A Dirty Business (Kings of New York #1)(99)

Ashton had come up the stairs. “Come on. Sooner this is done, sooner we can move on to more pressing matters.”

The dread just lined all of my organs, moving down my legs, into my toes, up through my chest. It went down my arms, my hands, my fingers, and it was circling up to my shoulders. There was no good feeling anymore, but I moved forward, my legs feeling like lead.

I stopped when I saw the room and began backing up. “Nope. This is not going to happen.”

Ashton’s hand came to my arm as he stepped to my side. The other guy took my other arm, and I was dragged/lifted to a single chair in the middle of the entire basement. The walls, the floors, the ceiling were all covered in plastic.

“Jesus Christ, Ashton. Are you serious?”

They shoved me down and held my arms as the third guy zip-tied me to the chair. My ankles were zipped next.

I should’ve fought. I was 98 percent sure that I wouldn’t have been able to overpower them, but I should’ve tried. I just followed orders, sat down, and let them tie me up. But I knew why.

Hope.

In the back of my mind, I thought that if I fought them, that would immediately put me into the enemy category. Ashton might not even interrogate me. They’d kill me or simply let me go, but inform Trace that I had . . . I didn’t even know. I had no idea what they thought right now. This was as much my interrogation as theirs.

I had to remember that.

But damn. I still should’ve fought.

“You’re going to kill me, Ashton? This is a bit of an overreaction because I didn’t give you a little bit of warning for the raids.”

He came to stand in front of me, and it was like I’d never seen the real Ashton. Slowly, as he watched me, I saw a layer of him strip away. There were no more grins. No dark teasing. No smirks. No kindness. No patience. (Not that I saw much of those, but they’d been there when he interacted with Trace.) All that was gone.

In his place was someone who liked cruelty.

I saw the dark delight. Ashton just let some evil into the basement, and that evil was him.

“You’re going to torture me.”

“You’re not here because you didn’t tell us about a raid. That was the excuse. You’re here because we have a mole, and it’s my job to find out if it’s you.”

Then he started.





CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN


JESS


I was carried out hours later. They took me upstairs, tossed me on one of the beds, and left. I knew without checking that the window was bolted shut and the door was locked. There was a bathroom I could use, but I was shivering, and my insides were twisted inside out.

He’d not touched me, but the questions and the tone Ashton had used.

If he could’ve killed me, he would’ve.

I would never forget the look on his face before they threw a sheet over my head, tipped me back, and poured water down my throat.

“Are you working for anyone in the Worthing family?”

“Have you installed listening devices on Trace’s phone or anywhere on his property?”

“What information did you tell your team leader about us?”

“Are you working with the police in gathering evidence against Trace?”

“Did you give our locations to any member of the government? Were you taken in for any questioning regarding us?”

He asked the questions over and over again. Everything. Anything. For hours, in between times when they would waterboard me. Experiencing almost drowning over and over again had an effect on a person. I’d aged twenty years over the last three hours.

Or the last few hours.

I had no idea what time it was, but it was starting to get light out. I was guessing it was six in the morning. Maybe five.

I touched my nails, felt how cold they were from my own touch.

“Are you planning on turning evidence on Trace?”

“Are you helping to build a case against him?”

“Did you agree to work undercover against the West family?”

They checked my pulse every time they asked.

They waterboarded me.

They stopped, asked me questions. Checked my pulse again.

They repeated it over and over again until I realized what they had done.

I was conditioned so that if they asked a question I knew would get me in trouble, my pulse would jump at the thought of the waterboarding. It took a long time, but it was effective. I had nothing to hide, but if I had, I wouldn’t have been able to hold it back.



I might’ve fallen asleep.

I must’ve because I woke as I was under the covers, curled on my side in a fetal position, and when I heard the door creak open, I almost pissed the bed. I was terrified but too terrified to leave this bed to relieve myself.

If Ashton hadn’t hated me before, it wouldn’t matter now. I hated him.

He’d reduced me to the six-year-old I used to be, and he’d become my father.

I gritted my teeth, tasting my own tears, and fuck him. Fuck them.

I didn’t move, hearing whoever came toward the bed.

They didn’t touch the bed. They didn’t touch me, but it was Ashton. “Leave Trace alone. After this, when you go back, don’t see him. Don’t call him. Don’t show up anywhere he’ll be. You’re fired from the nightclub.”