Page 138 of Lethal Torture

“You just lied to me, Ian.” I grip his throat harder. “So I’m going to ask you a different question. Has Rhys Stewart been trying to murder Zinaida Melikov?”

Another pause, slightly longer this time, then three slow blinks. Welch is close to passing out.

He’s also lying.

“I’m going to put you down now. Let you catch your breath.” I lower him as I speak. “But then I have some more questions.”

I drop him abruptly to the ground, relinquishing my hold on his neck, and he doubles over, coughing as he tries to pull air into his lungs. Before he manages to recover, I twist him around, arms behind his back, his face slammed up against the wall. I put my mouth close to his ear. “What skin do you have in this game, Ian?”

The man trained me to withstand torture. We both know he can go days, in circumstances far worse than this, before he cracks.

“Don’t do this, Macarthur.” His voice is a painful rasp. “Just walk away. Trust me, it’s the smart option. These people don’t fuck around.”

“These people, huh?” I slam him against the brick wall. “Names, Sandman.”

“Don’t fucking call me that,” he hisses.

“Why not,o chara?”

I spin around, startled, to find the entire troop arrayed behind Paddy, arms folded, staring hard-eyed at the two of us.

“Do you not want us to call you Sandman anymore,” Paddy goes on, “because you know you’ve betrayed everything it means to be known by that fucking name? Is that it?”

I turn Ian to face the group and his eyes move from one set face to another. “You don’t know shit,” he says furiously.

“Now you see, that’s not quite true.” Paddy tilts his head to one side. “For instance, I know that last week Rhys Stewart had lunch with a piece of shit called Simon Lowbridge. I know that less than an hour after he left the restaurant, you sent a message inviting us all to tonight’s little reunion. At the time, now, I didn’t put those two things together. Why would I, after all?” He gestures with his head to the young Scottish lad next to him, the most recent retiree from the forces. “It was only when young Bryan happened to mention, just now, that you’d been offering him some cash work on home soil that things began to make sense.”

“Is that right.” Ian spits blood on the ground.

“You started Bryan off with some private security work, so he tells me. On docks up north, for Lowbridge Inc.” Paddy stares at our old instructor with the same disgust he might regard a cockroach. “When Bryan objected to the kind of shipments coming in, you lied to his face. Told him it was all part of a covert operation to break up a human trafficking ring—which, you claimed, was being run by Zinaida Melikov.”

I slam Ian hard against the wall. “You piece of fucking shit,” I growl, putting a hand over his mouth to shut off whatever bullshit he’s about to speak.

“It gets worse,” Paddy continues. “After Georgiy Ivanov was killed, the major told Bryan that Zinaida was such a threat that the government had given up trying to bring her to justice and decided to just take her out themselves. He told Bryan he’d taken an enormous paycheck to do the job, off the books andoff the record, but that he’d run into problems becauseanother operativewas running protection for her.”

He meets my eyes with an uncharacteristically sober expression. “That’s you, cock,” he says quietly. “In case it wasn’t clear.”

Betrayal and corrosive anger churn in my gut.

I turn to Bryan, not trusting myself to form the words I need to ask.

“The major told me you were working with the traffickers.” Bryan doesn’t flinch as he offers the information. “When I didn’t believe him, he showed me footage of you fighting our men in Avonmouth as proof. Then he offered me more money than I’d ever seen if I’d make sure you were no longer a problem.” The Scot shakes his head. “I refused. When he pushed it, I said I needed to hear from your own mouth that you were involved before I took the job. He told me that if I came tonight, I’d get the proof I was after.”

My lip curls. “And did you?”

“Aye,” says the Scot stolidly. “But not the kind the major was hoping.” He tilts his head to Paddy. “I got much more interesting answers from your man here.”

“Fortunately,” says Paddy, glaring at Welch, “Bryan still knows what loyalty fucking means. Which is why he asked the right questions—and listened to the answers—before taking out one of his own brothers on your command, you evilfuck.”

There’s a horrible silence, during which Ian Welch studies the fierce, extremely dangerous line of faces in front of him. Then he raises his eyes to mine defiantly. “You can talk about loyalty and honor all you fucking like,” he growls. “I’m not the one sleeping with a murderous psychopath who bribes half the city and kills the ones she can’t.”

Christ.

Fuck this prick.

I punch Ian once, extremely hard, in the side of the head, knocking him senseless.

“Well, that’s one way to end a conversation.” Paddy nods at Welch’s limp figure. “What do we do with him now?”