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“Patience, brother, patience,” Jon spoke, his expression matching the same coldness as that morning at the pier.

Ian Smith whimpered upon our arrival, his eyes not even lifting to meet Arkane. He looked frightened and distraught as he huddled by the wall, bloody and bruised.

“Please,” he whispered. “Please, let me go.”

“And why should we?” Grayson asked. “Do you think after doing what you did, you can just get away with it? You should’ve thought better before going against my family.”

“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ian Smith blinked his lashes upward, finally taking us in, but that didn’t last long, because Grayson was onto him, landing a hard punch on his jaw that had Ian Smith gurgling out blood, screaming for his life.

“Enough,” Arkane warned, and Grayson let him go with an annoyed huff.

Sighing, I crouched down, getting in eye line with him. “Heath Glen,” I said. “Did you give the package to him?”

Ian Smith’s cries halted in an instant, and his terrified eyes flew to mine. “No…no…noo,” he said frantically, shaking his head.

“Tell the truth,” I said, looking straight into his eyes. “For once, speak the truth.”

A long beat of silence swept through the room, and I didn’t avert my eyes from the man who dragged my mother’s dead body away because it was too much for him. But stayed quiet when they made a sixteen-year-old girl watch everything.

“Will you let me go if I tell you everything?”

I shook my head. “That’s not my decision to make.”

A frustrated grumble sounded off from somewhere behind me, and Arkane flicked a brow my way.

“The-then I can’t tell you anything.” Ian Smith swallowed. “I’d be dead either way.”

“I know you gave it to Heath Glen. You don’t need to confirm that if you don’t want to,” I said. “I don’t think Heath Glen is dumb enough to let you in on his plan, so you’re useless to us either way. But, Mr. Smith”—I leaned closer, waving my finger around the room—“remember these four walls very well. It’s possible that’s the last thing you’ll see for the rest of your worthless life. It’s your choice.”

With that, I slowly lifted myself and walked past a confused-looking Arkane without looking back. But just as my feet hit the threshold, Ian Smith started to shout.

I stilled.

“Wait, please. I’ll tell you everything. I don’t want to die here,” he sobbed. “Please, just don’t let me die in here.” His sobs increased as if the thought of him losing his life in this death chamber scared him more than Heath Glen’s wrath.

Fool, I thought to myself before I turned back and sat in front of him instead.

“Tell me everything, Mr. Smith.” I offered a small smile and used a softer tone this time. In his head, I was the better villain than the rest of the men in the room. But what he didn’t know was that I could kill him just the same.

“Give him some water and remove his chains, Mikhail.” I waved a hand to him, and Mikhail, for once, looked at me with amused eyes, but he listened and did what I asked.

Because he knew I was simply putting on an act.

A grateful look crossed Ian Smith’s eyes as he drank the entire bottle in one go, before he vomited everything up to me—which wasn’t much. All he said was that he exchanged the package through a train station locker and was set to meet Heath Glen tonight. But he revealed something very important—Timothy Walters gave him the instructions on how to use the Invictus.

“How is that possible?” I asked, tilting my head. “Timothy Walters had mere seconds to hand you the package.”

“He gave me a drive along with the package with clear instructions,” he said in a low tone. “It’s the kind that can only be opened once before it destroys itself.”

“And you’re the only one he gave it to?”

“Yes,” he mumbled. “He didn’t want Heath to know everything.” His hesitant gaze met mine. “Tim was scared of him.”

So Heath Glen wanted, no, needed Ian Smith alive to carry out his plan, whatever that was.

I slowly rose to my feet, keeping back the one question I wanted to ask: “Why the Queens?” but asking him that question would give away my real identity.

We could use him as a trap to lure Heath Glen and get him once and for all. So for now, being patient was my safest bet.