and Mr Marshall stormed in, followed closely by Killingham.
"What the hell is going on in here?" Mr Marshall demanded, then stopped short at the sight of his son, bleeding and sobbing in the chair.
"David! My God, what have they done to you?
" His horrified gaze swept over the room, taking in the knives, the blood, all of us standing there watching his son bleed.
"This is assault! This is torture! I'll have every one of you arrested! "
"Your son has been implicated in the abduction and possible murder of a Trivium Consort, Cadence Turner," Killingham said coldly. "He will be taken into Trivium custody immediately for further questioning. And then he will spend the rest of his days in the Hole."
"No!" David screamed, struggling against his bonds. "Not the Hole! You can't send me there! I'm protected! I'm a Regent!"
"Not anymore," Killingham replied, gesturing to two Trivium enforcers who had entered behind him. "Take him."
"Wait!" David shrieked as they moved to untie him.
"Wait! The little bitch is probably dead anyway!
Damien said he was going to have all sorts of fun with that piece of trash whore!
I'm glad I got a go at ruining her before-" I didn't consciously decide to draw my gun.
One moment, it was tucked in my waistband; the next, it was in my hand, aimed at David's head.
I barely registered the shocked expressions around me, the shouts of alarm.
All I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears, all I could see was David's sneering face as he admitted to raping Cade.
The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed space.
David's head snapped back, a spray of blood and matter decorating the wall behind him.
His body slumped forward, held upright only by the zip ties binding his wrists to the chair.
Screams erupted from somewhere, Mrs Marshall, the sisters, I couldn't tell.
Mr Marshall staggered back, his face a mask of shock and horror.
But I felt nothing. No remorse, no fear, no satisfaction.
Just a strange, floating numbness as I lowered the gun to my side.
"Jesus Christ," Logan muttered, but there was no real condemnation in his voice. Ryder looked at me with something like respect, while Bruce merely nodded once, as if I'd fulfilled some expectation.
Killingham was the first to recover, barking orders to the Trivium enforcers.
"Secure the family. Full cleanup protocol.
No one leaves this house." The room erupted into controlled chaos as the enforcers moved to comply.
Mrs. Marshall was screaming somewhere in the house, and the sisters were crying.
Mr Marshall was being physically restrained, shouting threats and promises of retribution.
But it all seemed distant, happening to someone else, somewhere else.
I sank into a chair, the gun still in my hand, staring at David's lifeless body. I had killed a man. Shot him point-blank in the head. And I felt nothing. No guilt. No remorse. Just a cold, empty space where those emotions should have been. It wasn’t the first time I had killed someone, not by a long shot.
But this one was different; this one was personal.
"Cole." Logan's voice came from far away. "Cole, give me the gun." I looked down at my hand as if seeing it for the first time. The weight of the pistol felt strange now, almost foreign. I handed it over without protest.
"Are you okay?" Logan asked, his voice low.
"I'm fine," I replied, and was surprised to find it was true. I was fine. Better than fine. The bastard who had hurt Cade, who had admitted to raping her, was dead. By my hand. It felt right.
The next hour passed in a blur of activity.
The Marshall family was taken into Trivium custody, the house secured, and evidence collected.
David's body was removed, the blood cleaned from the floor and walls with clinical efficiency.
Through it all, I sat at the dining room table, watching as if from a great distance.
Eventually, the six of us reconvened around that same table: myself, Logan, Ryder, Sebastian, Bruce, and Killingham. The house was eerily quiet now, the family gone, only Trivium personnel moving silently through the rooms, erasing all evidence of what had transpired.
"What do we know about this Damien kid?" Sebastian asked, breaking the silence. Logan sighed, running a hand through his hair.
"He was Cade's friend, initially. Helped her with her studies. There was some romantic interest on his part, but Cade wasn't interested. After she became our Consort, he became aggressive and tried to convince her to leave us. We... warned him off."
"We beat the shit out of him," Ryder clarified bluntly.
"He had an alibi for the night Cade was taken," I added, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears. "We checked. Multiple witnesses placed him at a campus party until well after the abduction."
"Could have hired someone," Bruce suggested. "Or had an accomplice."
"Like David," Logan nodded. "But why? What's his motive?"
"Obsession?" Ryder suggested. "Jealousy? The guy was clearly into Cade, and she chose us over him."
Sebastian cleared his throat, an unusual hint of discomfort in his usually impassive demeanour.
"What was his name again? Damien what?"
"McIntyre," Logan repeated. "Damien McIntyre.
Why?" I caught the slight widening of Sebastian’s eyes before his mask fell back into place.
Sebastian and Killingham exchanged a look that sent a chill down my spine.
There was recognition there, and something else, something that looked alarmingly like fear.
"What is it?" Bruce demanded, catching the exchange. "What do you know?"
Sebastian's face was grim as he turned to us. "I think I know where she is."