“I’m talking about Sophie and Sienna Baldwin.”
Their beady eyes widened, panic bleeding through the bravado they were clinging to. One of them shook his head so violently the chains above him rattled.
“We were just following orders,” Rick stammered.
I chuckled, the sound stripped of humor as I reached for my holster and pulled out my knife, its weight familiar in my hands. It had been a while since I got my hands dirty, but anyone or anything who even thought about hurting Sophie warranted a firsthand lesson.
“Whose orders?” I asked, although I already knew. I wanted to hear him say it.
“Jacqueline’s.”
I crowded into his space, his sour breath hitting my face.
“Big fucking mistake, fellas. You shouldn’t hurt women.” I shoved my knife into his side, missing a vital organ as intended, then sliced his flesh open. He roared in agony, his eyes rolling back. “Or children, because Sienna… she’s a fucking child.”
I shot a silent glance at Amir and he mirrored my movement, making Jack scream in pain. The third one we’d save for last. He would be the one to see these two tortured and then spill all he knew.
“Where is Jacqueline?” I asked when the screams ceased.
“I d-don’t know,” Jack stammered.
“If I have to ask again, this will be even more unpleasant for you than it has to be,” I drawled.
Cody was the one who answered. “She took off and left us in Alaska.”
He was telling the truth, because that was what Kingston reported as well. The woman had slipped into the night and nobody had seen her since.
“Get me salt,” I barked at one of the guards, then turned to Rick. “That should refresh their memory.”
The mere idea that these pieces of shit threatened innocent womenand were anywhere near Sophie drove a burning ball of fire into my chest.
I straightened, rolling my shoulders back as a bucket of salt thudded onto the floor between Amir and me. The sharp, mineral scent cut through the air.
A guard followed, pressing a heavy scoop into each of our hands, the coarse grains rasping softly as they shifted. I felt my pulse slow as my gaze locked on to Rick.
I studied him the way a surgeon studied an incision, detached and precise, weighing every possibility, every way to make this hurt the most.
This was personal.
“Which one of you put the gun to Sophie’s temple?” I asked, my voice level, almost bored.
For a heartbeat, no one answered. Then two pairs of eyes slid sideways, betraying their owner. Rick stiffened.
That was all the confirmation I needed.
Rick’s bravado evaporated under my stare; his chin trembled, teeth clicking faintly as his eyes darted like a trapped animal searching for an exit that didn’t exist.
“Take his shirt off,” I said to my man, not looking away from Rick. “And hold him.”
Rick struggled as his shirt was torn, but panic made him clumsy and weak. I heard Amir delivering the same treatment beside me, another man stripped and restrained, though my attention never left Rick.
I tilted the scoop slowly over his wound.
The reaction was instant.
His scream tore out of him, sharp and shrill, ricocheting off the walls until it seemed the room itself was screaming back.
Grinning, I wrenched the knife free from his side, ignoring the sharp intake of breath it tore from him. I pressed the blade to the hollow beneath his collarbone, then drew it across, tearing his flesh open.
