“Sit,” he hisses.
I sit. The wood is hard against my spine.
Valerio snaps his fingers.
From the shadows, four of his men emerge. They’re dragging five people—men, ragged and gagged, their eyes wide with terror. They’re strapped to the far wall with heavy industrial zip ties.
Valerio walks to a table and picks up a handgun, checking the mag.
What the fuck is happening?
“I thought the office was too clinical, Charlotte,” he says, turning back to me. He’s calm. Terrifyingly calm. “Therapy should be practical. Tangible.”
He stands next to me, the gun hanging at his side. “Five men. Five lives. You have questions you want to ask me. You want to dig into the cellar. You want to find the ‘why’ behind the ‘what.’”
He raises the gun, aiming it at the man on the far left. “For every answer I give you, I’m going to put a bullet in one of them. Choose your questions wisely, Doc. Make sure they’re worth a life.”
My hands sweat so much I have to wipe them on my skirt. This is a trap. He wants to see if I’ll stop him or if I’ll keep digging. Too bad for him—nothing in this world could stop me from digging into the darkness I enjoy analyzing so much, not even my screaming conscience.
“You’re testing my stomach, Valerio,” I say.
“First question. Make it count.”
I should get up and walk out. But my mind is already racing, discarding the useless questions. I want the core. I want the rot.
“Lucian says you’re making ‘art’ out of the hits,” I mutter. “He thinks you’re losing control. Is it that, or are you trying to communicate something to them that you can’t say out loud?”
Valerio’s finger tightens.
Thwip.
The man on the wall jerks, his head snapping back. A sprayof blood hits the side of my face.Fuck. A gasp escapes me when I realize the bastard wasn’t bluffing. The answer better be worth this, because my stomach tightens and I have to swallow down bile.
“It’s not for them,” Valerio grumbles. He doesn’t even look at the body. “It’s for me. I’m looking for the piece I’m missing. I haven’t found it yet.”
He moves to the second man. The guy looks at me with pleading eyes, and I look away so it doesn’t dig into me.
“Next,” Valerio prompts.
I’m plagued with a sick, intrusive need to know more.Why am I still here?
“The gloves,” I start. My skirt rides up as I shift in my seat, and Valerio’s gaze zeroes in for a second before his eyes flick away. “The aversion to touch. You kill with such intimacy, but you won’t let a living hand graze your skin. Is it because you’re afraid you’ll feel nothing, or because you’re afraid you’ll feel everything?”
Thwip.
The second man slumps. More red on the concrete. The smell of copper is thick now, cloying in the back of my throat.
“I don’t touch them because they’re loud,” he whispers. “Everyone is so goddamn loud. Their needs, their fears, their pathetic little lives. When I touch them, I hear it all. The only time the world is quiet is when they stop breathing.”
He raises the gun, aiming it at the third man over his shoulder without even looking.
“Three left, Charlotte. You want to know about the cellar? You want to know what she did to me.”
“I want to know if you hate her because she broke you, or because she made you exactly like your father,” I dare to ask.
The leather of his glove strains against his knuckles.
Thwip.
