"You won't find her," Alaric wheezes.
"Oh? And why is that?"
"Because," Alaric whispers, lifting his head to look Thorne in the eye. "You think she is a lamb. But you forgot..." He coughs, blood spattering Thorne’s shoes. "...I fed the lamb to the wolf. And she ate him whole."
Thorne’s smile falters. "We'll see." He signals to the corner. Two massive men step out of the shadows. "Break him," Thorne orders. "Find out where the money is. Then kill him."
Thorne leaves. The door closes. The men approach.
Alaric closes his good eye. He goes to his mind palace. He goes to the music.Rachmaninoff. Piano Concerto No. 2.He hears the notes. He hearsherplaying.Come for me, Elodie,he thinks, as the first blow lands.Come and burn it all down.
CHAPTER 25
THE BUTCHER’S WALTZ
POV: Elodie Fray
Location:The Iron Terminal (Interrogation Cell / Soundproof Storage)
Track:The Kill– Thirty Seconds To Mars (Piano & Cello Instrumental Cover)
Sensory:The rhythmictick-tockof a mechanical metronome, the smell of ammonia and nervous sweat, the cold bite of ceramic steel against skin.
Mood:Clinical Sadism & Calculated Rage.
The room is a box of concrete and silence.
There are no windows. The only light comes from a single industrial pendant lamp hanging directly above the metal chair in the center. It swings slightly, casting a pendulum shadow that moves back and forth across the face of the man bound to the seat.
His name is Marcus Greaves. No relation to Alaric. He is—or was—the tactical commander for Thorne’s private securitydetail. Nyx’s team pulled him out of a safe house in the suburbs two hours ago. They used a stun grenade and a taser. Efficient. Clean.
Now, he is awake. He is stripped to his undershirt and boxers. He is zip-tied to the heavy steel chair—wrists, ankles, chest. His face is bruised from the extraction, one eye swollen shut, blood crusting on his lip. He looks tough. He looks like a man who has been trained to resist interrogation. He looks like a man who thinks he can wait me out.
I stand in the shadows, just outside the cone of light. I am wearing the black tactical gear. The Kevlar vest hugs my torso. The gun belt weighs on my hips. My hair is pulled back so tight it pulls at my scalp. I am not holding a gun. I am holding a metronome.
It is Alaric’s metronome. The vintage Wittner I took from the suite before we fled. The wood is scratched, the brass weight tarnished, but the mechanism is perfect. I place it on a small metal table in front of Marcus. I wind it.Crank. Crank. Crank.The sound is loud in the small room.
I release the pendulum.Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.I set it toLargo. Extremely slow. Forty beats per minute. It is a maddening, dragging rhythm. The sound of time dying.
"Who are you?" Marcus spits, squinting into the dark. "Where is my team? You know who I work for? You’re dead. You’re all dead."
I step into the light. Marcus freezes. He recognizes me. Not the girl from the Gala—the glamorous vampire in velvet. He recognizes the bone structure. The eyes. The Asset.
"Miss Fray," he sneers, trying to mask his surprise with bravado. "The piano player. Look at you. Playing soldier."
"I'm not playing," I say softly.
I pick up the ceramic knife from the table. The same knife I carried at the Gala. I walk behind him. He tenses, straining against the zip ties. "You think you can scare me?" he laughs, a wet, nervous sound. "I’ve been SERE trained. I can take pain. Go ahead. Cut me. Thorne will have this place leveled by dawn."
"I don't doubt your tolerance for pain, Marcus," I say, leaning down to whisper in his ear. "Pain is just a signal. You can learn to ignore the signal."
I bring the knife down. I don't cut him. I slice the strap of his undershirt. I peel the fabric away, exposing his back. "But rhythm..." I murmur, tracing his spine with the flat of the cold blade. "...rhythm is biological. You can't ignore your own heartbeat. You can't ignore the cadence."
I walk back around to face him. "Alaric taught me anatomy," I say conversationally. "He taught me that the human body is just an instrument. It has strings. It has hammers. It has resonance chambers."
I point the knife at his leg. "The femoral nerve," I say. "It runs deep. If I cut it, you lose the use of your leg. But if I just... pluck it..."
I thrust. Not deep. Just the tip. I sink the ceramic blade into his thigh, avoiding the artery, aiming for the nerve cluster. Marcus screams. It is a high, thin sound. I twist the blade. He thrashes, the chair rattling against the concrete floor.
