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The fear I’d seen when Keller was a breath away from killing him had been real, but now he was under the delusion that he had the upper hand.
The guys started out tag teaming him, asking questions, giving him just enough praise to get him talking. Roj and his massive ego fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Men like him couldn’t resist crowing about their achievements.
“That bomb in Bagdad was impressive,” Weaver said, cracking his knuckles. He gave Roj a conspiratorial smile. “Killed what? Two dozen? Three dozen people?”
Roj snorted. “Forty-one, a personal record.”
“Forty-one,” Suave repeated, then whistled. “You did that yourself?” A false look of admiration was painted on his face.
“I do all my work myself,” Roj boasted.
“What about the dud in Tikrit?” I asked. “You didn’t plant that one yourself, did you? Real disappointment there.” Colby had dismantled it just in time and saved the city. According to her and her guys, Roj had been running away from the area with his tail tucked between his legs.
Roj glared at me as pure hatred filled his eyes. My smile was wolfish. I shoved off the wall and his eyes tracked me around the room as I paced in front of him. Hereallydidn’t like me. Good. There was more than one way to interrogate. Brandon and his guys could play good cop. I’d play bad.
“Word on the street is you had your team plant that bomb while you ran and hid.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw, but he remained silent.
A little more then.
“Just like you were running away from your compound while you left your men to take care of us. Seems to me, Roj, that you’re just some scared-ass piece of shit who likes to claim that you take lives. In reality, you hide from your own shadow while your men do your dirty work for you.”
“Cunt!” Roj jerked to his feet. The handcuffs were the only thing that stopped him from racing across the room and strangling me. I could see there in his deranged eyes how badly he wanted to snuff the life out of me.
I smiled again. “Is that the best you’ve got?” Taunting him was getting us further than stroking his ego, so I continued. Stepping over to the table, I stood near enough to enrage him, but not so close he could reach me. “I’ve heard worse,” I told him in a bored tone. “Tell me. If you’re such a badass,” you could all but hear the rolling of my eyes in my tone, “why were you working for the Holy Order? I thought someone as infamous asThe Lionwouldn’t take orders from religious nutjobs like that.”
He spat on the floor next to him. “I don’t work for them.” Insult colored his words. “I don’t work for anyone.”
“Then why blow up your own cities and villages? Trying to take out American troops I understand.” To a degree I did. He considered us the enemy, but his own people?
A sly smile pulled at his lips. “Have you ever seen the destruction a bomb creates?” He was talking to me, but his eyes had clouded over, almost like he was seeing what he was speaking about inside his mind. “The sounds, sights, the smells?”
Not sure I wanted to remember the smell of charring bodies.
“So you’re just a run of the mill psycho?” I asked him after Brandon motioned to me to continue.
Roj’s eyes snapped to me, fully present again. “Call me what you will, but I’m respected. Feared. I’m a God.”
My laughter bubbled up out of my throat. “Oh, Roj,” I murmured, pouring as much disdain into my voice as I could. Planting my hands on the table, I leaned over and stared straight into his eyes. “You’re nothing.No onefears you. You’re nothing more than a pest to be swatted away.”
Anger flared over his face. It reddened to a color that made me wonder if he was about to have a heart attack. “I am feared!”
I clucked my tongue. “You were beaten. Now you’ll rot in prison and no one will remember your name. No one will ever call themselves ‘Lion’ again, out of sheer embarrassment.”
Horror washed over his face. That’s all this lunatic wanted. Notoriety. The thought that the people of Iraq would live on without ever thinking of him again was the worst kind of punishment.
I waved my hand at Brandon to take over. Now that I knew what Roj’s motivation had been, the mystery wasn’t as intriguing. I wanted to go home. I stepped out of the room and straight into Rush’s arms. My guys were all outside waiting for me.
“What’s wrong, Mouse?”
Looking over at Alden, I shook my head. “All that death and destruction. The lives lost because he wanted to see it all crumble… and that’s it. No other reason. It just makes me mad.”
“You can’t fix crazy,” Torque said with a shrug.
We all chuckled at that. “No, you can’t,” I agreed. I met each of their looks and asked, “Can we go home?”
CHAPTER32
