“He doesn’t matter to me, but he clearly matters to you. I have a feeling he’ll show up here to rescue you, and when he does, you can watch him die. Then our real adventure can begin. You’ll be my finest creation yet.”
“You have me, why do you have to kill him?” Tobias did his best to keep his voice neutral, but he couldn’t hide the panic edging into it.
Allen grinned. “Because you love him.”
“But I don’t,” Tobias lied, doing his best to sound indignant.
“You’re lying. You should see your face right now.”
Tobias couldn’t hide his dread. All he could do was pretend it was for a different reason. “If he’s dead, there’s nobody to care for my dog. She has special needs.”
Allen chuckled, once more drifting closer, picking up the gun and pointing it at Tobias. “I’ll take her. She and I are old friends. She trusts me implicitly. She’s so tiny, so frail…so helpless.”
Tobias thought he might vomit. Soren would never leave Mantis vulnerable. He’d also never be stupid enough to walk into this imbecile’s trap. He needed to turn the tables, to rattle him, make him think there was a better way.
Allen’s mother. His recently deceased mother, it seemed. She was the key to everything. His weakness, his psychosis. Tobias fixed a condescending look onto his face and shook his head. “I thought you were smarter than this.”
Allen snapped his head towards Tobias. “What did you say?”
Tobias shrugged. “You’re wasting a golden opportunity here with your petty revenge schemes. Killing my boyfriend, killing my dog. It’s child’s play. It requires no higher thought process. Perhaps your mother was right about you, after all.”
Allen lunged at him. There was a sharp pain and his vision began to blur at the edges, and then Tobias lost consciousness for a second time.
22
Soren
Soren counted nine visibly armed men and had no doubt there were others behind the walls as they were escorted into the backroom of Rafferty’s for the second time inside a month. Next to him, he could tell Madigan was doing the same. Taking stock, making some quick internal calculations.
“Thought I told you not to come back,” Rafferty said, setting aside a deck of cards as they drew close to the table. Aside from Rafferty’s men, the room was empty this time.
Soren pulled out a chair across the table from Rafferty without waiting for an invitation and dropped into it. Madigan remained standing. “Guess you shouldn’t have given me a reason to.”
Rafferty’s brows climbed his forehead. “And what reason is that?”
“Don’t play dumb. If you’d wanted to send a strong message, I would’ve walked into a crime scene rather than an empty house. What’s the angle here?”
Rafferty’s gaze flickered somewhere over Soren’s shoulder, and Soren forced himself to relax the fist he’d made.
“No angle and no clue what the fuck you’re talking about.” Rafferty lifted his hands in a mockingly placating gesture.
“You’ve been watching Toby since we were last here. Possibly before.”
“Protocol,” Rafferty answered. “And like you said, if I had any interest in driving a point home, I’d have done so in an unmistakable fashion. I’m not one for subtle.” He glanced aside and said something in Gaelic to one of his men. When Madigan responded, Rafferty’s gaze jerked in his direction before a slow smile spread over his lips. “Ahhhh, you came better prepared this time, I see. How many others that I’m unaware of?”
“Enough that you won’t make it out. But I’ve heard you’re as stubborn as you are reckless and ruthless, so I thought I’d share some initiative.”
“How’s that?” Rafferty frowned.
Soren inclined his chin to Madigan.
“Gonna get my phone out of my back pocket if that’s alright,” Madigan said and when Rafferty nodded, pulled it from his back pocket.
“You do FaceTime?” Soren asked.
Rafferty frowned and straightened in his seat before glancing around with an expression that, to Soren’s delight, seemed mildly unsettled. He nodded with a sneer. “Sure. You think you got something I need to see, that’s fine. But I can’t return the favor. I don’t have shit.”
Madigan punched something in on his phone and then angled the screen so they could all see when the call was accepted.
