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She kicks him straight in the balls, and he doubles over, retching and holding onto his junk with both hands. I wince myself because I fucking felt that.
“I saw your face when his name was mentioned. If you’d like to keep holding onto those balls of yours instead of being forced to eat them after I slice them off, you’ll tell me how the fuck you knew Oscar Lang.”
He wheezes, and she takes a switchblade from her jacket pocket and flicks it open. “You have two seconds, asshole.”
He looks up at her, tears running down his face and mingling with the blood still pouring from his nose. He holds one hand up in surrender, the other still hanging onto his dick and balls, guarding them from the avenging angel standing before him.
“P-please,” he gasps.
She taps her foot on the floor. “One.”
He gulps another breath.
“Two.” She steps forward.
“I worked with him in Boston,” he blurts before she can get any closer with her blade and carry out her threat.
She stills, her eyes trained on him. “What kind of work?”
“Just…” He licks away the blood and tears coating his lips. “I didn’t have anything to do with the kids.”
Kids? What fucking kids?
“Just the women then? You sick piece of shit.” She hisses like a venomous snake. “You had to know some of those women were pregnant when you took them. That they’d have to give birth to their babies in hell. And then those kids were raised in that fucking hell.” She brings the heel of her boot crashing down onto his kneecap. His mouth falls open on a silent scream.
For the first time, I’m starting to understand her. I intend to get the full story from her soon, but I don’t need to hear it to know that this is personal for her. Was she one of those kids? That would explain a lot. Nausea churns in my gut. Blocking all thoughts of a little girl with Keres’s big brown eyes and long wavy hair being used by monsters, I lock my knees and focus on the scene unfolding before me.
“Lang worked with other people. Dominik Pushkin, Salvatore Moretti. The Santangelos. But who else?”
What? No. No fucking way the Morettis were ever involved in something so fucking horrible. I would know if my bosses were into that kind of sick shit. I glance at Romeo and his puzzled frown tells me he’s as clueless as I am.
“I swear. I don’t know half of those people you just mentioned. I knew Pushkin and Oscar. That was it.”
She kicks his other knee, and the sickening crunch of bone is followed by the sound of him retching again. “Oscar Lang had a partner who helped him with coordinating transport and locating buyers. Who the fuck was he?”
He begs for mercy with eyes full of tears. “I swear. I don’t know.”
She pounces, brandishing her blade in front of his face. Squeezing his cheeks together, she forces his mouth open. “This is your last chance to tell me what I want to know before I cut out your fucking tongue. And then I will cut off every other appendage you have. Your cock will be next, followed by your balls and then your toes, and then your fucking ears, Jeremiah. I’ll leave your thumb and forefinger until last so you can write down the name of the man I’m looking for before you die from heart failure or loss of blood.”
He tries to shake his head, but she holds his head tight and straddles him on the sofa, her thighs gripping his body in place. She’s way fucking stronger than she looks.
“Last chance,” she says, her voice cheerful and light and so inappropriate for the situation that it sends a chill down my spine.
He mumbles again that he doesn’t know. Sinking her fingers into his mouth, she pulls out his tongue while screams gurgle from his throat. With a wide smile, she slices it clean off. He chokes on his blood, shock and panic and sheer fucking terror making his eyes wide. She climbs off him, holds up his bloody tongue, then tosses it into his lap.
She stands beside me, her body shaking with adrenaline, but the steely look of determination on her face almost makes me feel sorry for the guy. Romeo comes to stand beside us, and the two of us watch in morbid fascination while Keres makes good on every threat she made.
By the time she gets to his fingers, he’s barely conscious, and I can only assume he truly doesn’t know the name of the man she’s looking for because there’s no way he’s taking that kind of pain by choice.
I place a tentative hand on her shoulder, half expecting her to turn around and cut me. “This has been quite the show, Trouble, but he clearly doesn’t know anything and we need to leave.”
Her shoulders slump and the knife falls to the floor, and I’m struck by the urge to comfort her. I can’t begin to comprehend what her childhood must have been like. Mine wasn’t exactly puppies and rainbows growing up in the foster care system, and although it doesn’t compare to what she went through, her damage calls to mine.
Crouching down, Romeo picks up her knife and, without pausing, slits Boone’s throat.
“What do we do now?” Her voice comes out small and fragile and completely uncharacteristic of the woman who just tortured a man to death. Boone’s blood covers all trace of the formerly pale-green upholstery of the couch, but there’s barely a drop on Keres. She’s obviously done this before.
“We check in with Lorenzo and see if he has any other leads to follow.” He still has people working on leads for Keres while he looks for Mia, and I’m confident he’ll have something new for us. “This was just one lead, Keres. Just one.”
