Antonio isn’t a citizen, nor is his child. That medical care came at a high cost, too much to manage even at his inflated salary. A price I would have covered a hundred times over if he’d ever bothered to ask me.
I know I’m unapproachable, but selling your services to an opposition instead of talking to your boss? That’s just insulting.
“If I tell you,” he whines through his mashed lips, “they’re dead, anyway.”
“Give me the names of your contacts and I’ll put your family under my protection.”
The glint of blood-flecked teeth informs me he’s trying to smile. “Is that the same protection you gave your daughter? Pass.”
I grab the front of his shirt with my left hand, my right fist aching to punch him. But he won’t feel it now. Even the shocks went so far into overkill that on the last round he flinched rather than jerked.
Instead, I press my thumb into his eye socket, rolling up his swollen lid until I see the glint of his eye. “Last chance.”
His blood drips onto the floor with sickening regularity. A small pool forming under each of his deepest wounds.
It’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.
If this man, this employee who betrayed the sacred oath of duty in favour of making a quick buck, signed my daughter’s death warrant, then even killing his entire extended family won’t do.
His son? The feeble youngster is practically begging to die. The wife? Her judgement is so poor she’ll be better off selecting her next partner in hell.
No. I could kill his household, every scrap of his lineage, raze his genetic pool from the face of the earth, and it wouldn’t make up for harming a single hair on Sophia’s beautiful blonde head.
With a quick snap of anger, I plunge my thumb straight into Antonio’s eye. He gives a weary shriek, then his upper body collapses against his rope restraints. Out like a light.
There’s ice, smelling salts, a range of shocks that might bring him back to consciousness, but there’s no point.
I can’t wring any enjoyment from this extended torture, and he’s blankly refused to offer any names.
So, I take the flick knife from my inside jacket pocket and place it against the oozing socket. When I press the button, sending a four-inch blade straight into his brain, there’s only a slight pulse of resistance.
I twist it in the wound, out of habit, not need, because this guy’s bulb is already blown.
When I stand and draw the weapon out, there’s a flood of viscous fluid that soon comes to a stop. Yuri and Edgar, two guards that I know I can trust, step forward and untie the body. Between them, they lift the corpse, taking it into another room where my daughter’s ex-nanny already lies.
Two down. None left to go.
Emmaline the nanny was innocent but so far gone by the time I proved that, death was the only blessing left to bestow on her.
The guard, Antonio, was guilty. Better for my conscience but I got no farther in my quest for the truth.
My daughter is out in the world somewhere. At the mercy of whoever kidnapped her.
Unless a ransom demand comes to my door, I have little hope of getting her back.
The grief lurks in my chest, waiting for its moment to pounce. In a way, the low thrum of terror that’s held me all day is better. At least that still contains an ounce of hope for her safe return. Once that goes…
But I can’t think of that. Not yet. Not with an enemy who might still prove to be traceable. Any crew, no matter how good, can stuff up. All I need is one weak link and I’ll tear through the entire chain.
“Get the off-duty crew in here to clean up,” I tell Yuri. “You and Edgar can take the rest of the night off. I’ll need you fresh and ready to go first thing in the morning.”
The morning. It seems like a year away.
There’s so much intel pouring into the house each minute that it would take about that long to read through every word. Even the amount flagged for my urgent attention is ridiculous.
A red warning light appears on the control board. The main driveway. I stride over to the monitors and pull the footage up onscreen.
It goes off half a dozen times a week. Usually, a tourist who’s taken a wrong turn. The locals know better than to get lost around here.
