Clayton Hollis. My old friend.
“Miss me, sexy?”
Darius grabbed a fistful of his hair, wrenching he head in the opposite direction. “You don’t look at her. You don’t speak to her. You don’t foul the air she breathes. Understood?”
“Fuck you, Beaumont.” He spat, spraying Darius’s dark blue shirt with blood. “I should’ve filleted that bitch when I had the chance. Slowly.”
Darius and Emilio exchanged a glance. Darius nodded. Emilio headed out the back door toward the grill area.
Moments later, he returned with a bottle of lighter fluid.
“What the fuck?” Hollis shouted. “Are you fucking crazy?”
Darius grabbed the bottle and uncapped it, then squirted it all over Hollis’s clothes. His hair. His face.
Then he retrieved a box of wooden matches from a shelf near the stove and lit one, holding it close.
“I didn’t kill those witches!” Hollis shouted. “I’m telling you, you got the wrong guy! Jesus fucking Christ, Beaumont!”
“But you know who did,” Ronan said. “You wouldn’t be at the coven headquarters otherwise.”
“Come on, man,” Hollis whined, finally losing some of his bluster. “I’m dead if I talk.”
“You’re dead either way,” Darius said. “But you can decide whether you want that death to be quick and painless, or… something else.”
His match went out. He lit another.
Growling in frustration, Hollis flexed hard against his chains, but he was out of options.
“Talk,” Emilio said, and Hollis finally caved.
“Couple weeks back, some human showed up—out-of-towner, seemed pretty low on the food chain. I heard he was lookin’ for some dirt on local witches in exchange for cash.”
“Let me guess,” Darius said. “You offered your services?”
“They said he was already getting some good leads—lots of witches in this town. But just so happened I’d seen a bit of thatrealhoodoo-voodoo, abracadabra shit right outside Black Ruby the night before.”
I felt the ice of Hollis’s glare as he turned toward me, the viciousness still lingering in his one eye.
“So I named my price,” he said. “Told him what I knew and collected my pay.”
My stomach flipped as I realized what his confession meant. I’d been so certain no one else had seen me in the alley that night, but he’d witnessed the whole thing.
It also meant that Hollis had recognized me at the bar inside Black Ruby the next night when he’d harassed me with his emo friend. He was screwing with me. By that point, he’d already signed my death warrant.
Only, it hadn’t turned out to be my warrant at all. It was Sophie’s.
I didn’t need dark magic to fuel my rage now. Without thinking, I lunged for him, ready to tear him apart, limb from limb.
But Ronan’s arm hooked around my waist, hauling me back before I could even make a scratch.
“Not yet,” he said, holding me tight. “We need more information.”
The solid, familiar warmth of Ronan’s chest against my back calmed me, and I took a deep, steadying breath, nodding for Darius to continue his interrogation.
“So you sold her out?” Darius asked.
Hollis cracked a smile. “We all gotta eat, brother.”
