The interior of the refrigerated room is now a fucking madhouse. Eddy knows he’s next, so he’s losing his shit. Jack and Smokie Saul are still blocking the entrance, their weapons trained on our captives.
“Your turn, Eddy, my friend,” I say in a sing-song voice. “I’ll be kind and let you pick which finger you want to lose.”
He’s a gibbering wreck. “No, please, Ace. Don’t do it. I thought we were friends.”
“We were never friends, Eddy. I can’t fucking stand the three of you idiots. Last chance. Which finger is it going to be?”
“No, no!”
I grab his hand, and whip my blade across it, severing his index finger. “Well, look at that. Now I have a full set.”
I add the finger to my collection and release my grip on Eddy’s wrist. He falls back, holding his hand to his chest and howling.
“Fucking pussy. It’ll grow back.” I chuckle at myself and shake my head. “No, wait, that’s lizard tails, right?”
Turning to Ledger, I grin. “Your turn. Except I don’t want your fucking fingers. I want to punish you for what you did to Camile.”
Ledger pushes himself up so he’s sitting, his back propped against the wall. “It shouldn’t be me you’re taking your anger out on,” he spits. “It was your friend who fucked her up the ass in front of everyone.”
I turn to ice and the world falls still and silent around me.
“What?” The word is a cold snap on the air.
I glance at Jack, and his face is pure, fiery rage in contrast to the ice cold I am feeling right now. He looks at Ledger and then back to me and an understanding passes between us. He’s letting me off the leash, and that means very bad things for Ledger.
“You heard me. I wasn’t even involved.” Ledger is speaking fast, almost garbled. “I didn’t want her touched, not like that. It was your friend who told me exactly what he’d done. I wasn’t even there.”
“No.” I shake my head.
My denial is short lived. Obviously, I knew something like that must have happened because of the state we’d found both Camile and Rook in when we rescued them, but I’d assumed Ledger had been the one responsible. He’s making it sound like Rook somehow… helped? No, he wouldn’t. Would he?
“I’d wanted her to be my wife,” Ledger continues. He clearly thinks he might be able to talk his way out of this, even though he’s fucking wrong. “I’d planned to take her back to Mexico, to my family, and I would have married her. You think I would have married her if she’d been used goods? Fuck that shit.”
The possibility of Camile having ended up in Mexico, married to this son of a bitch, is almost as bad as what actually happened. We’d have lost her forever.
I dart forward, draw my hand back, and slap him hard across the face. The strike is hard enough to send pain stinging up through my palm, and his head snaps to one side so fast I think he’s going to do a fucking exorcist impression on us.
How could Rook have done that to her? I know Camile has told me that she’ll never let me touch her again if I hurt him, but I’m going to struggle to keep to that rule. I don’t want to think differently about my best friend, but how can I not? I’d have murdered every man in that room before I’d laid a single finger on her.
Rook’s probably torturing himself about what happened. Good. He deserves to. I hope he never gets a single minute of peace.
I stand over Ledger. “It doesn’t even fucking matter if they did it without your permission. If you hadn’t arranged to have her taken in the first place, she wouldnever have been in that building. And if you weren’t so fucking weak and pathetic, you’d have had better control of your men. I’m guessing the fact you had to use idiots like these to help you anyway means you never had the blessing from your family to do what you did.”
Ledger grinds his teeth and glances away, a confirmation that I’m right and Ledger acted alone.
Fury fills me. “This was still your doing. I think you’re going to regret telling me what happened to her. I think… you should get to know what it feels like.”
His face pales. “What?”
Jack shoots me an uncertain look, but I ignore it. After all, he’s given me the signal that anything goes. I storm out of the room, pushing past him and Saul as I do. The supply closet is next door, so I head to that and look around for what I need. It’s propped up in the corner. Smirking, I grab it and bring it back to the refrigerator.
Ledger widens his eyes at the broom in my hand. “What the fuck are you planning?”
“Don’t worry,” I assure him. “I won’t need the whole thing.”
Bringing the handle down over my knee, I snap it in two. Well, not quite in two. I’m left with about a foot of wood in my hand. I observe the end.
“Nice and smooth,” I say. Then I turn to the end I’ve just snapped off. It’s splintered and jagged. “Or maybe I should use this end?”
