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A long, narrow tunnel opens up before me. The walls are made of dark, roughly hewn stone. Despite the overhead light fixtures, the space remains dimly lit and cold.
My body reacts to the frigid, moldy air. I can feel my senses heightening as I walk down the long corridor.
There are prison cells with steel bars on both sides of the tunnel. Most of them are empty but a few are filled with the mercenaries we captured during our raid on the Black Widow hideout several months ago.
Our footsteps echo loudly around the closed-off tunnel as we proceed toward the prison cell on the farthest side.
I come to a stop before the steel gate.
“He’ll try to rile you up but you must stay calm,” Caleb whispers in my ear before proceeding to unlock the cell.
A man with dark, shaggy locks emerges from the shadows.
Nox Callahan, a prominent officer in the military, stands before us. He used his position to erase evidence against the Black Widow, making it hard for us to capture them. He concealed their whereabouts from us for over a decade and actively helped them cause terror and chaos among our people.
Dressed in dirty overalls, he now appears to be a shadow of his former self. He looks weak and broken but the cruelty in his eyes hasn’t disappeared. If he ever got the chance to get free, he’d go back to resurrecting the Black Widow.
The faint rattle of chains reaches my ears as he slowly approaches us.
“What do you want today?” he asks, staring at Caleb.
“Captain Burton has some questions for you,” Caleb answers in a grim tone. “Answer them without beating around the bush and we’ll leave you alone.”
His curious gaze falls on me. “He’s a Burton, huh?” He moves closer to me, staring me in the face. “You have the same eyes as him. These green eyes sure run in the family. Even Iris has them.”
“Do not speak of her!” Caleb snarls.
Callahan grins, his cruel black eyes lighting up with mirth. “Fine,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders. “I’ll speak of Hale, then.”
My fists grow tighter as I try to rein in my anger.
Hale was my uncle. He thought of Callahan as a close friend but in the end, died at his hands. My aunt died in the same incident and their month-old baby was lost to us until recently.
“Stop talking about my family if you value your remaining teeth,” I say in a cold tone.
Anger and a hint of fear flickers in his eyes. A scowl unfurls on his lips as he takes a step back.
“Tell me what you know of Senator Vaughn Dumas,” I say.
Surprise chases away the fear in his gaze. Callahan steps back and retreats further into the shadows.
“Speak!” I shout. My voice echoes all around the low-ceilinged tunnel, turning it thunderous.
“He...he was one of those people who enjoyed using our services,” Callahan says in a low, scratchy voice. “He didn’t have any active role to play in our operations.”
“Who was in charge of the omega trafficking ring?” I ask next.
Before Callahan can move away, I grab him by the front of his overalls and pull him close to me. Gazing into his charcoal-black eyes, I let him see the wild rage that’s storming inside me.
“Tell me what I need to know or I’ll shackle you to that chair and pull out the rest of your teeth,” I grate through clenched teeth. “Because one way or another, I will have my answers before I leave this place.”
His tongue involuntarily darts through his lips, licking at his bare gums.
“It’s not fun, is it?” I say, hoping the threat would be enough to loosen his tongue.
“Tell me who runs the trafficking ring and who’s in charge of keeping the accounts,” I repeat once again. “I need every detail of the way they operated.”
Callahan turns away from me.
