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Zander was our first guest.
Moore and Tennessee sat his limp body in a chair, strapping down his extremities with zip ties so he couldn’t move. Grey took his place against the wall at my back, and I stood silent, mentally running through the things I needed to know. When I had a handle on the questions I’d ask, I held out a hand. Tennessee popped a small white packet out of one of the tool chest drawers and dropped it into my palm.
The second the smelling salts hit his system, Zander woke panicked, struggling in his restraints. He started to yell for help, an instinct that told me he remembered being kidnapped, but the frantic energy seeped away into nervousness when he saw me in front of him.
That’s not a good sign.
“You’ve been a very bad boy, Zander.” I clicked my tongue, pacing closer so I could get a good look at him now that he was awake. Clear eyes, no external bruises, no unnatural paleness to his deep olive skin—nothing to indicate he’d been held against his will.
I turned to my enforcers. “Where did you find him?”
“At home.” Moore shrugged. “He walked right in like he’d never left.”
But he did. So where had he been all this time? I turned back to Zander. “You were hiding. Why?”
“Of course, I was hiding. Someone put out a hit on the head of the city. I’m not stupid enough to get caught in the crossfire.” He swallowed thickly, eyes darting around. I wondered if he was rolling, but I didn’t think so. He had more fear than paranoia in him. No, Zander was hiding something and doing it poorly. “I know you can understand that, Ms. Marcosa.”
I ignored the reminder that someone had given their life for mine. Thinking about it would only make things harder. “You disappeared to save your own skin.”
Zander looked relieved. “Exactly!”
Moore and Tennessee shook their heads, and I knew without looking that Grey was doing the same. Zander had been trying to become family for years. He wanted in, but there was something weaselly about him. A little voice in my head that told me he couldn’t be trusted. Seemed I was right.
I stepped close, bending enough to whisper in his ear. “This is why you’ll never be one of us, Z. Your only loyalty is to yourself. My soldiers are loyal first to me, then the Marcosa empire, then themselves.” It was an oath they took when they swore into the family, one punishable by death if broken. There was no place for cowardice in my organization.
I stepped back, moving the conversation to something more productive. “What are the whispers saying?”
Z was already shaking his head. “I know what you want, but no one’s admitting to killing Rey. I’ve asked around already.”
The sound of my cousin’s name hit me like a physical blow, and when Z’s eyes met mine, the sympathy in his nearly crippled me. I hated it, and in that moment, I hated him. Rage and grief lashed through me in a painful wave, and the nightmares rushed to meet me.
Fresh kettle corn scenting the air, my cousin and I laughing as he tossed some toward my mouth and missed. Reminiscing about sneaking out at night, stealing croissants from the local vendors, and tagging my father’s emblem on the buildings nearby. The crush of the crowd in a local marketplace, making us feel like part of something normal for once, even with bodyguards creating a barrier between us and them.
It was a simple, idyllic day. Until it wasn’t.
The rest of the tactile memories flashed by quickly. The sweetness of the day cut open by a gunshot. The stickiness of fresh blood pouring out of Rey’s chest. The sound of Tennessee and Moore yelling. Grey’s voice on the phone telling me to get out of there. Me sitting on the ground cradling Rey in my lap, begging him to survive. To hold on. To stay with me.
He didn’t live long enough for the ambulances to get to us. He didn’t even last long enough for me to call them myself. All because he took a bullet that was never meant for him.
Dismayed at the reminder of yet another loss, I quirked an eyebrow at Z. “Nothing? You’ve been gone for over a week, he’s been dead for two, and you still know nothing?”
“I’ve been looking. I just?—”
“Haven’t found anything,” I finished.
Zander huffed in exasperation. “Of course not. You think someone’s going to admit to killing the Marcosa underboss in Marcosa territory? That’s suicide.” He stilled, realizing his mistake, and bowed his head. “Apologies for my rudeness. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”
My family had ruled the dark side of Seattle for almost a century by the time I’d taken over. It was a job I’d never expected to have and had only taken because I had no other choice. The mantle fell to me, or it fell to no one.
Instead of faltering under the weight of something I didn’t want, I thrived. I’d made us bigger and better. I’d carefully worked through the territory wars my father and brother had left behind, carving out a bigger piece of the city for our family until we ruled nearly all of it.
Zander was right. No one in their right mind would admit to killing a Marcosa in my territory. I also didn’t believe him fully. He was hiding something, and I intended to find out what.
There was once a time when death and violence had made me feel powerful. A time when beating the information out of someone would put me in a good mood. When I sat on my throne with blood on my hands and felt like I ruled the world. When men on their knees, bleeding and begging for mercy, made me feel strong. In some ways, it always would. The problem was, I knew the cost for that kind of ignorance, and I refused to pay it ever again.
Interrogation needed balance. You had to know exactly how much a person could take before they broke and what would cause just as much psychological damage as a physical attack. You couldn’t be unfocused or upset. You had to be calm. Even. Cool. Normally, I had no problem doing my own interrogations, but I was still too fresh and raw in my grief to be effective. This time, I had to let someone else soften Zander up before I let myself out to play.
Nodding to the enforcers, I took a seat in an ornate chair Grey had found. “Begin.”
