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Chapter One Hundred Ten
E.A.
Harlan grins at me, looking like the vicious monster he is. This is the side of him I never saw when we were friends. The side he kept buried so fucking deep that I didn’t catch a fucking hint of it.
“You want answers?” Harlan asks. “But you’re the detective, Edgar. Why don’t you just figure it out?”
I stare him down. “I know my father sold my mother to you.”
“It barely would have taken a moron three seconds to figure that one out.”
“Why did you approach him with an offer?” I ask, going on a hunch.
He laughs. “If you don’t know that by now … You’re not worth much as a detective.”
I’m clearly missing something, and it must be something obvious for Harlan to be so gleeful over it.
Why would he approach my father to buy my mother?
What did he have against me?
Or against her?
It doesn’t make any sense.
I know my father was resentful toward my mother because she never really got over her fiancé who died. That was probably motivation enough for that asshole to eventually snap and make the horrible decision to sell her to a trafficker, but I don’t know why Harlan would be the one to approach him.
“Can’t see it, can you?” Harlan asks. “Pathetic. No wonder you never amounted to much.”
He’s enjoying this too much, and I’m not getting the answers I need to feel closure.
“If you don’t feel like gloating about what you did and why you did it, I’ll let Victor start torturing you. He’s been looking forward to that. I might as well make someone’s day since I took all the trouble to come out here.”
“I must admit,” Victor says. “I’d love to get started. It’s been a while since I got a decent chance to make someone scream.”
“Can the empty threats, Hayes. I know you’ve gotten soft,” Harlan snarls.
Victor removes the closest sconce from the wall and brings it toward Harlan.
“That’s pure lighter fluid that’s soaking your feet, Harlan. I could burn you alive in seconds if I wanted to.”
Harlan’s face doesn’t change. He’s not afraid.
Like most rich, powerful Alpha males, he thinks he’s invincible.
“Talk, Harlan,” I order. “Or I leave, and Victor roasts you alive.”
“Fine. Whatever,” Harlan says, rolling his eyes. “I’ll tell you the story, but you are not going to like it.”
“I don’t have to like it. The truth is simply the truth.”
“There once was a little boy called Harlan,” he starts, making my jaw clench.
He holds his hands up at Victor. “This is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the goddamned truth. I swear, Mr. Scary Mercenary Man.”
Victor looks at me and I motion to him to put the sconce back where it was.
He moves back slowly and shines the flashlight at Harlan’s face.
