“She took a new girl,” I said, leaning closer. “Sienna Michaels. She’s eighteen years old. But you don’t give a crap about their names or how young they are. All you care about is how much they pay you for your silence. We’ll double your price if you give us a location. How does that sound? Better than getting beaten to a bloody pulp?”
He squeezed his eye shut, like blocking me out would make this go away.
I grabbed his jaw hard, fingers digging into flesh, forcing him to look at me. “Where?”
The guard licked blood from his lip, pain reflecting in his features. “I don’t know where she is. I swear. Like I said. They cut me out.”
Kreed’s face darkened, shadows deepening in the hollows of his cheeks. “Try again.”
“I swear,” the guard rasped, desperation bleeding into his voice now.
My insides knotted, a sour burn crawling up my throat. “Fine, maybe you don’t. But that doesn’t mean you’re completely useless to us. I think it’s time you got your old job reinstated.”
The guard laughed then, but it was broken. Desperate. Half hysterical. “It doesn’t work like that. They’ll kill me if I show my face.”
Raine’s knife stopped. “You’ve got two choices. You can die here, or you can die righting your wrongs and hope it’s enough redemption to keep you out of hell.”
The guard shook his head weakly. “Just do it.” He coughed, spitting more blood. “Kill me.”
Silence settled over the room.
“Fuck,” Kaylor spat and looked away first, her hands curling into fists at her sides like she was forcing herself not to break something or scream in frustration. She stormed out of theroom, shoving the door hard enough it slammed on the wall before swinging shut.
Mason blinked, staring at the spot where she had been. “Should one of us go after her?”
Kreed scrubbed a hand over his face, exhaustion bleeding through the anger. “No, let her cool off. Give her a few minutes.”
“What are we going to do with him?” I asked, jerking his chin toward the guard.
“Mason and I got this.” Raine wiped the blood from his blade over his pants.
“Have we gotten any information on the notes yet?” Kreed directed at me. “Do we still think it's a possible way of marking the girls?”
“Paisley's looking into it,” I informed. “She’s talking with people close to the victims to see if any of them said anything about receiving notes.”
“Is it wise to involve her?” Kreed’s brows drew together. “Can she actually be trusted?”
I shot my twin a pointed glare. "As long as Mason stops being a grade-A dick to her.”
“How is this on me?” Mason protested.
“You know what you did,” I snorted. “What we both did.” It wasn’t entirely on Mason despite wanting him to shoulder the blame.
“Exactly why she can’t be trusted with this,” Mason shot back, but there was less conviction in his voice now.
“What other choice do we have? They won’t talk to us, but Paisley, her reputation is a lot less tarnished than ours. They’ll be more comfortable sharing with her, and we need them to feel safe enough to open up, remember details they might have forgotten or overlooked.”
“It’s a good thing you’re fucking her new bestie.” Sarcasm with a tad of jealousy laced Mason’s words. He might not want toadmit it, but I had a suspicion he had a thing for Paisley once. A small thing, but he’d ruined it in typical Corvo fashion…by being a prick.
My lips curved. “Jealous it’s me instead of you?”
“For once, no,” Mason scoffed. “Clearly, you needed the lay more than I did.”
“Fuckfaces!” Kreed barked, stepping between Mason and me. “Can we stop bickering among ourselves for two damn minutes, especially in front of our guest?”
As if we all suddenly realized the guard had gone quiet, our four heads turned in his direction. He was slumped forward in the chair as far as his restraints would allow, breathing hard through a broken nose. Each inhale whistled wetly, blood bubbling at his nostrils.
I’d had enough for today. This shit was starting to wear on me, and we were far from over. “He isn’t going to be any use to us tonight. I’m going home. I have homework I need to finish before tomorrow morning.”
