Fuck this whole shit.
So that’s why I lifted my gaze, hoping like hell I wasn’t making anything close to the expressions that The Defender had shot my way at any point.
I’d choked and coughed for hours thanks to this asshole.
My whole face, every nook and cranny in my head, was on fire thanks to this asshole.
She sighed again, but it seemed superficial to me, like she was putting on an act. “I don’t enjoy doing this, you know.”
I bet she didn’t.
Liar.
I lifted my eyes and focused on the two men standing in the corners of the cell. Even if she didn’t, they did. I was going to remember the way they laughed after I’d thrown up all over myself. It was why I’d taken my shirt off when they’d removed the zip ties on my wrists to give me a break and tossed it in the corner.
I was going to remember their faces.
I was going to remember all of this.
Maybe they were just employees doing what they had to do to pay their bills. Who was I to talk? But I’d heard them. Seen their sly smiles. They’d enjoyed what they had done.
That had made it personal.
And I wouldn’t forget.
That became the second reason why I decided I was going to make it through this and out of here, some way, somehow. So that one day, even if it was in the afterlife, I could pay these two a little visit. Just a little one. If I was still alive, I’d have to spend the rest of my life amending for what I would do, but that was something I could live with. And if I was a ghost, they were fucked because I wasn’t goinganywhere.
The woman put her hands on her hips, everything about her just so irritating. “All you have to do is talk. I’d like for you to tell me a few things, that’s all.” She slipped her hands in her pockets and aimed for another fake smile. “I know you didn’t take the money yourself, but make this easier on all of us and tell me where it is.”
I clenched my teeth together.
“Tell me what you know.”
Fat fucking chance. How stupid did she think I was?
“At least tell me what you think you might know about it.”
Rubbing my hands up and down my arms, I just kept looking at her.
After a moment, she raised an eyebrow and her chin a little. “How about a little more water?”
Oh, she’d gone there.
“I get nothing from hurting you, Altagracia. All I want, all my family wants, is their money back. It was ours. Help me, and you can go home.”
The money was theirs. Give me a break. And home? Really?
I rubbed at my arms as I shivered and told her so, so quietly, mostly because with every word out of my mouth, my throat hurt worse, “Then don’t and let me and the man leave. He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t even know my last name. We had just messed around. He doesn’t deserve this.”
The woman came forward and crouched. Out of the corner of my eye, behind her, I saw my torturers step forward too. “Why won’t you tell me what I want to know?” she asked deceptively sweetly.
“Why won’t you believe me when I tell you that I don’t have it? I haven’t seen or spoken to my parents since I was five years old.”
An edge came over her sharp features. She was pretty fair-skinned, a lot lighter than me. A little older too, I was pretty sure now that I’d had time to think about it, even though my head hurt so bad it was hard to think or focus on anything. “You expect us to believe that you don’t know where the money is, but you’ve been trying to hide from us for years. Innocent people don’t hide.”
I kept my mouth shut. Was there a point in explaining that innocent people understood that they were going to be blamed for something regardless of what they did and said? Wasn’t that exactly why I was here?
“Maybe you think you’ll escape somehow and run and hide, and we’ll never find you again. But we’ll always find you. We’re never going to quit looking for you. Twenty million dollars can pay for a lot. Your cousin sold you out for a ten-thousand-dollar debt.”
