Page 30 of All Saints Day (Lucifer and the Saints #2)
“You like to think of yourself as the smartest, toughest guy in the room—don’t you?
” Louise walks her fingers from Frank’s right kneecap up his thigh.
“I wonder where that comes from?” She sighs, her fingers continuing their stroll up to the collar of his sweat-stained and scuffed button-down.
“What do you think, Q darling?” she chimes sweetly as her finger traces the square underline of Rook’s stubble-shadowed jaw.
“Must have gotten it from dear old dad, right?” Tin-tin offers sagely, Rook’s whole body goes still as Louise pinches his chin between her thumb and forefinger—forcing him to look at her, not Quentin as he pushes on, “The one man in organized crime all the mafia bosses feared; the undisputed king of hired muscle.” Rook does his best to keep on a brave face, but all the color drains from his cheeks as Louise keeps his chin clutched in her iron grip—her face looming over Rook’s.
“Patrick Castle—the man, the myth, the legend behind Castle Security,” Louise coos, her lips actually brushing against Rook’s now.
I had given Quentin and Caz the names Patrick Castle and Castle security, and set them on an information-gathering mission after Frank had fed me the name that night in the bathroom on the boat.
The pair had uncovered more than they bargained for and had only been able to bring Louise and I partially up to speed before this first interrogation; hoping they could use some of what they’d learned as leverage.
While I had an incomplete picture, I knew well enough to understand that they were really rattling the beast’s cage now.
“Oh god,” la bete groans, his face becoming suddenly closed tight with sorrow—brows knit, a deep frown, eyes brimming with tears even as all of his abdominal muscles fire into flexion—a breathy moan escaping him as Louise’s lips send an electric current through his entire body; her scent and Tin-tin’s mix in an oppressive cocktail within the small space.
“Who told you that name?” Rook pants, out of breath.
“Frank,” Louise entreats him. “Come back to me, Frank.”
Rook swallows hard, his eyes fluttering closed.
“Come back to us, Frank.”
His breathing becomes momentarily erratic, and his eyes dance wildly beneath half-closed lids.
Louise backs off, a tentative expression on her face as Rook shudders slightly in front of her.
When his eyes snap open—there is a clarity, a light, a lucidity that wasn’t there before.
“Louise,” he gasps—his eyes welling with tears before they dart to Quentin and the rest of us.
“Q, Seb, Caz—” Frank’s breath catches as his eyes fall on Dennis, a tiny sob escaping him before he gasps, “Dennis!” with an air of incredulity.
All of us are momentarily disarmed.
Could this really be him? Frank? Or is it another lie—another manipulation?
He doesn’t struggle against his bonds, to the contrary—he seems to go limp, all of the fight gone out of him.
Frank’s voice is so weak—a thin, raspy thing—that I almost don’t hear him when he entreats us.
“Just put me out of my misery.”
“You didn’t extend me such a kindness once the Windmill caught hold of me, why should I do you such a big favor?” Louise stares into his eyes with fiery intensity.
“Because you’re not broken,” he answers flatly, his eyes brimming with tears.
“You’re unbreakable, Louise—it’s why I knew you would hold out until either the Saints or I could get you out,” Frank bites out before turning his eyes down in shame—his chin still held in Louise’s iron grip.
“I couldn’t keep my shit together though, too fucked up. ”
I hear my own knuckles pop before I realize how hard I’ve clenched my fingers into fists. His face is just asking for a punch with this self-pitying bullshit.
“You’re here now—and you can spill.” Louise’s voice is honeyed poison, her own malice wafting in tendrils of her scent—the biting note of pink pepper sharp as a knife in the enclosed space.
Frank closes his eyes, his nostrils flaring as her perfume washes over him in a powerful wave.
“The more I tell you, the more danger I put you in,” he grits out, his body straining toward her against his bonds involuntarily.
“You almost killed me at the Windmill, what do you care about putting me in danger?” Louise accuses him plainly, letting go of his chin in disgust.
“I know it sounds crazy, that it doesn’t make sense.” Frank shakes his head, but Quentin swoops in like a bird of prey—snatching up a handful of raven hair at the crown of Frank’s head— forcing his head back, forcing Frank to look up at both Quentin and Louise.
“Well then, make it make sense, Francis,” Tin-tin hisses, but at the sound of the name ‘Francis’, Frank’s eyelids begin to droop.
“I can’t.” Frank appears to struggle against his heavy lids, his voice thready.
“Can’t or won’t?” Quentin brings his face in close to Frank’s.
“Can’t,” Frank groans desperately as he endures the full spectrum of Louise and Quentin’s scents together.
“If you don’t give us what we want, what we need the easy way, we’re going to have to do it the hard way,” Quentin threatens, his other spidery white hand crawling up over Frank’s clavicles to rest palm-down on Frank’s Adam’s apple, Tin-tin keeping Frank’s head raked back with that fistful of hair.
This draws a cruel smile across Frank’s face.
“Go ahead and pull out all the stops on the torture Q, Louise isn’t the only one who can take a beating,” he laughs weakly. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he sounds relieved to be tortured—possibly to death—for information.
“Oh, honey,” Louise tuts in a baby voice, pouting her lips. “We’re not going to hurt you—not like that anyway,” she drawls, reaching over to run her finger down the line of Frank’s nose, giving the tip a playful boop at the end.
Caz and Dennis have been so quiet this entire time that I nearly forgot that they were in the room with us until the pair of them let loose a few dry chuckles.
In truth, I myself had begun to feel like a fly on the wall—all but out of body as I absorbed the scene before me. Now, I feel my lips curl into a smile as Loulu and Q press in close to Frank—the grin dying on his lips as he grasps for understanding.
“Don’t look so confused.” Quentin tightens his grip on Frank’s hair, making Frank wince. “In all the time that Louise was held captive at the Windmill, you never once used the suppressant melters on her.”
Frank’s eyes widen, all the muscles along his jaw ticking madly.
“It wasn’t because you didn’t think they’d be effective—it’s because you knew that Louise could withstand any kind of horrible torture you put her through, but she wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation of her fated mate once she was in heat or close to it.”
Frank starts struggling in earnest now, his breaths coming fast and ragged as he struggles against his bonds—against Quentin’s hold.
“You hid that little detail from Rook too—so that he couldn’t give you away to Lowry.”
“Q, you don’t know what you’re doing,” Frank blurts out, but Louise cuts in before he can finish making his plea.
“If you can’t tell us here and now, then we’ll just have to see how long you can hang tough through rut denial from two of your fated mates while they’re in heat,” she levels the blow.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Frank stammers, his eyes darting sideways to find me at my place—on the edge of my seat on the frayed edge of the interrogation lamp’s beam. “Seb, tell them! They can’t let him have her.”
I just cross my arms over my chest and kick back, my face veiled from Frank in shadow, denying him a lifeline as his panic begins to swallow him up.
Just as I recede into the dark, Dennis steps into the light.
“Sounds like we have our answer, why don’t you two head to get some rest with Seb and Caz.
” He taps both Louise and Quentin on the shoulder—the pair seeming to wake from their trance—letting Frank loose before starting their retreat.
“We have a lot of preparations to make before the information extraction—you’ve done plenty here tonight.
I’m just going to have a few words with Frank and I’ll be right over, okay? ”
Caz and I exchange nods with Dennis and one another—herding the exhausted and adrenaline-sick Louise and Quentin out into the cool night air.