Which meant going back into Edison Keane’s torture dungeon was a must.
At the bottom of the stairs, a long, harshly lit hallway stretched out in front of us. Halfway down it, a pair of darkly cladded guards stood at attention and opened the door for Edison as soon as we reached them.
Everyone filed in and I brought up the rear, not eager to go into such a claustrophobic room for any longer than I had to.
Rhodes closed the door with a loud snap, his dark eyes making me shiver. The alpha reminded me so much of Dante—probably because the rumors of Rhodes’ violence were famous amongst the five families.
But with Dante I knew he would never hurt me. I didn’t know that about Rhodes, in fact, I was pretty sure he’d hurt me in a heartbeat if Keane asked him to.
Don’t be a coward,I told myself silently as I moved to stand behind Elio’s shoulder so I could see what everyone was staring at.
The last time I had seen Romey Chandler he had been leading the way into his sister’s wedding and trying to bully the staff by waving his invitation in their faces. He was a stereotypical trust fund kid with not many redeeming factors—even less now as he stared balefully up at us with a pair of bruised, black eyes.
“Now that we’re all here,” Edison said, yanking the chair that was opposite of Romey out from underneath the table, the metal legs squealing on the floor, and settled himself into it. “Why don’t you repeat what you told me an hour ago.”
Romey glanced up at us as if we could save him, but none of us said anything. He deflated and clasped his hands so tightly that the blood drained from his freckled fingers. “I was just trying to save my girlfriend—they took her and there was only one way to get her back.”
“By selling out your own sister,” Edison prompted, his voice tight with an anger that sent a shiver down my spine. “And yet you still won’t tell us where she is so we can do what you failed to do: protect her.”
The Russians were up to no good, again, a fact that shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did.
Six years ago when we had been ambushed during a meetup with Vladimir Volkov I was sure that they had something to do with the FBI showing up. We’d never been able to prove it—but seeing as Volkov and all of his men had gotten off scot-free while my packmates were sentenced to a year in prison? It was an obvious set-up.
Now Vladimir was in charge of the Volkov family and had been as quiet as a mouse until now—so just what exactly was his game?
Silence hung heavy in the air as Edison and Romey continued to glare at each other.
“That’s it,” Rhodes said, surprising everyone in the room as the distinctclickof a switch blade being opened filled my ears.
My stomach did a somersault.
It had been eighteen years since I was brought to live with Elio and his parents after my own parents died in a car crash, so I should have been used to violence by now. But as Rhodes approached the younger alpha with a gleaming blade, I found myself turning on my heel to head for the door.
None of my pack stopped me. They knew my limits almost as well as I knew my own as I stepped into the hallway just in time to hear Romey begin to shout in protest.
The door clicked shut behind me and I leaned back against it for a moment, listening to the blissful silence of the hallway as Romey’s muffled screams were cut off, almost as if nothing was happening behind the door.
After a moment, I straightened. Even if I still couldn’t stomach what was happening back in that room, there was still a lot to be done in order to get Luscinia back and I had favors I could call on in order to do it.
Pulling out my phone, I speed-dialed my lawyer—the one who had handled my parent’s estate after they had died and helped me to manage their money, nearly tripling it since I gained control over it at eighteen.
“Nicolo?” came the tired, Jersey accented voice on the other end. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
I ignored his grumbling. “I need you to cash in on some of my investments.”
I had things to buy.
Three
Pain was the first thing I felt when I woke up again.
It pulled me gasping from the blessed unconsciousness that I had learned to crave over the past few days. I forced my eyes wide open only to have to squint under the bright overhead light.
I was in the surgery room again, I realized hazily as I tried to curl in on myself only to find that my hands and feet were strapped to the table and needles leading to a strange machine were placed in both of my arms, a thick tube crossing my body.
I frowned at it, filled with confusion as the last thing I remembered before this was falling asleep underneath my blankets—a mistake I realized now as the urge to shred my skin off of my body filled me.
It felt as if I had gotten a hundred sunburns on layer after layer of my skin, making it feel chapped and raw as every twitch of my body sent another shiver of agony ricocheting through me.
