“Last chance,” I told the weeping man who coughed and choked. “We tried this the easy way… now we’re going to get rough.”
“Fuck you!” Ignacio said, spittle flying from his lips. I pressed the button and the man’s scream was brutal. I didn’t let it go on for long though, but the smell was pretty bad. Someone should have said something about burning hair.
“Wrong answer.”
Chapter
Seven
GRACE
Ithought I was ready to watch Ignacio suffer.
I’d told myself I was. I’d repeated it in my head over and over while we dragged him downstairs—reminded myself of every moment he stole from me, every fear he carved into my bones. I thought feeling justified would make this easier.
It didn’t.
Every sound in that basement scraped at nerves that were already bruised raw. The zap of electricity, the stifled gasps, the way the air shifted right before Voodoo pressed the button—all of it mixed into a nauseating cocktail I tasted on the back of my tongue. And the smell…
God, I wasn’t prepared for that. Sweat, adrenaline, damp concrete, and something sharp and metallic that made my stomach twist until I had to brace a hand against my thigh to keep from doubling over.
I kept my face blank. Eyes forward. Breathing even.
My whole life had been choices made under pressure. Someone always wanted something from me—my talent, my charm, my image, my silence. Every deal, every performance, every false smile was a negotiation of what I was willing to give.And Ignacio… Ignacio was just the darkest twist on a pattern I’d spent years pretending I wasn’t trapped in.
He saw me and decided he had the right to take whatever he wanted.
No warning. No care. No humanity.
He was the embodiment of every nightmare I’d swallowed and every compromise I’d made to stay afloat. Yet watching him jerk in that chair didn’t erase anything he’d done. It didn’t make me feel powerful. It didn’t even make me feel safe.
It just made me feel hollow.
Like there were only so many pieces of myself I could carve away in the name of survival before I had nothing left worth saving. That sacrifice with Ignacio all those months back had helped to save me ultimately, I could live with that no matter how much he made my skin crawlnow.
Voodoo was steady. Too steady. His voice was a low anchor in the storm, calm where Bones seethed like a bottled storm, and AB held himself apart. Yet even his clinical distance seemed a facade whenever I caught the anger blazing in his eyes.
Watching Voodoo work—measured, controlled, relentless—was its own kind of disorienting. He took no real joy in this. He would probably be happier if we could just end him and be done with it. At the same time, he hated what Ignacio had done to me more.
That knowledge both warmed and terrified me. Legend’s arrival was a lifeline I didn’t necessarily need, yet made staying above water that much easier. That he dragged an unconscious Sinclair with him…
My sister’s former boss. The man who might know exactly who Ignacio’s “rumored” benefactor actually was. The man we’d needed since the moment this nightmare began and if only I’d realized itsooner.
Somewhere inside, a spark lit—small but real. Relief. Maybe even hope.
Legend had joined Voodoo after he deposited his burden, but he cut a quick look at me, warmth filling his eyes as he gave me a once over. Funnily enough, I’d been giving him a similar inspection. Wanted to make sure he was okay. “Hey, Gracie,” he mouthed the words, winking once. “Miss me?”
I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I nodded once.
But Ignacio whimpered at the sight of new faces, and the moment shattered. The torture wasn’t done. The answers weren’t complete. And the smell—the awful, cloying mix of fear and sweat and scorched air—hit me again, harder this time.
I forced the bile back down.
We needed the truth. All of it.
I could fall apart later.
So I stayed. I locked my reactions down. It was when I fixed my eyes on Ignacio once more, that realized his attention had gone to Sinclair. Fear, genuine fear, not pain-laced fear or begging-laced fear flooded his face.
