One of the other male guards steps over and pulls out his gun. “I should be the one to do it. I barely got to interrogate him.”
“Fine, you want to give it a shot?” she sneers at him. “Go ahead. He’s nothing but a worthless lackey for the Dresvannis. Probably doesn’t even know who he’s really working for.”
I glance at her with curiosity for a second, wondering if she knows something I don’t, but I quickly decide that she simply means I don’t know anything about the Dresvannis or what they’ve done.
She’s wrong.
I know about the cruelty and darkness of their past and present. I know that Carmine has killed men with his bare hands. And so have I.
The difference between Carmine and Eivor is simple.
Carmine kills with reason, Eivor kills simply to sate his ego.
That’s all this is. A power grab. He wants to be the biggest and the baddest that there is, and it doesn’t matter who gets hurt in the process. What allies he loses.
Even the Tulos trying to kill his niece doesn’t seem to faze him nearly as much as the idea of being on the losing side.
The new guard smacks me upside the head with his gun and then presses it to my temple.
“I know you know something,” he growls. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. You wouldn’t be protectingthemif you didn’t.” I hear the click of the safety turning off on the gun.
“Is your life really worth it?” he asks me, leaning in closer. “Is your life worth one measly little crime family?”
If they were so measly, Eivor wouldn’t be trying to invade them, would he?
I bite down on my tongue even more and set my eyes forward.
I continue to count. It keeps me grounded.
It’s now been six hours and five minutes.
He reaches over with his other hand and pushes down on some of my bloody wounds on my chest with his fingers, digging into them violently. I can’t help but hiss in pain and my head is going fuzzy from the blood loss. My blood is all around me. On the floor, the chair, and my clothing that was torn up and ripped off my body. I sit only in my boxers, the heat from adrenalin in my body the only reason I haven’t started to freeze.
“Answer me!” he yells, getting frustrated. “Open your fucking mouth!” He hits me in the back of the head with the gun and it goes off, shooting something nearby with a loud clang. The bullet ricochets, narrowly missing my leg and finally lodges itself into the floor.
“See what you made me do? You disgusting little maggot,” he grabs me by the throat and squeezes hard, forcing me to look into his eyes.
He puts the gun to my head again. He’s so close that I can feel his breath against my face.
“You have one more chance,” he tells me. “Either you spill what you know about the Dresvannis or your fucking brains will be spilled all over the floor in ten seconds.”
I quit counting the time.
Now I’m counting something else.
I have ten seconds to do what I need to do to get the fuck out of here. I’m light headed, but suddenly coursing with determination.
I twist my wrists in their bindings as he begins to count.
“One. Two. Three.” His face gets more and more red with anger.
I suck a breath in through my nose, calming myself down.
Just as I’m about to pull my hands out of the rope bindings, gunshots blast through the lock on the door to the abandoned building.
I don’t need to know who it is or why, all I need to know is that the guard with his gun to my head is suddenly distracted. He looks to the left, and I make my move.
I pull my hands out of the ropes and reach up for his gun. I grab it out of his hand and point it directly at him. I don’t give him time to plead. I don’t wait for him to even process what’s happened. I shoot him point blank in the head.
