Cillian always tookhistime.
This was nodifferent.
Cillian waved several of the men who’d so far been standing silently in the background closer. “Strap hisarmsdown.”
Sean bit down on his split lip, a stinging pain stabbing through his jaw and mouth. He wanted to yell, to scream for help, but if he did, he’d be responsible for Alexei losing pieces of himself. That didn’t mean the all-too-human desire to beg was easy togiveup.
Sean watched as two of the men tied rope around Alexei’s bicep to secure him more tightly while the third held a gun level with his head. Then they wrapped more rope around his torso to keep him from moving. Alexei didn’t fight them, either because he knew it wasn’t worth the risk or because his limbs still wouldn’t cooperate. Sean didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious, but he had doubts it was long enough for Alexei to shake off the effects of getting hit by a neuro-jammergun.
Alexei ignored them all, gray eyes locked on Sean with a startling intensity. Sean dreaded what couldcomenext.
“Is okay,kotyonok,”Alexeisaid.
It was a lie that Sean desperately wanted to be true. Like Alexei, he’d gone through SERE training both during his time as a CIA officer and upon his transfer to the MDF. Surviving torture could be taught, to some degree, but no one ever really knew how they would react when they fell into enemyhands.
Cillian stood next to Alexei, making sure Sean had a full view of what was going on. He clenched his hands into fists, nails biting into palms as Cillian pressed the edge of the ceramic knife against the crook of Alexei’selbow.
“Ye can be as loud as ye want, no one will hear ye,” Cillian said as he tapped the blade against Alexei’s arm. “We havehoursta becomeacquainted.”
The first cut wasn’t deep, but a line of blood welled up, spilling down Alexei’s arm. Sean saw Alexei’s entire body jerk, hands curling around the end of the armchair so tight it looked like his knuckles would break through his skin as Cillian slowly worked the knife down his arm. Rather than cut down to the bone, Cillian sliced through the first layer of Alexei’s skin, lifting it off the musclebelow.
The sound Alexei made caused Sean to flinch with his entire body. But he kept his eyes open and his mouth shut, like Cillianwanted.
Sean reached for his power again and again, only to fall short every time, his only prize a furious agony that settled over him. Sean forced himself to watch Cillian peeling away the top layer of skin on Alexei’s forearm with the knife, Alexei’s choked-off, heavy cries and furious Russian words fillingtheroom.
If they survived, Sean knew this nightmare would neverleavehim.
10
Cost of theDevilDue
Kyle flippedthrough a few news streams before settling on one at random. The anchor on the holoscreen in the middle of the conference table was a clean-cut older man who wore glasses, which struck Kyle as odd. Regen regimes could heal just about anything these days unless one had an allergy to the regeneration process or bioware in general. Prescription glasses were rarely seen outside poorerenclaves.
The anchor was getting opinions from several guests about the top news story of the evening, namely, the assassination attempt on Senator Richard Callahan. Kyle rubbed hard at his eyes as he listened to the people argue about poll numbers and whether or not nearly dying was good for thecampaign.
“Dying doesn’t get you elected,” Kylemuttered.
He felt like he should have a headache after the day he’d had, but with his rapid healing power, that wasn’t happening. Kyle had arrived back at headquarters in the afternoon and gone through an intense debrief with the director before Nazari had left to oversee the MDF’s response to the mess in Los Angeles. The MDF couldn’t be overtly seen as having interest in the attack, but they needed to know the identities of theshooters.
Luckily, someone had leaked the information to the press. Kyle couldn’t care less about a couple of dead men, but when they belonged to the Sons of Adam, his only thought was he should’ve aimed for theirheads.
“Your debrief finished an hour ago,” Katie said as she stepped inside theconferenceroom.
“Still need to write up my report and sign off on it. Got distracted,” Kylereplied.
Katie pulled out the chair next to Kyle and sat down, resting her elbows on the conference table. She propped her chin on top of one hand, eyeing the news. “I can see that. You don’t need towatchthis.”
“What else am I going to do? They caught me on camera shooting at the threat. I should know what’s going on in the news so that when a reporter waylays me on the street, I know what toexpect.”
“No comment should be your onlyanswer.”
“I know. I just really fuckinghatethis.”
Kyle watched himself and Jamie on the holoscreen at the tail end of the incident. His face and identity were being splashed all across the world, and he wanted none of it. Years of living and working in the shadows with Strike Force, and now with the MDF, meant he didn’t like people knowing anything about him. The background the MDF had built for him for the Pavluhkins mission said he came out of the Marines, and they’d buried as much of his past as theycould.
The press could dig up anything though, as shown by the next promised segment after the commercial break which would delve into his past. Kyle didn’t want to know how these people would spin whatever some fucking reporter had dug up from court records on him. His birth family had died in a gang retaliatory attack when he was a kid, and then he’d been adopted by the Dvorkins. Kyle didn’t want the press hounding his family in any way, but it looked like things mightescalate.
“Jamie called,” Katie continued. “Said they would be putting out a statement soon concerning the situation. I’m assuming they’ll address youractions.”
