“Was it my voice?”
“Wha—I don’t know, man! I don’t have a goddamn recording of your voice to compare it to. It was deep like yours, that’s all I know.”
I nod my head, letting him see in my eyes just how much he fucked up. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who actually killed his father.
“Did you bother confirming if it was me?”
“Oh, my bad, bro, I’ll call you up next time,” he retorts.
I grin savagely. “Are you telling me you’re not resourceful, Maximilian? Because I am, and I have many resources to make you suffer. If you're going to get revenge for a murder, then you better be sure about who actually fucking did it.”
He flounders, his mouth flopping as he realizes that he acted without thought. He saw his father die a brutal death, decided who it was based on a single sentence, and sent Addie to the slaughterhouse.
Red is seeping into my vision, and it takes all of my control to keep it at bay. To see clearly—because I want to witness every fucking second of Max’s death.
“You want to know who killed your father, jackass? The very people you sold Addie off to. The Society killed him so you would betray me, and then target Addie. You fell right into their fucking trap and did all the dirty work for them.”
He shakes his head. “How would they know about our deal and what you did to my father?”
“I don’t know, Max, did your father open his fat fucking mouth and flap it to anyone who would listen? Did you? Whining about how I kidnapped him and threatened him if you so much as touched Addie and Daya. You tellin’ me neither of you didn’t go around bitching about it to anyone that possesses ears?”
His teeth click, confirming my presumption. “It’s not hard to find out about our rivalry when you don’t shut the fuck up about it,” I hiss.
He grunts as I haul him towards the front door, his feet dragging on the tile and nails clawing at my hand in panic. I plan on taking this very slow with him. Getting as much information as I can before I send him down below.
“Wait, wait, it was a mistake. Let’s work something out,” he sputters as I drag him down the porch stairs and towards my car. “I’ll get her back!”
I flash him a ferocious smile. “Don’t worry, Max, I plan on working out a lot of things with you. Or rather, working them out of you.”
The bloody scalpel clatters against the metal tray, and Max’s groans fill the air. He didn’t find it humorous when I started playing “Bodies” by Drowning Pool to drown out his incessant screaming.
I laughed the entire song, even though I can’t feel anything right now but burning flames in my hollow chest.
Wires are attached to Max’s chest, leading to a machine designed specifically to restart a heart the second it stops. I built it when I first started in this business, though it’s rarely used anymore. In the beginning, my rage towards sex traffickers went unchecked. But over the years, I found the faster they die, the more I can kill.
I’ve killed Max via asphyxiation twice now. The second his heart stops beating, my machine brings him back to life via electricity, where I proceed to torture him slowly, and then kill him again. Rinse, repeat.
I hadn't even started asking questions yet, too angry to speak.
He’s gone mad now. So close to death just to awake to my smiling face, over and over. Yet, I still feel nothing.
“Rick Boreman is who you transferred the money to. Who was his partner?”
“R-Rio,” he answers. “Dunno his last name.”
His speech is choppy from the toll his body has endured.
“How do you know them?”
“I don’t re… real-ly. C-Connor and Rick were friends. I knew Rick had connections, so I got his number from Connor’s old phone.”
“And how did you know what Rick’s involved in?”
“Connor talked about the Tala-la-verras pos-ssibly sticking their hands in the trade, and he men-mentioned he had connections to do so through Rick. They never ended up getting in-involved, so nothing more was ever said about Rick than… than that.”
I cock a brow. The Talaverras getting involved in human trafficking would’ve been a fucking disaster. Especially with Archie involved and his playboy status—he would’ve condemned a lot of girls to that fate. Suppose I did more good than I initially thought by killing them all.
“Who do Rio and Rick work for?”