Chapter 46
forty-six
Laughter rips out of me every time my fist crunches his face. I yank his jacket closer, so the next blow lands harder. He slumps after three, eyes weeping dark blood into the snow.
I’m not killing him with my hands. Not yet. I need answers.
Adrenaline buzzes like electricity as I drag Talon’s broken body across the frozen yard toward the Delta garage. He won’t fit on my bike, and Tade and Ryan are nowhere within reach. Logan would piss himself if I asked him for help, but he’s the only option that flashes through my head.
“Who’s there?”
No shadows left to disappear into. Talon’s ruined bulk lies at my feet as I turn slowly, palms open like I’m the one who walked into this.
Apollo Griffin, Delta president, fills the doorway in a cheap polyester suit. One made to appear as if he’s got money.
Man’s about as big as Lan, even through the shoulders, but he’s likely more dangerous. Especially given that he’s already got his hand on a piece in his hip holster.
I jab my boot into Talon’s side. “This bastard beat my appointed. I’m making him pay. He’s got info on where she went.”
He doesn’t move, dark eyes scanning my body, then Talon’s.
“He’s one of yours… And I’m in a bit of a hurry,” I urge.
Apollo saunters closer, squats, and takes a peek at Talon’s swollen face. It’s low, almost imperceptible, and definitely a violation of the Greek code, but he swears. “I fucking hate this guy.”
“Everyone does,” I say.
He studies me carefully, then gestures to the racks of keys and bikes. “You need a ride. I only have my bike, but Vanq—”
“That’s my sister’s fiancé.” Though we don’t necessarily get along.
“Yeah, well, he’ll let you borrow one of these.” He shuffles toward a hanging board in the garage, fishes up some keys and clicks the button until a Mercedes chirps to life. The engine steams up the small space. “Or this is probably Lex’s latest, um, find. Best you get it out of here.”
Great. A hot car. “As long as the plates don’t get me chased.”
“It’s what I got for you.” With a nod, he steps aside. “And I don’t think it needs to be said, but—”
“This never happened.”
“Never talked to you in my life.”
“Perfect,” I growl, hoisting Talon toward the buttery white leather of the back seat.
Behind the wheel, I kill the headlights, moving like a thief in the night.
“Help me with him,” I grunt as I leap from the car in front of Theta Manor. Bo Turner, Scout’s younger brother, gives me his typical stoic stare. Then, one solitary nod.
He’s a starting offensive lineman for the NU Nighthawks. So when he picks up Talon and tosses him over his shoulder like a rag doll, I’m once again pleased to have big friends. “Which way?” he asks.
“To the dungeons. Put him in the far one. String him up.”
It’s not ten minutes before Talon’s arms are suspended above his head in chains. Toes scraping the floor. Naked and half conscious.
My shirt is off. Because things are about to get messy.
“Grab my laptop,” I tell Henry as he pops his head in to see what the ruckus is about. “Bring it down here while I wake him up.”
I pop the cork on a bottle of bourbon, down some, swipe at my chin with the back of my hand, then splash him with it. The alcohol seeps into his wounds until he stirs.
“Wakey, wakey, sunshine.”
He moans and raises one bruised eyelid. “The fuck?” His body sways with awareness, rattling the chains as he attempts to steady himself.
“Where’s Ashlyn?” My voice is small. Clinical. It’s the voice that slices through the static and makes people listen.
Inside? I’m a fucking wreck of desperation. But I keep my face sharp as a knife.
“I’m not telling you shit, Cardell…” It’s mumbled, difficult to make out between his split lip and thick tongue. He spits blood onto the stone floor.
I creep closer and hold out a spoon. “Obviously, time is short here. Someone took Ashlyn. Who is it and where is she?”
“She’s safe…from you.”
Flashing the metal utensil around until it catches the light, I shrug. “That’s not helpful. I need more…”
He seems unbothered by my weapon but follows it carefully with his swollen gaze. Brown eyes almost black from my bruises.
“She was always mine.” Talon’s words come out wet and small, the bravado leaking off like bad whiskey.
“No, prick.” I lean so close, my teeth hover over the damp skin of his cheek. Up close, he smells like sour cologne and paper-thin courage. “The baby was mine.”
Something in his face shudders. For half a second, he’s caught between a lie and a truth he can’t swallow.
“I know you, Moretti,” I tell him, low enough that the sound seems to live inside his ribs.
“You think I don’t know the lies you tell yourself at night to sleep?
That you’re a saint for hurting a girl who wouldn’t look twice at you if she could be free.
Now she truly is. And guess who she chose to run to? ”
Neck straining, he attempts to pull away, but I grit out what he doesn’t want to hear. “Me. The first one to get there. And the last.”
When his eyes latch onto mine, there’s a change in his demeanor to something like a child’s.
“I’ve seen you two together. Watched you fuck her at Red Night and even before then…
When you lost control and had her against the wall after one of your fights at the Lodge.
” He gathers a ragged breath and spits out, “You couldn’t let me have one fucking thing, could you? Even if it was owed to me.”
“She’s not an object, you fuck. You aren’t owed anything. Except death.”
He coughs with disgust. “Still won’t help you find her. She’s probably dead by now.” Like that’s a victory to him, he smiles. “You’ll kill me anyway, robotic freak. I may have fucked up and hit her, but that’s the part you like—to make people hurt.”
A smirk, thin, uninviting, pulls at my lips. I take the spoon I’ve been turning between my fingers and drag it slowly down his cheek, so the metal whispers over his bruises. The gesture is almost affectionate.
