Page 226 of Lethal Obsession

I tilt my head to Renata. “I don’t think you’ve met my friend in person. Say hello, Renata.”

“Hello, Silas.” She doesn’t smile.

“Renata and I were childhood friends,” I continue. “She was my only female friend, actually. So when she came to me one night looking like this”—I touch the tablet on the table, and a photograph of Renata as she was that night, bruised and bleeding, fills the screen—“you might imagine how I felt.”

I pause.

Thorne stares straight through me as if I’m not here.

“I don’t think you’re imagining it in enough detail, Mr. Thorne. Pavel,” I say, not taking my eyes from Thorne’s face, “please put the photographs onscreen so everyone can see them clearly.”

The screens scattered around the deck flicker to life, Renata’s bloody face filling every one. “You see the cut on the side of her face?” I say conversationally. “Your son Carter did that with a broken bottle. It took sixteen stitches to sew up. I know that, Mr. Thorne, because I did the stitching.”

I swipe, and another photograph fills the screen, this time of the bruises on Renata’s torso. “You can’t see broken ribs,” I continue, “but as you will find out later this evening, they’re extremely painful. Renata had seven. Did Carter break them before he raped you, Renata?” I turn to her questioningly. “Or was it after? I forget now.”

“Before.” She answers flatly, staring directly at Thorne. “After I declined to go for a drink with him. He said that a little whore like me needed to learn some manners.”

“Where were you,” I go on, “when this conversation took place?”

“In a back alley, near a dumpster. He dragged me there off the street.”

“In this back alley?” I put another photo on the screen.

Renata nods.

“You can’t see the bloodstains on the dumpster,” I say politely to Thorne. “But they’re there, I promise you. Your son had quite the appetite for violence. Or rather, for inflicting it on innocent young girls he wanted to rape. When it came to actually enduring violence himself, he wasn’t quite so keen.”

Another image fills the screen, this time of Carter, hanging naked from a tree in the Everglades, blood dripping from the Romanov eagle carved into his chest.

Thorne makes a strangled sound.

“Your son made similar noises,” I say calmly. “Although by the time I took this photograph, he’d stopped making much noise at all.”

“You’re a dead man,” Thorne hisses. “I’m going to fucking destroy you—”

“You’ve already tried that.” I cut him off coldly. “And yet here we are.”

Thorne lunges across the table. I dodge his pudgy body and flailing fists and throw him back onto the cushions.

Renata comes around the table and dangles her handcuffs in front of his face. “Hands behind your back, asshole.”

He gives a bark of laughter. “You’re going to arrest me? Please. Go ahead.”

“Oh, I’m not going to arrest you.” She puts her mouth very close to his ear. “But very soon, you’re going to really wish I had.”

Thorne pales, and for the first time, real fear enters his eyes.

“Back to Carter,” I go on. “That night was the first time I ever carved my own mark into a man’s skin.” I tilt my head to one side, regarding the image critically. “It was a rough job, I’ll admit, but effective. I made a cut for every blow Renata suffered. Carter said at first that he couldn’t remember how many times he’d hit her, but then he told me his daddy was so rich that he could afford to pay me for every injury he’d caused her instead of being cut for them. He was very generous with your money, Silas. Offered me millions of dollars. But we both know I didn’t take his offer. That was just another one of the little lies you told tonight.”

I lean forward, locking eyes with him. “Here’s the thing, Silas. I don’t particularly care that you’ve told lies tonight, or lied about me. But when it comes to my friends, I have what you might call a protective instinct. And when it comes to the women in my life, that instinct is primal, to say the least.

“That’s the funny thing about degenerate criminals like me, Thorne. We’re psychopaths with a talent for deadly violence. But we also have a code—even among ourselves. Suite cams please, Pavel.”

The image of Carter disappears from the screens, and they all go dead except for one showing the feed of the Hunters in their suite.

“On screen one,” I say conversationally, “we have Marty Hunter Jr. and Kristi. His wife passed out before she could hear you call her a whore, but Kristi certainly caught every word. They’ve been watching you on the flatscreen. Unfortunately, they’ll be leaving us soon, since Renata here is going to be taking them both into custody. They’re both headed to the kind of maximum security prison that will likely test both of their blow job skills.

“Screen two should come as no surprise,” I say as the second feed flickers to life. “Rico Lucchese has thoroughly enjoyed listening to your remarks about him and his family, and is quite eager to renew his friendship with you. And after the explosion in Sicily that you and your Cartographer buddies organized, Luca Bellini is also keen to have a quiet word or two. Unfortunately, our new friends Knut and Benson won’t be sticking around for the show. They’ll be leaving with Renata before they see things we all know they’d rather not.”