Big Man needed to figure his shit out, but now wasn’t the time for that chat.
I hurled my bowl of cold water in the unconscious man’s face, and he woke with a gasp like a big old fish out of water. I waited while he blinked and spluttered, disoriented, then finally settled his gaze on me with heavy resignation.
“Did you have a nice nap?” I asked sweetly, picking up my knife once more.
He wasn’t a handsome man, but I couldn’t put my finger on any one feature that made him unattractive. Maybe a combination of a weak jaw and prominent brow bone. Not that it mattered much, he’d be dead soon.
“Fuck you, bitch,” he spat, tugging on his bonds. Like I was enough of an amateur to offer even the slightest opportunity for escape with my knots. Idiot. All he was doing was tightening them.
I ignored his rather clichéd response and cast a look over at Kai. “You see, this is how you properly restrain a prisoner. None of that pathetic cable tie crap your team uses. You know how easy those are to break?” I scoffed. It had been an actual effort not to free myself while in his captivity.
Kai gave no response, and irritation flickered through me. If he was so horrified by this version of me, he could fuck right off. I’d be fine without his help; it had only been a moment of weakness that I’d reached out in the first place. But that thought still stung like acid on my insides. I didn’t want him to be horrified by me… I wanted him to see my strength and capability and actually like that about me. Wishful thinking, I guessed.
“What is this, a fucking instructional?” the asshole tied to the chair sneered.
I shrugged. “Why not? Never waste a learning opportunity, I always say.”
His lip curled in disgust. “What the fuck is a slut like you gonna teach him? How to spread your—”
Whack. The butt of my knife smacked across his face, and blood sprayed from where his eyebrow split open.
“Whoops,” I murmured. “A little too hard. I’m out of practice.” Not that my victim was listening; I’d knocked him out again. The embarrassment was all for my audience and the heavy way Kai’s gaze rested on me. I felt like a fucking rookie, not knowing how to control the power of my hits.
Biting the inside of my cheek, I refilled my water bowl and woke the fucker up once more.
Start over, Danny. This is not the time to fumble around.
“Let’s try that again, shall we?” I asked rhetorically. “I’ve really only got one question I want answered, and you will answer it eventually. How long that takes, and how painful it is, well, that’s up to you.”
The dripping wet hitman glared up at me with venom. “Fuck you.”
I laughed, and it wasn’t a kind sound. “You wish. Who hired you to kill me?”
His lips pulled up in a sneer again. “Santa Claus.”
That answer wasn’t even remotely shocking. He’d be a pretty lousy assassin if he caved that easily. So I smiled sweetly and slashed his shirt open with my blade, making sure it nicked his skin plenty in the process. When I was done, his jaw was tight, but he wasn’t in pain. Not yet, anyway.
“Is that it?” He huffed a laugh, flicking his gaze over to Kai. “Maybe you should let your man handle this, sweetheart.”
Kai muttered something under his breath, too quiet for me to make out. But otherwise, his closed-off expression didn’t shift. I wrenched my gaze away before I got distracted, focusing back on the mouthy fuck tied to the chair.
“You seriously have no idea who I am, huh?” I tipped my head to the side, the tip of my blade trailing down his hairy chest. “That tells me that you’re an idiot, for starters. Let me guess, this was the biggest ticket job you’ve ever seen and seemed too damn easy?”
He didn’t respond, but his eyes tightened ever so slightly.
“Well, you know what they say. If it seems too easy, it probably is.” Then I slowly, carefully, deliberately sliced his left nipple off.
I tossed the nub of flesh aside and waited for his screams to die down before wasting my breath speaking again.
“Got anything to tell me?” I asked, calm as the falling snow.
The only words that left my victim’s mouth were curses and obscenities, which wasn’t surprising. He needed a bit more motivation, so I cut off his other nipple, too.
Kai shifted in his seat, and it pulled my attention like a fucking magnet. I couldn’t resist looking over at him to see what he thought of me now. If this didn’t prove to him that I wasn’t the girl he fell in love with, then nothing would.
Bitter sadness curled through my belly. This would likely douse the inferno burning between us. But it was necessary, and I had to remember that I still had Leon… It was better this way. Leon saw all my flaws, all my fucked up damage, and my violent tendencies. He saw my darkness and he loved it all.
Kai still seemed to think I was just a normal girl. A replacement for his lost Charlotte.
Swallowing hard and silently mourning the loss of a man I’d kind of fallen in love with, I turned my back on him. Regardless of how cruel this showed me to be, I needed answers. Two half-rate hitmen had come for me in one day within hours of each other. That wasn’t a coincidence, and it was the last thing I needed to be dealing with on top of Blanchet gunning for me.
Whoever had offered a paltry three mil for my death was getting dealt with. And this prick was going to give me their name.
So I hardened my spine and went to work. To his credit, he held out longer than I anticipated, spitting curses and threats that fell on totally deaf ears. Eventually, though, he admitted to having followed us from the bar in Dogwood. He’d hung back and seen the first guy get killed, then followed us home. His car was ditched way down the mountain before the first security point, and he’d hiked the rest of the way up.
The most interesting part of the whole torture sequence was when he admitted to having an experimental tech device that allowed him to bypass the Hestia security alarms. That was something I might need to pass along as feedback for my host, because shit like this? Terrible for business.
It wasn’t until I started slicing the skin off his balls in thin strips, that he cracked.
“York!” he shrieked as I peeled the first strip off and flicked it onto the floor with a little splat. “That’s all I know! The contract was filed by someone called York! That’s it. That’s all I have, I swear.” Tears were rolling down his face, and he was so pale I was amazed he was even conscious.
I stood back, tapping my blade against my palm, considering whether that was enough. But in my experience, by the time a man starts losing his testicle skin, he’s not in the mood to spin bullshit.
“Please,” he sobbed. “Please, that’s all I know. It didn’t say anything about you being this. You’re just a fucking woman.” He said it like an insult, and I decided I’d definitely heard enough.
Circling around behind him—to stay clear of the spray—I sliced his neck open from ear to ear. The splatter hit Kai’s pants, but his face remained impassive as ever, even when I straightened up and met his gaze.
My chin was high and my spine straight, because I had nothing to be ashamed of here. Nothing to be apologetic for.
“You wanted to get to know the real me, Big Man?” I gestured to the bloody, disfigured man tied to the chair in front of me. “Be careful what you wish for. It’s not always pretty.”
He said nothing. Nothing. He didn’t even fucking flinch, just sat there in the same position he’d been in when I started torturing the douche-bucket. After a long, exceptionally tense moment, I shook my head and looked away first.
“Fuck it. I’m going to shower, then I’ll sort out somewhere else to stay. It’s not safe here, and you should get back to your team.” Every word off my lips tasted sour, but the damage was done. I stalked out of the blood-soaked kitchen and back to the master bedroom where I took in the damage from the fight.
I’d heard the incompetent fool the second he’d entered the house and waited until he got overconfident, thinking he could just quietly stab me in my sleep. Fucking amateurs.
Glass from the broken mirror scattered across the carpet, and I climbed over the bed to avoid cutting up the soles of my feet accidentally. I needed to grab my phone from the nightstand and call the Hestia after-hours emergency line.
Thankfully, I’d plugged my phone in after my sexy video chat with Leon, and it was fully charged when I grabbed it. I anticipated a long night sorting out a new safe location, and that irritated me to no end.
Clambering back over the bed, I headed for the bathroom while searching for the Hestia contact number. I cringed a little when I caught my reflection in the mirror, but shit, I’d looked worse.