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Maddoc didn’t lie. Not about that.
“Payton,” Maddoc greets the woman, his face as cold as stone, as if he’s locked all his emotions behind a fortress. “How bad is it?”
Her eyes glitter, and she shakes her head.
“Fuck,” he snarls, the fortress cracking for a moment. “Troy’s dead?”
“Yeah,” Payton rasps. She clears her throat, then adds, “He wasn’t when we got here. We just lost him.”
If I thought Maddoc, Logan, and Dante looked grim on the drive over, it’s nothing compared to the ice-cold expressions on their faces as we follow Payton into the building.
A couple more Reapers are waiting inside, along with a guy tied to a chair.
No, not a guy. A… body. Or at least, what’s left of one.
He was clearly tortured.
“Oh god,” I gasp, my stomach heaving and the sour taste of bile flooding my mouth.
Maddoc curses again, low and vicious, and I wrench my arm out of Dante’s hold and turn away, squeezing my eyes closed from the grisly sight.
Dante glances at me for a moment, then turns back toward the others, letting me be. The Reapers who were already here start giving Maddoc a situation report, and everyone in the room ignores me while I do my best to pretend the air isn’t saturated with the sickening scent of copper and try to get my shit together.
It’s not that I don’t know what a brutal, horrible place the world can be, it’s just that I don’t usually have to face that fact in quite such gory detail.
“You said he was alive when you found him?” Maddoc asks, pinning each of his people with a hard gaze.
They all nod, and Payton grimaces. “Barely, and only because they made sure we got here in time.”
“They?” Logan repeats.
She nods once, jerkily. “One of those fucking weasels made sure we knew about the attack before they cleared out. Troy was barely conscious when we got here. Theywantedus to find him like this.”
“They wanted to send a fucking message,” one of the other Reapers adds furiously.
Maddoc’s lips flatten. “Message received.”
“He was interrogated,” Logan states, looking over Troy’s body carefully.
I don’t know how he can do that. How he can get up close and personal and stay so unaffected. Or at leastlookso unaffected. But even though bile rises in my throat again, I stiffen my spine and force myself to look too.
This was done by the fuckheads who bought my sister from Frank. The same West Point fucks who treated Chloe like she was just a body to be used, and who will sadistically exploit her, or worse, if they find her on the streets before we do.
I borrow a page from Maddoc’s book, and start building a fortress around my emotions.
It doesn’t matter that the Reapers betrayed me, or that I still feel a fucking connection to each of them that confuses the hell out of me. None of that matters until we find my sister. It only matters that they’re not the ones who did something likethis.
“We don’t know if Troy told them anything,” Payton is saying stiffly, “but yeah, they were definitely trying to get something out of him. He was able to say that much before we lost him.”
I keep my eyes on Troy’s body as she talks, using the gruesome sight to strengthen my new fortress, stone by stone.
I need it, because I’m useless here… and dammit, I wish I wasn’t. But I’ve got nothing to offer as Logan pulls out his phone and starts taking a bunch of pictures while Dante silently moves around the edges of the room, looking for I’ve got no idea what.
Maddoc snaps off orders to his people, his rage all but boiling under the calm, still surface he presents to them. He tells them to tighten up security around a few key points in the territory and delegates dealing with Troy’s body, but stops his people before they disburse to carry out his orders.
“Stick together.” He pauses to pin each of them with his eyes. “Have each other’s backs. That’s your first priority. We’re not fucking losing anyone else, got it?”
I turn away as they all murmur their agreement, needing my fortress more than ever. I’m reminded of Dante telling me why he decided to follow Maddoc in the first place, of the way he insisted Maddoc cares about me. And the way Dante acted like he does too.
