Page 144 of Lethal Torture

With lightning swiftness, I get close, letting Ian see the soulless psychopathic smile that made me infamous. Then I push the hard edge of the blade up against his perineum, with enough force to cut into the thin membrane.

Ian lets out an involuntary high-pitched sound that no man could ever be proud of making.

“Christ,” mutters one of the men behind me.

Ian’s eyes shift desperately to Luke. “I’m one of your own,” he croaks. “You can’t let her do this.”

“Correction.” Luke folds his arms, eyeing him without a hint of discomfort. “Youwereone of our own. Now you’re just a piece of shit who helps traffic women into slavery. I’ll happily stand here and watch Miss Melikov cut your cock off. I’ll even cheer her on while she makes you eat it.”

A murmur of assent comes from the men behind me.

I twist the knife, and Ian yelps as blood drips over the blade.

“Or,” Luke says, and Ian’s head snaps up eagerly, “you can start talking. Maybe, if you’re lucky, she’ll agree to let us finish you instead.”

Ian stares over my shoulder to the faces of the men behind me, pride warring with fear in his eyes.

“We might let you keep your cock, but don’t think we’ll go a great deal easier.” For once there’s no trace of humor in Paddy’s voice. “I saw the women who came out of that container in Avonmouth. Most of them could barely feckin’ stand, let alone talk. For that alone, I’d see you dead, and count it a good feckin’ day’s work.”

There’s a moment of tense silence.

Ian turns resentful eyes to Luke. “I’ll tell you whatever the fuck you want to know,” he says bitterly. “Just get this psychotic bitch away from me.”

“Oh, that isn’t how this works,” I interrupt lightly. “Luke is going to ask you questions. I’m going to make sure your answers are truthful.”

I dig the blade a little deeper, just to make my point.

“Fuck,” Ian gasps, eyeing me with open terror. “Ask, Macarthur. Just fucking ask.”

Luke folds his arms and stares the man down. “Why does Rhys Stewart want Zinaida dead?”

“Because she’s got so much dirt on everyone in power that the law can never touch her. Rhys said anyone with that kind of power is a threat to our national security. He needed someone off book to take her out, so he came to me.”

Luke’s lip curls. “And you fucking believed that?”

Ian looks at him sullenly. “We both know it wouldn’t be the first time someone has made that kind of ask, Macarthur. And he handed me one hell of a paycheck.”

“What’s the connection between Stewart and Lowbridge?” Luke fires the questions with hard detachment.

“Rhys told me that Lowbridge had a connection inside the Melikov bratva who could give us information on the target’s movements.”

It’s odd hearing myself described as atarget.But Luke doesn’t flinch, so neither do I.

“Did you ever meet this connection?”

“No.” Welch shakes his head. “I dealt with a middleman called Bogdan Kozlov. He told me that the connection was a girl who’d been trafficked by the Melikovs as a child and wanted revenge.”

Traded as a child?

I keep my face blank, but my mind is racing.

Eva came to Sophie’s House just over a year ago, beaten, bloody, and bearing a trafficking brand on her shoulder. She didn’t offer details on her story, and we didn’t ask too many questions.

If Ian is telling the truth, then I guess it’s possible she was one of my father’s victims, though she would have had to have been extremely young. But many of those my father abused work for me to this day. They all know I had no part in their suffering.

It makes no sense.

“What was Lowbridge’s interest in the target?” Luke asks.