Page 24 of Silent Schemes (Broken Blood)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Varrick

Concrete is the worst kind of pillow.

Especially when it’s slick with blood, sweat, and something colder than ice water.

I wake to the tang of copper and the ache of being alive.

The warehouse is Cross family architecture—heavy brick, slit windows, smell of mold and mildew cut with industrial bleach.

There’s a chain around my left wrist, and another on the right, both anchored to the ground by a thick bolt hammered through rebar.

My ankles are locked together, padlocked.

I try to flex my hands and feel the drag of metal and the way my right shoulder has stopped working, gone limp and hot from the bullet that bored a channel through my deltoid.

The bleeding’s mostly stopped, but the pain’s nuclear.

There’s another body on the ground two meters away.

Will.

His suit’s torn open, shirt black with his own blood.

He’s breathing, but the breaths are shallow and whistling.

His right eye is swollen shut.

I’d say he looks like shit, but he’s still alive, so he looks better than most.

I look up.

The room’s big, maybe a thousand square feet, boxed in with cement blocks and grates welded over the windows.

No way out except the rolling steel door at the far end.

There are four guards in here with us, two at the door, two posted near a battered wooden desk where the warehouse foreman probably used to punch his clock.

All Cross muscle: shaved heads, cheap tactical gear, but the guns are real enough.

AKs and a shotgun resting on a barrel.

It would take about half a second to turn the place into a blender of flesh and cement dust if someone got nervous.

My eyes squeeze shut, trying to piece things together.

The last thing I remember is Sienna’s face, inches from mine, gun in her hand, my name on her lips.

She was crying.

Then the muzzle flash, the slug burning through me, the slow fade to black.

I don’t hate her for it.

I might hate her for what happens next.

There’s movement.

Boots slap the concrete, slow and rhythmic, as if the owner has all the time in the world.

Theodore Cross enters through the side door, flanked by a new pair of guards.

He looks like a man who just got away with murder.

Which, in fairness, he has.

His suit is dark brown, tailored, three buttons fastened to show off how slim he’s gotten in his old age.

The face is gaunt, lips curled up at the edges, but the eyes are pure predator.

He walks right up to me, crouches.

Examines the way my left arm won’t quite bend, the bruises blooming up my ribs, the shiner on my jaw.

He sniffs once, then straightens.

“I expected more from you, Varrick,” he says, letting my name hang in the air like a slur. “The King, chained like a dog. Your father would be ashamed.”

I spit blood on the ground between us, and it splatters the tip of his Italian boot.

“My father is a bastard,” I say. “Like me.”

Theodore’s smile goes thin. “Unlike your father, you’re not much for staying in charge of the situation.”

He motions to the guards.

They haul me upright, ignoring the dislocated shoulder.

My left knee gives, but I stay standing.

The chain rattles, echoing around the room.

“Bring him,” Theodore says.

They drag me across the floor, past Will, who’s just conscious enough to groan.

At the far end of the room, on a little makeshift stage of plastic crates, stands a row of Cross family loyalists.

And Sienna.

She’s flanked by two men, hands clasped behind her, but her face is blank, wiped clean of every emotion.

She’s wearing black again.

This time, it’s a jumpsuit, stained at the cuffs.

Her hair is wild, streak of silver blazing even in the shit lighting.

Her eyes don’t meet mine.

She doesn’t even look up.

Theodore gestures, and the guards kick my knees out, drop me to the floor in front of him.

He steps onto the crate platform, looming.

“Tell me, King. How does it feel to lose everything in a single night?”

I test the chains, slow.

They’re new, thick, and welded shut.

But the bolt in the floor isn’t set right.

It gives a millimeter when I pull.

Not much, but enough.

Sienna’s handiwork, maybe, or just Cross incompetence.

Silence is more dangerous than words.

Theodore wants a show, and I never perform for free.

He sighs, exaggerated, then turns to Sienna. “You said he’d break.”

