I drop the bloody pliers on top and reach for the bolt cutters next. I pick them up, savoring the weight of them in my hand. Turning to speak over my shoulder, I say, “Someone’s found out about her and I want to know how.”
The man swings his head from side to side.
“D-don’t know,” he rasps out.
I walk back over to him slowly, taking my time, to enjoy the fear gathering in his expression as he realizes what I’m holding. When I stop in front of him, I kick his shin with the toe of my boot. He grunts but otherwise remains silent.
“You don’t have the foggiest idea?” I press curiously.
Again the man shakes his head. “No.”
“I think you’re holding something back.”
I don’t let him voice any objection or attempt to fight. My bolt cutters fly through the air and slam into his jaw. Blood andspit go flying. I do it again and again, until his skin splits and his cheek bone becomes visible. I stop to give him some reprieve, waiting for the flesh to swell and grow more tender.
As I stand there, staring down into his pathetic face, I think of all the work that had to go into keeping Blair safe. Anchor… his poor fucking soul. If our job hadn’t destroyed it, the lengths he went to protect his daughter certainly did.
“Did you know that her father made it look like she died back when she was seven years old so fuckers like you would never get their hands on her?” I tell him in a voice so low it’s hardly audible. “Do you knowhowhe did it? I asked him about it years later, and you know what he said? He’d unearthed a little girl’s body who had died only a few weeks prior from her gravesite. That fucker carried that corpse around with him for overtwo weeks; just waiting for the opportune moment to replace Blair with that corpse. When he shot her uncle and set the house on fire, he took Blair and left that little girl’s corpse behind. That’s fucked up.”
The man in the chair only breathes heavily and trembles from the pain I’d inflicted.
“After he’d taken his daughter, do you know what he did?” I ask, my voice wavering with fury and disgust.
Again, the man shakes his head.
“Her father would lock her away in rooms, steamer trucks, under floorboards for days, sometimes a week or two at a time to desensitize her to hiding. Then, he put her through vigorous training not even grown men tend to make it through. He starved her, tortured her, forced her to torture others. He prepared her for fuckers like you coming for her. The woman you’re after? She’s not some easy target.”
Anger swells as I think about what Anchor did to his child. I know about some of the training Blair went though, I was there through a lot of it. I resented the way he treated her—like a soldier, not a child. I might not be a parent, but I know there were things Blair didn’t need to experience in order to understand how hard life could be. Each time I joined them on a job, the shadows in Blair’s eyes seemed just a little bit deeper.
“Blair’s gone through hell in order to survive,” I mutter, staring at the blood dripping down his face. “She’s done a great job on her own so far but everyone needs a little help and for her, that’s me.”
At this, the man in the chair gasps out weakly, “Y-you?”
“Damn right it’s me,” I reply, my body trembling with rage as I consider the threat this man poses to my godchild. He’ll never see her face. I’ll make sure of that. “I’m notafterthe girl. I already got her. So, help me out here, will you? I want to personally tell whoever sent you, that Blair ismine. Who thefuckis your handler?”
“Their alias is Dixie! I don’t know their real name,” he wheezes. “Their number is the last one dialed in my burner phone. Back pocket…”
Rhett pushes off the wall and saunters over. He comes up behind the man and goes for his pocket. When he has the phone, Rhett opens it and begins going through it.
“He’s cleared his contacts and call log,” he says.
I chuckle darkly. “Did you think I wouldn’t check?”
The man spits a wad of blood on the ground. “I-It was worth trying, I guess.”
The bolt cutters strike him across the face again. He lets out a hard sob as he sags forward.
“Sharing anything useful right about now might save your life,” I tell him.
His head jerks up. Through swollen eyes he asks weakly, “Y-you’ll let me out of here if I talk?”
“As long as you leave and never come back,” I lie.
“I w-was there. When Dixie got the, um, message a-about the job,” the hitman croaks. “Some guy named Earwig needed backup on a large job he’d been contracted for. Some father-daughter hit. He didn’t know the girl but the man? Apparently this Anchor guy is like Death itself; invisible and unstoppable. I guess the name meant something to him because Dixie got all excited. Dixie said he’d help—that he’d take this job pro bono ‘cause he has a bone to pick with Anchor’.”
I don’t react to the information. Not outwardly at least. Inwardly, I’m both terrified and relieved. Someone with a personal vendetta against Anchor doesn’t really whittle down who this Dixie character could be, but it does mean that they won’t be telling anyone else about this open contract—they’ll want to see it through themselves.
That’s notgreatnews because they’ll throw every resource they have at Anchor and Blair until the job is done. But this is good because this means it’s not a free-for-all; not everyone and their brother is out to get the both of them. This gives me some hope that the situation is controllable.
