Page 56 of Ghost Among Lies

The terror started to settle in. I could see it in both of their eyes.

"I'm going to start with an easy one. True or false. Are you one of the five families known as The Givers?"

I pulled the napkin out of the woman's mouth, and the first thing she did was lie. "No." She shook her head violently. "I have no idea what you're talking about." It would be one thing if she sounded scared because of my line of questioning, but the second I mentioned The Givers, fire flashed in her eyes.

I sighed and motioned for Anita to help. Shoving the napkin back in her mouth, I used my one hand to cover the napkin and the other to hold her hand in place.

Anita was swift, and she cut the pinky off right at the second knuckle. The discarded appendage rolled across the floor as Mrs. Astor screamed bloody murder behind my hand.

"Well, now that we have your attention, let's try this again. This time with you." I pointed to her husband. I pulled the silk napkin out of his mouth and waved it like a white flag. Only I wasn't calling a truce. There was nothing diplomatic about what I had in store for these two. "True or false. Are you one of the five families known as The Givers?"

The husband was smart enough not to lie. "Yes," he spat. "And we're going to destroy you for this."

I sucked in a disappointed breath. "See, considering your current predicament, I'm not inclined to believe you. But I appreciate you answering my question. If only your wife had done the same, she wouldn't be missing her pinky."

"Fuck you," he hissed and then followed it up with a wince after Anita punched him in the stomach.

"No, thank you. I do have another question for you though. What was your plan for Benjamin?"

I would never give them the satisfaction of calling him their son. They weren't his parents. They weren't even good to him. He was merely a means to an end. But it didn't matter anymore. They would never see Benny again.

"Our boy?"

I wiggled my finger in front of his face. "No, no. My son." I pointed to myself. "You might've adopted him, but he was always mine."

The wife sniffled next to us. Snot ran down her face, and blood dripped from her hand onto the floor. She no longer looked like the polished woman who ran a criminal organization.

"He stopped being yours the day you signed the papers."

I backhanded him and watched with satisfaction as his head whipped to the side. "And you were supposed to love him enough for me, but that didn't happen, so spare me the party line and tell me what you planned for him."

Mr. Astor no longer tried to hide the evil behind a pretty mask. He let it all shine when he explained in detail how he planned to use Benjamin to continue his succession. I had to hold back the bile threatening to work its way up my throat as he described the initiation into the family. The people he would learn to kill so he could fully understand every aspect of the job.

These people were sick with their beliefs about pure bloodlines and breeding amongst each other to keep the families strong.

The life I’d willingly handed my son at birth made me sick. I had wanted something better for him, but instead, I turned him over to a bunch of monsters.

"Who are the other four families?"

"You might as well kill me because I'll never tell you."

Anita grabbed him by the throat and squeezed. "We'll see about that."

For an hour, we worked him and his wife over. There were no fingers left for us to cut off either of them. They each wore matching stab wounds throughout their abdomen, and still they refused to tell us.

"Are we losing our touch?" Anita finally asked when both the husband and wife were hanging on to their last breaths with a fishing wire. So damn thin and yet strong as hell.

It would be fascinating if it wasn't so damn irritating.

"I don't think so. Clearly they want to take this secret with them to the grave."

Anita looked at me and then back at the couple. With enough force to take his head clear off his shoulder, Anita slit the husband's throat.

"Last chance," she told the wife.

Stubbornly, the wife held her head up high as if she was offering her throat as payment. Anita didn't hesitate. Mrs. Astor quickly joined her husband in hell.

Wiping the knife off on her cargos, Anita sighed. "That wasn't as satisfying as I thought it would be."