The man blinks up at me, looks around, and starts to panic.
I meet his gaze steadily. “We’re looking for a woman who was taken from us. Her name is Byrdie.”
Byrdie gave us a fake name because she was on the run. She wouldn’t have needed to use a fake name when she was with the people she ran from. I spot the recognition of that name in the man’s eyes before he tries to hide it.
“I don’t know who that?—”
I bend his right index finger until it snaps. Then I wait for him to stop screaming.
Nearly a minute later, with tears streaming down his face and breathing hard, the man stares up at me, having failed at throwing me off him.
I stare back calmly. “You have ten fingers and ten toes. Once I’ve finished with those, I’ll take the pliers from the toolbox in the back of my truck and start pulling teeth. Who took Byrdie and why?”
I keep my voice quiet, and I don’t look away. This is a side of me I never wanted to show Byrdie. I told her the army had taught me to protect, to save and to rescue. I wasn’t lying about that. It also taught me how easy it was to kill.
When the man doesn’t respond, I move to break his middle finger.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he bursts out, panicked. “Who are you?”
“Who I am isn’t important; what you took is. Byrdie. Start talking.”
After a long searching look, he must realize I intend to do what I said I would and licks his lips. “She’s Jeremiah’s wife.”
“His—”
“Not now,” I cut Makhi off, and I don’t take my eyes off the man.
Makhi shuts up.
“His wife,” I say to the man I have pinned. “Keep talking.”
His eyes dart over my shoulder, and he continues, “She ran after she lost their baby.”
More trauma that I should have seen coming. Byrdie said she didn’t have a choice about marrying Jeremiah. Something tells me she didn’t have a choice about the baby either. Having it or maybe even losing it, from the bruises she had on her when she came to work as a maid for Nash.
“How?” I demand.
He lifts his right shoulder in a half-shrug. “People were saying she wasn’t eating enough. God wanted Jeremiah to punish her. She ran after.”
If I didn’t desperately need answers from this jackass, I’d have snapped his neck for that alone.
“How did he punish her?” Nash steps forward to ask before I can warn him to step back. This guy has seen my face. There’s no need to expose all of us.
“More prayer.” The man swallows nervously as he looks up at me.
“What else?”
He doesn’t respond, so I glance at his hand. A pointed reminder of what will happen if he continues not to talk.
He starts talking. “The sweatbox. It’s?—”
“I know what it is,” I interrupt, voice hard.
A box with no light. Nothing but isolation and darkness. More torture of a person who's suffered enough.
If I let myself dwell on that now, I will break this man’s neck and we lose all possibility of finding Byrdie.
“Why did he want her back?” I ask instead.
