Page 106 of Fractured Memories

“I might have broken a few ribs.” Lochlan shrugs. “Not sure if it punctured a lung.”

Conor coughs, blood splattering to the ground. His head still hangs forward, but with his body fixed to the metal chair in the center of the room, he’s forced upright. His glasses are missing, his clothing is torn, and bruises cover his neck and right side of his face. One eye has completely swollen shut, his lip is torn, and it sounds like Lochlan might have inflicted some internal damage.

Well, I hope he lasts long enough for us to have some fun.

Heaving another breath, he finally forces out, “Miles doesn’t know anything.”

Miles squints at him, and the mild scratches on his face are nothing compared to what Conor has clearly been through. “What do you know?”

“Shut.” He gasps in a ragged breath. “Up.”

“No.” Eden pulls her blade from that sexy as fuck thigh sheath, her boots clicking against the concrete floor. “Answer his question.” She uses the blade’s tip to push his head up, forcing his one eye to focus on her. “Tell Miles how you’ve been manipulating and using him.”

Conor stares at her, pure venom in his expression, but he has to know he’s not getting out of this alive. It’s enough to get him talking, apparently. “I’ve been feeding information to the rebels.”

Miles jerks back, and if there was any doubt that Conor was lying, it’s gone. Miles didn’t know that—but he does know something.

We’ll get it out of him.

“Keep going.” Eden pushes her blade forward, keeping Conor’s chin on the flat side and the tip digging into his skin.

Panic flares in his eye, and that spineless prick I’m used to dealing with surfaces. “They needed information if they were ever going to get to you. The rebels were never concerned with the Elites as a whole—just the mafia.”

“So you told them our schedules?” Blood trickles down his throat as Eden’s knife digs in deeper.

“Yes. Yours and the guards. The plan was always to take you, to use a chemical that we had distilled from the toxins in the valley, and wipe your memories with a few injections. We were going to have you become the face of the rebels to get more people to defect to the cause. We needed the manpower to overpower the guards.” He’s trembling, and Eden pushes a little deeper. “But that day, we didn’t know you’d be the one that would come for the rebel. That was pure luck.”

“You thought that you would convince an entire city to revolt against me because you had my wife?” I scoff. He knows nothing about Eden if he ever thought she would be so easy to use and manipulate.

“That’s what the clinics were for,” he squeaks out, and I know Eden is cutting too deep.

“Eden,” I say softly, my voice a low rumble, and she huffs.

But she pulls her blade from his throat, circling behind Conor. Dragging it down the side of his face, blood bubbling along the scrape, she whispers, “Keep going.”

“The clinics were finding a cure for the toxins. But I was giving it to the rebels. The city would never overpower the guards, but the gas I used on you? It would have kept us from ever having to fight.”

I’m annoyed that he actually came up with that plan. There are enough guards who are loyal to me that I’ve never worried about being overpowered. But that gas? That was something I’d never have been able to fight.

“And once you had control?”

Greed shines through Conor’s expression. “Then the city would be mine.”

That’s all it was this entire time. Conor wanted unlimited power, complete control, and he was willing to do whatever it took to get there. He would’ve turned on Parker in the end, I’m sure.

“Then why shoot at Lochlan?” The rest is brilliant, but that bullet doesn’t fit in. “Why not wait until the gas was ready?”

Conor’s head swings in a clumsy shake. “That bullet was never meant for Lochlan. He just stepped in the way of its true target.”

I cock my head. “Jude?”

“He has a lot to pay for.” He flinches as Eden taps her blade against his other cheek in warning. “He’s too valuable. Brilliant enough to lay traps and ruthless enough to kill the prey it catches.”

He’s not wrong about that, either. Jude is one of the few people I rely on, one that is always thinking steps ahead of everyone else. I should have expected him to be a target.

But despite all their careful planning, they still failed. Now, it’s time for them to pay.

I grin at him, my eyes never leaving his mottled face. “Eden?”