The lad in my arms is shaking now, pissing himself with fear. And I almost feel bad for what I’ll have to do to the young one to get information out of him. Until my gaze swings to the far end of the room, where a girl who looks familiar is cuffed to the radiator.
She’s beaten pretty badly and already has a few slashes over her body that no doubt came from Andrei. He likes to play with his toys before he finally kills them. It’s a long process, and I have to wonder how long he’s been toying with her for. Her face is so swollen I can’t place where I’ve seen her before. But Conor knows. He rushes towards her and kneels down to help her.
“Scarlett?” he whispers. “Is that you?”
She makes a sound somewhere between a moan and agreement.
“She’s handcuffed,” he says, glancing back to me. “Can you pick the lock?”
“Aye,” I tell him. “I could. Or ye could probably just grab the keys from the dead arsehole on the floor just there.”
Conor blinks and then scurries over to the body as I check the hallway and then pull the young lad across the room. Once Conor’s got the cuffs off Scarlett’s hands, I gesture for them and lock them into place on their new prisoner. I can’t torture him here, because I don’t have any of my tools or the things I’d need to keep him quiet. Not to mention that if two of Andrei’s men are here, there are bound to be more on the way. And since I can’t be two places at once, I’ll have to make do.
“Take her down to the car,” I tell Conor, tossing him the keys. “And then meet me at the rear fire exit door.”
“Okay.” He nods and helps Scarlett to her feet.
She looks at me, and I feel a stab of something in my gut at the obvious trauma she’s been through.
“Did this lad hurt ye?” I ask her before she goes.
Her eyes move over him, and there’s no fear there. She just nods, like she’s seen men such as him a thousand times over. She knows she’s signing his death warrant, but doesn’t care.
“Conor will take care of ye,” I tell her. “Nobody else is going to hurt ye now.”
“I know,” she answers. And before she goes, she adds, “make him suffer.”
***
When Conor showed up at Slainte with my prisoner in tow, I knew it’d only be a matter of time before Crow came round.
I don’t even bother asking him how the hell he knew where I was watching the apartment from. He sits down beside me in the vacant building across the street and whips out a pair of binoculars.
“Any movement?” he asks.
“Not as of yet,” is my reply. “But they’ll come calling soon enough. Andrei won’t let a good woman go to waste.”
“Ye should have rang me,” he says. “You don’t fecking listen, Fitz.”
I shrug and the room around us goes silent for a pause.
“How’s the girl?”
Crow sighs. This whole situation is only adding to his headache, I’m sure. That girl was a mate of Macks, but she isn’t under our employ. And she’s also now a witness to a murder. It’s a complication for him. Even if I were to tell him not to worry about her, that I trusted her to keep her mouth shut, that isn’t the way it works.
“Rory’s going to keep an eye on her for a bit,” Crow answers. “But Mack doesn’t know that.”
“She won’t hear it from me,” I tell him.
He nods and sets down the binoculars after scanning the street, kicking back in his chair.
“Seems Rory fancies her anyway,” Crow notes. “But she wouldn’t give him the time of day. He was all over the babysitting gig when I mentioned it.”
“Aye,” I agree. “Glad I don’t have to do it.”
“You’ve got your own woman to worry about, Fitz,” he says. “What’s the craic with you and Sasha?”
I ignore him because it’s none of his business. Crow is always suspicious of the dancers, but I think he’s been even more so with Sasha because of what happened with Blaine. Regardless of what her reasons for lying were, Crow will still probably always be suspicious of her. But I know Sasha. I’ve been watching her for three long years. Wanting her. Learning about her. I know everything there is to know about her, from how well she sleeps to the type of food she likes to eat.
A man doesn’t get to know these things about a person without coming to some conclusions of his own. Sasha is as loyal as they come. I always suspected that Blaine was threatening her somehow. Manipulating her. But without her coming clean about it, there wasn’t anything I could do about that either. Until I did. Until I saw it firsthand.
I don’t expect Crow to ever understand that. So he can keep his opinions to himself for all I care.
“Why don’t ye make an honest woman out of her, Fitz?”
I glance over at him, expecting sarcasm on his face. But it isn’t there. He’s serious.
“I don’t know if she’d have me,” I answer him honestly.
“Well there’s only one way to find out,” he says. “Isn’t there? Do ye honestly believe you can just let her walk away? Because I don’t think ye can.”
He’s right, and we both know he’s right. So I just nod.