“You’re right. I enjoy her pain—but not the way you do. That’s the difference between us. You beat her so you’d be remembered. I do it because she begs me to.” Inching closer until my chest bumps his, I sneer. “She craves it when I do.”
Stepping back, I hold out my hands, showing I have nothing except my utensil. Oh, and a knife he doesn’t know about tucked into the back of my jeans.
“But since it’s so inevitable that I’ll end you. May as well tell me now what you know. Keep it direct and to the point. And please don’t bore me, bitch.”
He huffs a laugh that’s all air. “I’m not telling you a thing. Do your worst, Cardell.”
Apathy seeps in again. Pain and death used to thrill me, usually when I caused it. Now, it’s background noise. The only time I feel awake is when she’s near—my mirror, the one who makes me burn instead of rot. Without her, everything flattens into boredom.
Ashlyn isn’t my salvation. She’s my stimulus. Dopamine fuel for dead synapses. Without her, I flatline into the tepid pool of nothingness.
She’s the spark to my rage. The rope I use to hang my enemies. That woman is the spit to my fire. Gasoline in my veins. There’s no calm or peace with her. Our love is violent, wicked, and torturous.
And I wouldn’t want it any other way.
My theater of rage has exhausted itself. I know every act of this by heart. I’ve had my fun playing with him, but Talon’s contempt is nothing new. He’ll never admit what he knows. And will only take pleasure in stalling me from reaching her.
“Fine,” I say. My voice is softer now, like the calm before a storm. “Be boring.”
I thrust the spoon into his right eye socket as he shrieks in the way I assume people do when their eye is being gouged out. Body writhing, toes scraping along the floor, fighting the chains, he’s unable to go anywhere that would help him.
It’s not as difficult as I would’ve suspected to pop it out. But the strands of nerves and arteries holding it in are a nuisance. Not one that my blade can’t fix. I scalp it until all that’s left is the globe.
Holding it up, I examine it carefully. The hazel color dulled to an appetizing hue.
“What did it feel like to hit her? Powerful? Did you think you’d get away with it and make her behave?”
His screams have died to wailing moans of agony. He can crack open the one eye, but I make sure to gain his attention. Swiftly, I reach behind me and grip the hilt of my knife, then stab him in the gut.
“You took a front-row seat to her pain. Now watch me become the monster that answers for it.”
With a sly grin, I toss the entire organ into my mouth and bite down. It’s soft. Like an egg. Chewy. Slightly salty. I memorize the texture.
Then spit the remnants in his face. Nah, won’t try one of those again. But now at least I know what it’s like.
“Got it!” Henry yells, out of breath as he rushes in with my laptop.
“Fantastic.”
And with that, I slice Talon from stem to sternum as he lets loose another wet howl of defeat. Not as torturous an ending for him as I’d like, but I’m in a time crunch.
Talon’s lungs rattle with their last breath. Blood pours from his ragged gash. I toss more of the bourbon back down my throat, washing his flavor out of my mouth. Then, I spray his dying corpse with the rest of the bottle.
“Fucking gross!” Henry screws up his face and steps back.
“Take him outside. Light him on fire. Put it out if the flames get too big. I have to find Ashlyn.”
A few initiates rush into the room to follow my orders.
Shifting toward the corner stool, I prop my computer on a knee, lifting the screen open. Blood coats my fingers, making it impossible to unlock my system. I swipe them on my jeans, then tap until I find her locator program.
Hmm… Downtown warehouse district? Unfortunately, those warehouses are basically weak Faraday cages—too much steel and concrete. The signal’s bleeding out from the area instead of a single point.
But it’s enough.
In a blitz of movement, I throw on a sweater and grab my coat. Breaking every traffic law, I make it to the district in fifteen. In a stolen Mercedes. Worse? I forgot my gun, but there happens to be a loaded Smith & Wesson in the glove box.
I snag it, check the bullets, then rack the slide.
When I hop out into the chill, a crunch on the gravel has me freezing and slowly spinning, squinting in the ebony night.
Ace’s bright blond hair is easy to spot. So is his swagger.
“Got a call that my daughter was seen near Moretti’s food factories. My men didn’t know which one.”
I sneer. “Of course they didn’t.”
“So help me find her, kid.” He slams a magazine into his Glock and raises the barrel to the sky.
With a nod in the direction of the middle one, I lead Ace toward the doors, but he stops short. “I’ll go for the one to the left. You check there. If you find her? Shoot, so I know. My men are on their way, but I was the fastest to get here.”
“Got it.”
Teeth-aching groans carve through the silent winter air as I slide open the rusted metal door, entering a painted cinderblock-lined, narrow hall.
I leave it open to the incoming snow for an easy escape.
The building is dark. And tunnel-like. I blink, letting my vision adjust while proceeding to a split in the path, taking a left to venture deeper inside.
Office doors line the walls, closed tight.
It seems this place is a bust, and I think about heading to the next in the line. But a faint melodic rhythm interrupts me. It sounds like a high-pitched voice speaking.
The sound bleats through a pair of locked double doors. Solid and made of steel. Impenetrable. Grated steps lead to a second-story balcony, where a smaller entry stands open.
As I venture carefully up each metal tread, it clangs and sways in response to my weight. On a scaffolded landing, I peek through the doorway, where a solitary yellow bulb hangs from the ceiling. Beneath a cone of light is a chair.
Tied to it is my love, Ashlyn. Bound and gagged, but she’s not afraid. No, she looks pissed. And the person looming in front of her…
Hailey Twinston.