Page 132 of Convict's Game

“Then how are you sure?”

“Because I would’ve found the miserable son of a bitch by now. He came out of your goddamned game, and my guess is he got jumped and eradicated that night. Now you know as much as I do, let me the fuck out of here.”

I chuffed a laugh. “You’re in no position to make demands.”

“I’ll see both of you hanging from the rafters of the base you raided and let your blood decorate my floor.”

How descriptive.

Shade tutted. “How did you know he was going into our game?”

Salter clamped his jaw.

Shade handed me a pair of black metal pliers. “Your choice.”

I took them without flinching.

Salter’s eyes widened. I gripped the pliers around his smallest finger and squeezed, enough to crush the nail, break the bone, and pulp the flesh beneath.

He screamed, the sound bouncing off the walls. “One of my girls gets the names from her boyfriend.”

“Who is?”

He gave up the name of one of the guys who worked the bar in Divide. He’d be fired by the time we got back.

I moved on. “Why did you need Jacobs?”

“He was trying to quit his part in our chain.” Salter’s breath came in ragged gasps. “He couldn’t walk away. My goddamn livelihood, and he was fucking around with it.”

“He was selling the women you supply in his auctions? That’s why you took over?”

Salter’s mouth stayed closed. Wrong choice.

I picked up his next finger. Crushed it. Then a third.

Silver rings tinkled to the floor and rolled, one by one.

His anguish filled the room. “Fuck, okay! You’re wrong. He brought the women in, not me. He had a reputation with clients and could earn top dollar. I couldn’t replicate it and I couldn’t let him just walk away.”

Mila had said the auctions were run by Jacobs when he was fresh out of school. “If he sourced the flesh and ran the auctions, what was your role?”

“Vendor for rejected stock.”

Disgust coated my tongue. We’d suspected Jacobs could’ve moved on from virginity auctions of willing women to being a people trafficker, but Salter was claiming he was more. The kingpin in the trade that disintegrated with his departure.

None of this gelled to the image of the man I’d met in the interview. The grandma-fiddling contestant who’d wanted skeleton crew protection. Who’d been knocked out only minutes into the game.

“Why did he quit?”

Salter breathed through his nose. Stubborn fuck.

I nodded to Shade, who clipped a jumper cable to Salter’s broken hand. A zap of current and Salter convulsed, howling. Sweat poured down his face.

“No idea!” His spit flew. “Something scared him off. He stopped showing up. Pulled his money. Wouldn’t answer calls.”

“You expect us to believe that’s all you know?”

“I swear it. Something changed. Someone bigger than me spooked him. I just wanted him to man the fuck up and keep the business going for all our sakes.”