AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh my God!” Dahlia started to moan. “Herod, Herod!” And then her voice started to fade.
Fear churned inside Herod as he felt Helios push him onto his back with a nudge of his foot. Dahlia had always been a monstrously strong woman, and to hear her sob like a weak, old, helpless being – it wasn’t right. Nothing in his world was going to be right again. As the fact became clear to him, Herod began to cry, too. Helios was going to kill him then.
Around him, the room whirled. All the walls had enormous zigzagging cracks, painted with smudges of blood. Helios had flung him at just about every side of the room.The only thing left, Herod thought dizzily,was the ceiling—
A wheezing protest came out of him as Helios lifted him bodily into the air, his hands around Herod’s neck. As the pressure around his neck tightened, Helios began to choke and the world got smaller and smaller with each second—
“Stop, please,” Herod choked out.
In the next second, the noose-like grip around his neck vanished and he fell to the ground in a jarring, bone-shattering thud. Herod groaned, feeling like he was black and blue all over. When he opened his eyes, Helios was crouched down on the floor next to him, the merciless look on his face making Herod’s bastard brother almost unrecognizable.
“Did that get your attention, older brother?”
Herod only managed a jerky nod, not wanting to risk saying the wrong word.
“That’s good. If you tell me anything but the truth, it means you just want more of my attention. But I don’t think you want that, do you?”
He shook his head vigorously.
“When you sent men after Rick, did you find out anything about Manolito Chavez?”
“Y-yes.”
“And?”
“He wants your...your woman. Badly. He has the woman’s father with him.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“He’s a ghost. No one knows where he is—” Herod’s scream was cut halfway when Helios once again gripped his neck and started to strangle him.
“Look at me,” Helios said quietly, not bothering to ease the pressure, forcing Herod to fight for his life like MJ was fighting for hers. When Herod’s gaze met his, he said coldly, “I need concrete answers. If you say something like you don’t know, I’ll bash your head against the floor. It won’t make you any dumber than you are now, but I guarantee you, it could keep you paralyzed or even stuck in a coma for the rest of your life. Do you want that?”
Helios let his fingers ease around Herod’s neck.
Herod gasped out, “N-no.”
“Excellent. Now, I’ll ask you one more time. And I want you to think very hard. What do you know of Manolito Chavez that can help me?”
The need to survive forced Herod to think furiously. “You could...you could find out where he is through his daughter.” Relief exploded inside him when he saw Helios’ frowning look. “Yes,” he said eagerly, “it’s a secret I accidentally stumbled upon when a business partner slipped about it. Her name is Gracie Langley. She’s into the same business as her father, but they make sure she’s not connected to him in any way. She serves as the face of their legal enterprises.”
Helios slowly rose to his feet. “Anything else I have to know about this woman?”
“I heard...” Herod licked his lips in fear. “I heard people say she’s the opposite of her father. That she’s a masochist. If a man can’t make her cry out in pain, they say she’d have her men kill him instead.”
