Seeds of Iniquity (In the Company of Killers, #4)(16)

I jump off of her, biting harshly on my bottom lip out of rage, my eyes swirling with heat and anger as I lean over her on the floor and grab a fistful of blonde hair, my fingers pressing against the back of her scalp, and I drag her body across the tile floor on her back. Both of her black heels come off, left in a trail behind her.

Before I get her all the way back around to her side of the table, I lose my footing and come crashing down when she grabs my ankle with both hands and pulls back with all of her strength. Blood springs up in my mouth when my face makes contact with the floor.

Suddenly I can’t breathe. My eyes roll into the back of my head as she tightens the chain between her ankles about my throat, her legs scissored tightly as she lays across the floor, her body held up on her forearms, all of her power shifted to her feet, locking me in place. My fingers come up quickly as I try desperately to wedge them behind the chains. I feel my whole head becoming hot, bloating stiffly on my neck and turning beet red and purple.

She tightens her ankles even more, rendering me immobile; the smell of her tight leather pants heavy in my nostrils. I want to give up, I feel like it’s all I can do. My body begins to betray me as my limbs begin to soften. I gasp for air that just won’t come and tears of exhaustion fill the corners of my eyes.

“Out of your league,” I hear Nora’s voice say amid the vociferous pumping of blood in my head.

Something inside of me snaps, and my eyes spring open wildly in my face. I scream out something I can’t even decipher and finally get my fingers between the chain and my throat. I pull it away with everything in me, spurred on by rage and vengeance and the will to live, until I overpower her and set my neck free, slamming her legs down against the floor.

She starts to crawl away on her hands and knees in the direction of my overturned chair.

I leap to my feet, pulling Pearl from my boot before I’m fully upright, and I’m standing over her with the blade against her throat and the back of her hair in my fist, pulling her neck back as far as it’ll go without snapping.

“I’ll cut off more than your finger, bitch!”

She freezes. Her hips and pelvis and legs are pressed against the floor, the whites of her eyes visible to me as I stand over her from behind.

“Where is Dina?!” I yank on her scalp, pulling her neck back even farther; if she even flinches the wrong way the blade will break the skin and she knows it. “Fuck these games of yours! Tell me where you took her!”

“Come closer and I’ll tell you,” she says with difficulty, her voice strained.

Without even thinking about it I do, but I keep the blade against her throat as I sit down on her back.

“Try anything and I’ll kill you,” I growl, my lips next to her ear.

She doesn’t try to fight back, but I’m not feeling defeat from her. It’s something else. That confidence about her that I’ve grown to despise. Even though I’m the one sitting on top of her, the one with the knife pressed to her throat, I can’t help feel like she’s still the one in control.

“Where is she?” I whisper harshly against the side of her face.

“Nine years as a sex slave in a Mexican compound,” she whispers back. “Something tells me they didn’t care much for condoms. Did they, Sarai?”

My entire body, every bone, every muscle, solidifies in an instant.

“If you want Dina Gregory to live,” she says, still in a whisper too low for the audio to pick up, “then you and I need to have a talk about the specifics of the relationship you had with Javier Ruiz.”

It feels like an eternity that I sit on top of her, straddling her back, lost in some kind of stunned submission. I can’t find words. Or my heartbeat. And my mind is running away from me.

Then my knife hand begins to tremble and my breathing becomes unsteady.

I slide the knife away from her throat, push her head down forcibly against the tile with the other hand, shoving myself angrily to my feet and off of her. I don’t look at her when she gets up, struggling into a stand with her ankles bound. And I look only at the floor when she shuffles right past me, picking up her black heels along the way, and goes back over to her seat on the other side of the table.

I keep my back to her, unable to move; my eyes beginning to burn from the angry tears pushing their way to the surface. My knife is gripped within my hand firmly, resting down at my side. I feel like using it on myself.

“Shall we begin?” Nora says as calmly as ever, waiting for me at the table. “I’m eager to hear all about your time in Mexico.” She says it in a more audible voice, glancing at a camera.

Raising my head slowly, I look up toward the tiny hidden camera fixed in the vent near the ceiling to my right. I look right at Victor, or at least I hope he realizes that’s what I’m doing, my eyes filled with regret and shame and…sorrow.

A tear tumbles down one cheek, but I don’t have the energy to wipe it away.

My eyes fall away from the camera and look at the floor instead.





Victor





“Turn off the audio,” I instruct Dorian.

Niklas argues, “Wait, we need to leave it on in case—”

“I said turn it off.”

For the first time since I entered this room, I feel the need to sit down.

“Victor, this is a mistake,” Niklas says. “Anything Nora says could be of use.”