“What’s the end game?” I sink my knife into his left thigh.
“Fucker!” he yells.
I hold up the knife, ready to plunge it into the right leg.
“Wait. I’ll tell you.”
I pause with the knife in the air to keep the pressure on him to talk.
“Chernov wants to be part of the decision-making in the valley.” He grimaces. “Feels he can bring a fresh perspective that will benefit us.”
What a stupid fuck. “And you were going to hand him the keys? Just like that? He’s a fucking oligarch. He doesn’t care about the valley.”
“He’s not looking for control. Just input.”
“You are dumber than I thought. Chernov set off the explosion at Santa Ana’s, didn’t he?”
“Not supposed to happen like that.”
I stick the knife into his side, instantly drawing blood. “How was it supposed to happen?”
“No more!” he cries.
“Then keep talking.”
“He had information about the girl,” Tomas mutters through clenched teeth. “She’s my kid. I was going to take custody of her once thatputawas dead.”
He knows everything, and so do others. Although without him, the Russians have no easy way forward.Just bloody ones.“You mean take custody of Quinta Rosa do Vale.”
He nods.
I already owned it, but he could have dragged the betrothal contract through the courts. He wouldn’t have gotten anywhere, certainly not with the judges in Porto, but he would have made my life unpleasant.
I slide the knife point across his belly until it reaches his balls. “That puta you speak of is my wife. She was twelve when you raped her. Her name isSenhoraDaniela. Say it.” When he doesn’t, I nick his balls with the blade while he writhes in pain, twisting and turning on his chains.
“Say it.”
“SenhoraDaniela.”
I lay the bloody knife on the chair and leave before I end his misery much too soon.
The problem with torture is that at some point every man will tell you whatever it is they think you want to hear. This is especially true when they sense the angel of death hovering. At that point, they know there’s no going back, and they just want it over.
Tomas surrendered early, not simply because he’s a coward with no allegiance to anyone but himself, although he is that. But he talked early because when I walked into the dungeon, the angel of death was perched on my shoulder, ready to harvest his black soul. He knew the most he could hope for was a quick death.
Tomas didn’t give me anything that Fedorov didn’t hint at, or that we didn’t already suspect. He just provided confirmation.
With the mothership behind him, Chernov is a much more formidable enemy than Tomas.
64
DANIELA
It’s been two days since I’ve heard anything from Antonio. I’m feeling boxed in, ready to scream.
Alvarez hasn’t left the apartment once, and he hasn’t said a word to me about what’s going on outside these walls. Not that he’s ever very chatty. Alma, who knows less, has given me more.
“Something’s going on,” she whispered to me this morning. “Something big. For two days, the security has been tighter than normal around the building. And there are a dozen soldiers stationed outside the apartment door.”