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Aislynn scoffed next to me. “I’m worth at least fifty.”
“Amen,” Shara agreed.
“No job is worth attacking a Marcosa, especially when that Marcosa is also an O’Bannon. Not for ten thousand, not for a hundred thousand, because everyone knows crossing the Marcosas is a death sentence. According to your ID, you’ve lived in Seattle your whole life. You grew up knowing this. So, why do it?”
“I needed the money.”
“Not that badly, Paul. No one needs money that badly.”
Yet the look on Paul’s face said he did.
“Come on, man. I don’t want to kill you. I just want to know how to protect my girl. You can understand that, right?” Cameron’s good-ol’-boy voice worked, and Paul nodded solemnly. It made me wonder who he’d thought the money would protect. “Help me out here. What is Cash’s end goal?”
“I’m a glorified paper boy,” Paul said woodenly. “They don’t give the peons anything more than breadcrumbs. Even if I wanted to tell you, I can’t, man. I really can’t.”
Watching him, I tried to figure out how a man like Cash, who had such little care for his people, inspired such fierce loyalty. Only to realize it wasn’t loyalty.
“He’s terrified of Cash,” I said more to myself than anyone else.
Grey hummed. “I think that will be the problem with all of them.”
“But how? He uses them as cannon fodder, and they thank him. How does he do it? Do you think he’s blackmailing the army?”
“It would be stupid of him if he did,” Dominic said, coming to stand beside Nate. It felt good having all three of my men so close. “Who’s to say they don’t all rise up against him?”
“They won’t rise up against him if he’s got decent enough leverage,” Nate pointed out.
Dominic snorted. “Nobody cares about somebody’s coke problem in the grand scheme of things.”
“Maybe not, but they would care if he was threatening their families, their friends, the people that they love. They may not be good guys, but they still have people they care about, too.” Merc or not, Nate had been eyeing the man in the chair warily the whole time, and I could practically feel his discomfort under my skin. I patted his hand where it hung near my shoulders. “You don’t need to be here.”
He twisted his grip so he could hold my hand where no one else would see. “I do and I am.”
His tone made it clear: end of discussion.
Over and over, Cameron asked the questions, changing the wording and the torture he inflicted beforehand. He threatened fingers and toes and teeth. There was burning, cutting, even waterboarding.
Every time, Paul gave the same answer, I don’t know.
How do you contact Cash? I don’t know.
How do you get paid? I don’t know.
Where is he? I don’t know.
The situation felt similar to someone pleading the Fifth, and I didn’t understand. Why wouldn’t he give us what he knew? He’d already clarified that he wasn’t a higher-up, so why not toss some fire at his former employer while he had the chance?
The longer it went on, the more I began to think that Nate might be right. Maybe it wasn’t about the blackmail itself, but the threat of what would happen if they crossed Cash. Even the worst of the worst had people they wanted to protect most of the time.
Two hours in, Shara wandered away, stating she needed to get to Gilded, but we all knew she was just bored. The rest of the men in the room filtered out soon after, leaving just my men and Ash. Cameron never wavered. He never even looked up as the door shut. He was focused, determined to figure this out for his bride.
It wasn’t until he got a look at Aislynn’s jaw-cracking yawns that he finally stopped.
Paul’s head dropped to his chest as he heaved in breaths of relief.
“Come on. We need to get you back,” Cameron said.
“You aren’t finished. I can walk myself back.” Ash stood, groaning as she stretched her spine with a gentle stretch.
