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The look in his eyes right now is the first sign of any real fear I’ve seen since we’ve met, and I can’t help but admire Kate’s instincts about Malakai. He might not care if he lives or dies, but knowing that this boat could be turned to ash has fired a rocket up his arse better than any amount of torture I could threaten him with.
“Show us what you’ve got then,” I say, tapping my fingers on the table, refocusing his attention on the task at hand.
“Bear with me. It’ll take a minute or two,” he says, tapping on the keyboard before turning the laptop around so we can all see the screen.
“What’s this gobbledygook?” I ask, watching a bunch of random green letters and numbers move across the black screen at an impossible speed. Even if it was slow enough to read, I wouldn’t be able to make heads nor tails of what I was seeing.
“This is code.”
“Code?” Kate questions, frowning.
“Whenever the King and I talk, our conversation is scrambled behind a series of complicated code. Think of it like a brick wall that prevents anyone on the other side of it from seeing what the wall is protecting.”
“Okay, so we’re looking at a brick wall right now,” Kate says.
“Exactly. My conversations with the King are protected by this code. Every time the King wants to contact me, I’m sent a seven digit number that will carve a path through the brick wall—the code—allowing me to converse with him. The number I’m given has a time limit. If I don’t enter it within two minutes of receiving the number I remain locked out and I have to wait for a new combination to let me in.”
“Clever,” I remark.
Kate frowns. “So how does this tell us where the King is hiding?”
“It doesn’t.”
“So what’s the fucking point of showing us this then?” I ask.
“Last night I was sent a seven digit number indicating that the King wanted to speak with me. During that conversation he told me that he’d found out some information about you, Grim. Well, actually, more specifically about your half-brother.”
She stiffens beside me, and though this isn’t a surprise, hearing Malakai confirm what we already know to be true is sobering as fuck.
“And what did he say exactly?” Kate asks carefully.
“He instructed me to take the boy to him tonight at midnight. I’m assuming your brother was that kid you had in your office the night of my last fight.”
“You fucking cunt!” I exclaim, reaching for my gun and pulling it free.
“Wait!” Malakai holds his hands up. “Let me finish.”
“Then fucking speak!” I demand, ready to shoot his fucking brains out.
“Do you honestly think I would be sitting here now telling you this if I planned on doing what he asked?”
“Beast, he’s got a point,” Kate says, resting her hand on my arm.
“I have no interest in hurting that kid,” Malakai adds. “I was telling the truth when I said I have no loyalty to the King. In fact, I’ll go as far as telling you that I hate him. This is my chance to finally be free of him, once and for all.”
“You want him dead?” Kate asks, cocking her head to the side as she stares at Malakai.
“I want my freedom, and his death is the only way I’m going to get it.”
“Then tell us where he is so you get to keep your boat and have your freedom.”
“On one condition,” Malakai says, closing the lid of his laptop and looking between us both.
“You really think that you’re in a position to barter with us?” I threaten, keeping the gun pointed at his head.
“You burn my boat, I can assure you that I’ll take this information with me to the grave, but if you let me sail out of here right now, I will send you the address of the location he’ll be at as soon as I hit open water.”
“You expect us to trust you? How do we know you’re not going to fuck off without telling us a damn thing?”
