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Azeria is chained up. Straps are fastened to his ankles, tethering him to the floor, and forcing him to keep his legs shoulder-width apart. His arms dangle limply above his head, secured by handcuffs and a chain cemented to the ceiling. Anytime he shifts too much, the chains clink and clank.
Some of my men already roughed him up earlier. That’s after I had stabbed him a couple times.
When Delphine and I enter the interrogation room, he’s bloody and bruised. She staggers to a stop at the sight of him. I place a hand to the small of her back and am seconds away from telling her she can go. With a deep inhale, she draws enough nerve to continue, walking deeper into the dimly lit room.
Azeria tracks us with his bloodshot eyes. His body sways in place, the chains clanking.
I establish some ground rules. “This is how it’s going to go. You will answer whatever questions we have. You will come clean about all the grimy shit you’ve pulled. You will show some fucking respect and deference. And maybe... maybe I’ll end it a few minutes quicker. Understand?”
He bares his teeth for a bloody smile.
Yeah, this fucker is crazy as hell.
I deck him hard in the jaw. His head rolls onto his left shoulder at the force of the hit. For a couple seconds he’s seeing stars, blinking and staring at us spacey-eyed. I step back and turn to Delphine.
She’s in control. She decides how this goes.
“Whatever you want,” I say. “I have weapons. Different tools. Devices that will make him feel more excruciating pain than he’s ever felt in his life.Oryou don’t have to do anything to him—you can say your peace and I’ll do the rest.”
She hasn’t taken her eyes off Azeria. She stares beyond me at the chained-up guy who broke into her apartment, who had her necklace, and who could’ve assaulted her that night in the alleyway.
Inhaling a shuddering breath, Delphine walks around me and starts straight for him. I almost hold her back out of an instinctual sense of protectiveness. Even if Azeria’s chained up, I don’t like the idea of her being too close to him. He shouldn’t be breathing the same air as she is.
“Did you do it?” she asks. “Did you attack me that night?”
His smile remains. His silence too.
Delphine steps closer. “Answer me! Did you rape me?!”
Azeria chortles, his chains clanging from the force of his laugh. Still, he says nothing. He makes a phlegmy hawking sound and then spits blood at her feet.
Rage pulses through me and I step forward. Delphine gets to him first. She surprises us both when she backhands him like a bitch.
The slap echoes in the closed off room, bouncing off the walls. I pause midstep. Azeria’s head snaps to the side. Delphine smirks in satisfaction at the imprint tinging across his swollen cheek. I hadn’t expected her smack to be so hard. Neither did Azeria judging by the way he eyeballs her afterward.
It’s the first real crack he’s shown. He stares at her like he’s insulted she’d dare hit him. As if his hands were free, he’d return the strike twice as hard. That alone makes me almost give into the rage I’m holding back.
“If you don’t want to talk, I will,” she says. “Who hired you to break into my apartment? We have you on camera. Why? Why did you do it?”
Azeria’s smile inches onto his bloodied lips again. He rasps out his first words I’ve heard from him. “You’ve no clue.”
“No clue, what? Who hired you? The Belinis? The Viscontis? Or are you just some sick pervert who was working on his own?”
The more frustrated Delphine becomes, the more he uses it against her. He breaks out into another ring of crazed laughter.
I don’t expect Delphine to explode the way she does. She takes half a step back as if she’s about to remove herself from the situation and then she strikes. She punches Azeria in the face.
It’s a good punch. It lands dead center on his nose. She wound up enough power that it does some damage. Azeria grunts and blood leaks from his nostril.
“You’ve no clue what you’ve gotten yourself into,” he spits through his laughter. “Turn back now or you’ll be sorry.”
“Sorry for what!?” Delphine yells. She smacks him across the face. “Answer my questions!”
“Never.”
“You’ll answer or you’ll suffer,” I bark from behind her. I select one of the knives from the table of toys. “You can play big and bad, but we’ll see if that tune changes when body parts start coming off.”
Delphine calms down. She steps closer and grabs his bloody chin to force his attention. “You’re clearly not a man of means. You were found living in some squalid apartment. No money or power of your own. You’re just a lackey. Somebody’s lapdog who they send out to commit crimes for them—you’re thefallguy. The fall guy is always expendable.”
