“Where’s the video, Hazel.”
“What video?”
The pressure on my shin increases tenfold, the pain steadily rising until his foot is grinding against my bone and my breathing turns scattered.
Derek tuts. “Let’s not play dumb. The video Ana Zhang gave you, where is it?” He eases off with his foot and I gasp for breath.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He shifts his weight, stepping on my leg. I cry out, the weight so much I think my tibia is going to break. My whole body spasms as I try to pull away from the intense pressure, the pain burning up my entire leg until I’m crying, begging for him to stop. “Please, Derek, please.”
Finally, he lifts his foot and I curl up into a ball, hugging my leg to my chest as I sob.
Derek crouches down beside me and brushes my sweat-stuck hair off my face. His touch crawls through my skin but I don’t have the fight to pull away.
“Where’s the video?”
I wet my dry lips and blink the tears out of my eyes so I can meet Derek’s cold gaze. “Are you in it?” I ask. “Did you rape her?”
He drags his thumb over my jaw, catching my bottom lip and tugging it down. “Yes.”
I twist my head, pulling away from his touch. “Why?”
He smiles a little. “Because I could.”
My stomach roils. I don’t need to hear anymore. The man I thought I knew never existed. He was just a façade hiding a monster. I should leave it at that but for some reason I don’t. I saw the photo of him with Hope, but I want to hear him admit it. I need to know for sure that we’ve found the person responsible for what happened to her.
“Is that why you set Hope up too?”
Derek raises a brow, that sly smile still snaked across his face. “Trying to get a confession?”
“Who would I tell?” I’m lying broken on the floor, my body shaking from the pain, sweat pricking my skin. I’m under no illusion that I’m getting out of this alive, but I will do anything I can to take Derek down with me. I just need to keep him talking until I find the right moment.
“Hope was a means to an end. I’m really quite grateful to her. After all, she made me a King.”
Hatred, vicious and hot, flushes over me. I find Derek’s eyes, matching the coldness in his gaze with my own as I whisper, “Flynn is going to kill you.”
Derek laughs. “Oh darling,Flynnis in no position to be doing anything. In fact, maybe we’ll pay him a little visit.”
Derek grabs my bicep and pulls me to my feet.
I cry out, stumbling when I put weight on my bad leg. Every step is agony, but Derek keeps moving, dragging me out of the office and down the corridor.
He pushes open a door and pulls me inside some sort of scanning room. Fluorescent lights stab into my pounding head and I almost throw up when Derek tugs me forward and secures my arms behind my back.
My vision clears to find Flynn strapped down to the bed of an MRI machine, his head inches from the cylindrical tunnel.
Senator Claren stands over him, wiping blood off his knuckles with a handkerchief. Flynn’s still unconscious, his lip is split, one side of his face swollen and bruised.
Pain cuts into my heart. I try to go to him, but Derek holds me back, his grip on my wrists tightening.
“Has she talked?” the senator asks.
“Not yet. I thought she might need a little motivation.”
I shudder, the way they’re talking about me like I’m not even here making my skin crawl. The senator finishes cleaning his hand and folds the handkerchief back up before tucking it into the breast pocket of his suit jacket. He looks just like he did the night of the ball, clean shaven, not a strand of brown hair out of place. Movie star looks meets politician.
Finally, his gaze lands on me, a curious tilt to his lips and that dimple in his cheek. “You’re quite the enigma, Miss Halloway. A 911 operator helping a serial killer. Tell me, do you feel guilty?”
