Page 17 of Ripple Effect, Vol. 4

Once they’re laid out, I give the vise one more crank and his bellowing cry bounces off the walls.

I could start by asking him what he did to her, but it doesn’t matter. Seeing his hands on her marked him a dead man.

“How did you find my home?” I ask, fitting a thin bit on my drill.

“G-G-Gina. Sh-sh-she … Rook … he … tortured her into … talking. H-h-he stole those p-p-pictures from her. She was the one … who s-s-stalked you.”

Not that I cared much for the woman, but his confession spikes my blood. No man, particularly sadistic bastards like Enzo, should ever be allowed to harm a woman that way without punishment. Fortunately, he’s already dead.

I hold the drill to Randy’s thigh and power it up, pushing it into his flesh with his screams simultaneously drilling into my ear. Loud, shattering screams that tell me he still has some fight left in him. When I pull it out, the tracks are coated in muscle and sinew, and he convulses beneath me with shuddering breaths. For the next couple of minutes, I drill into random parts of his legs, ignoring his pleas to stop.

Sniffing, I unscrew the skinny bit and opt for something bigger. Thicker.

“Perhaps you can enlighten me. Why Dylan? Huh? Why didn’t you just leave her alone?”

“She was … sold. I wanted what was due … to me.”

“No.” I shake my head, positioning the drill at his kneecap. “Not good enough.”

“Wait!” He chokes and his leg tenses beneath my hand. “Please, I’ll … tell you. I’ll tell you!”

“Tell me what?” My apathetic tone matches the lack of interest I have in his confession. Nine times out of ten, the information I’m given in these final moments is either useless or old news.

“Dorian. Dorian wanted her.”

And then sometimes shit just gets interesting.

“You were to kill her?”

“No!” His body planks, and he attempts to shake his head between the vise grips. “No, he … wanted to sell her to … some crazy sadistic bastard. Rook wanted her, though. H-h-he … always wanted her.”

“Name.”

“I don’t … ” He whimpers and snivels. “I don’t … know, man. I’m telling the truth.”

Flipping the switch, I push the drill down into his knee where it sputters and chokes on bone, and his outcry slams against my skull.

“Stop! Stop! Ah, God, stop it!” He shakes beneath me as I pull the drill away. “Fuck!”

“Name.”

“I don’t know! I swear! Ah fuck! I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!”

The second I hold up the drill, he breaks into a choking sob. It’s surprising the bastard has tears as dehydrated as he must be. “You were going to ship her off to some sadistic bastard, you said. For what?”

“Sh-she … knows too much.”

“What does she know?”

His chest rises and falls with rapid breaths, eyes flicking back and forth, mouth downturned with a whimper, and I ready the drill at his stomach. “Please! God, please. Sh-she … saw the boy. She knows.”

“What boy? She knows what?”

“That Rook … k-k-killed Adrian Bertrand. He killed … his own nephew.”

Well, hot damn. “He had Lucien shot, too.”

“I … I don’t know. Maybe.”