“Who do you mean, Paulie? Mayor DuPont?”
He snaps his mouth closed. His lips pale as he presses them together as if it will keep him from talking. Whether or not he wants to spill information isn’t my concern. I’ll get him to do it one way or another.
I grip his hair with one hand and pull his head back until he has no choice but to look into my eyes. Tears well up in his eyes long before I bring my other hand in swinging. The force of the impact causes his head to whip sideways, and I can feel the strands of hair tearing and ripping out. With a grimace, I shake the clumps of hair from my grasp.
“Was it the good ole fucking mayor, Paulie?” I punch him again, catching him right under the eye. The skin splits, blood instantly filling the gap and running down his cheek. “Because I’ve got to say, I don’t think he has the fucking balls to make a plan like that.”
“Yeah, he’s a big part of it.” He wheezes for a minute, and I can’t tell if he’s about to cough up a hairball or puke all over his lap. Luckily, neither happens. “And you know…”
“No, Paulie, I don’t know. I’m going to need you to say it.”
He looks around as if someone is going to magically appear in the room. I know the name dancing on his tongue, but I want to hear him say it.
I slip the brass off and hand it over to Rove, who is good at making sure things stayclean. He’s also not one for words, so it feel natural that none are exchanged. I’ll be surprised if I hear his voice at all before I leave here today. My knife comes out next, the handle cool and comforting against my palm.
“They’ll kill me,” Paulie whispers brokenly. I almost feel bad for him. Almost. He’s put himself in this position. He came after me and mine. Even if I cared enough to let him go, I couldn’t. It sucks for him because I don’t care to give him another chance. I’m going to make him regret crossing me untilItake his last breath.
“I’mgoing to kill you,” I tell him. How he can think he’s got a chance is beyond me.
“Oh, right.” He almost looks as if he’s just realized the position he’s currently in.
“I can make it quick, or I can draw it out until you’re begging for the shadows to take you.” When he doesn’t answer fast enough for my thinning patience, I bring the knife down into the top of his thigh, plunging the blade in a good four inches.
He cries out, the sound echoing off the thick concrete walls. He can make all the noise he wants to. This room was designed to be a soundless bunker, so no one is going to hear him.
“Look, I didn’t want to, okay!” He tries to catch his breath. Snot drips from his nose. “If you ask me, you’re the more terrifying outta the two of ’em, ya know. But they got power, man. They got power to do things that you ain’t got. And that shit is scary.”
“What could he possibly have over you?” I sneer as I rip my blade out of his leg. He’s a low-life dealer with two brain cells. He’s neither smart nor savvy enough to make a business out of it. He’s drawn the short stick more times than I would even know. I’m likely not the only one who’s been looking for him, I just happened to find him first.
“They offered me money and protection, which is nice for a guy like me. I gotta lotta enemies.” He shrugs as if to say it’s just a fact he’s come to live with. “I fucked up. I fucked up real bad. Mr. Aubert said he’d take care of everything as long as I helped him out.” He pauses to catch his breath. “But I didn’t know howdeep he wanted to go. I figured all I gotta do is poison one of your guys, then I’m free…”
“He didn’t let you go, did he?” I shake my head. Why does he have to be such a dumb fuck?
“I didn’t know it was liko. I really didn’t,” he pleads, tears leaking out of his eyes. “You gotta believe me.”
“What difference does it make? You still tried to kill one of my own.”
“And you,” he says. I freeze at this, turning my deadly look on him.
“What?” I say calmly, but there’s no missing the deadly edge in my tone.
“I-I thought you knew. I almost had you, too, but you saw me in the back of that shop. I’d gotten a call sayin’ you were there. He’s got people watchin’ you, you know that, right?” I didn’t, but I’d be an idiot to assume he didn’t try to keep track of my whereabouts. It doesn’t scare me. “When I got there, I didn’t see you, so I thought you’d already gone. I kinda hoped I’d missed you. But then you came out of the office and I slipped into the back when you weren’t lookin’. It kinda worked to my advantage that you ordered food. But you saw me before I got a chance to do it, so maybe it didn’t work out after all.”
He was going to poison me. And likely Torrin too. A quick death won’t satisfy me. He’s going to suffer for hours.
“String him up,” I say as I take a step back.
Torrin and Rove move in without hesitation. They cut him free and pull him up. It takes a bit of wrangling before they have his hands tied again and looped over the huge hook in the middle of the room. Rove heads for the crank on the wall and turns it slowly, raising Paulie’s wiggling body until his toes barely brush the ground.
“Please, just kill me,” Paulie begs.
“I’m not going to make it that easy on you,” I promise him with a dead look. “Unlike your bosses, I care about my people. I realize I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them. You poisoned one of my own. You could have poisoned my second in command and you tried to poison me. I’ll watch you bleed until the life leaves your eyes for that.”
I see the hope leave his expression as my words sink in. It’s a sad thing to see, but in a twisted way, it also brings me joy.
I hold his gaze as the tip of my knife drags along his jawline. He lets out a long, resigned sigh.
He’s not going to say anything else, and perhaps, I only have myself to blame. I’d like to see what other information I can drag out of him, but I don’t really think he has much left to give me. Aubert is smart enough to hide his secrets, especially from some low-level scum he’s using as a throwaway pawn.