She stares ahead, jaw rigid.

He steps in front of her, so close his face nearly touches hers. “You told me you could bring him to heel. That you’d leash the Bane family like the mutts they are. You failed.”

Her pulse beats in her neck, rapid, but her voice is steady. “You told me to bring him alive. He’s alive.”

A smattering of laughter from the peanut gallery.

Theodore raises his hand for silence. “You can do better and you were supposed to kill him,” he says. “You’re my daughter. Show me what you learned in all those years under my roof. Make the King beg.”

Sienna doesn’t flinch.

She walks down the steps, slow and fluid, and the guards push me forward onto my knees.

She stands over me, so close I can smell the sweat and the adrenaline coming off her skin.

She crouches, hands still behind her back, and looks at my left arm.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. Then, loud enough for everyone: “He doesn’t break. He just bends.”

She lifts her leg and slams her knee into my bullet wound, hard enough to make my vision go white.

I see stars.

My head snaps back, blood running hot down my bicep.

I want to grunt, but I don’t.

I don’t give them anything.

She leans in, her lips at my ear, and in a voice so low only I could hear: “North wall. Three men. C4 in the van outside. Your brothers know. I called them. My father wouldn’t leave your body here.”

She pulls back, grabs a fistful of my hair, and lifts my head. “You always said pain was a lesson. This is the test.”

She lets go, then walks to the wooden desk and returns with a knife.

Not a big one—thin, meant for slicing, not stabbing.

Theodore calls out, “Torture him, Sienna. Prove your loyalty.”

The guards hold me, one on each side, but Sienna kneels in front of me and traces the tip of the blade along my jaw.

She presses down, slowly, letting it dig a shallow cut from chin to ear.

The pain is nothing compared to the humiliation, the eyes of a dozen enemies watching as I bleed.

Sienna meets my gaze, just for a second.

Her eyes say nothing.

But her hands are careful, precise.

Each cut is shallow, mapped along nerve lines that hurt like hell but don’t cause real damage.

She’s marking me, not gutting me.

I let the first line of blood roll down my neck, into the collar of my shirt.

She slices a path across my forearm next, right above the tattoo of the reaper holding a chess king.

She hesitates, then presses the blade deeper, carving the tip of the blade just enough to make the reaper’s smile leak red.

She leans in, voice a breath: “Don’t fight when it starts. Let it happen.”

She draws another cut along my ribs, and the pain is electric, but it’s nothing compared to the way she won’t look at me after.

Theodore claps. “Now you see, Bane? No one is loyal in this world. Even the woman you let into your house, your bed, your goddamn life. She’s mine. Always was.”

I spit at him, blood this time, right onto his shoe.

He laughs. “Get this on camera,” he says to one of the guards. “I want everyone in Vancouver to see the King bow.”

The guard lifts a phone, starts filming.

Sienna makes a show of the next cut, this one across my chest, opening the old knife scar Korrin gave me as a kid.

My blood flows, hot and thick.

I see her jaw clench, but she never slows.

She whispers, “I was left no choice. He has Maya.”

It lands like a bullet in my chest. Her sister. The only leverage that could ever make her turn.

I say nothing. Just breathe.

She cuts again, lower, into the meat of my left thigh, just over the femoral artery but careful not to nick it.

The blood sprays in a fan, and the guards hoot.

She wipes the blade on her pant leg, then stands. “He’s ready. Next phase.”

Theodore waves her off. “You did well, Sienna.”

She doesn’t respond.

Instead, she returns to the crate stage and stands, head high, not looking at anyone.

The guards haul me up and drag me to the center of the room.

I stumble, legs numb, but keep my eyes open.

The steel door at the far end bangs open, and two men enter with a battered gurney.

They slap it down next to me, then force me onto it, chaining my arms and legs to the rails. I’m immobilized, a slab of meat on a tray.

Theodore circles me, a wolf with a sermon. “You thought you could take from me. My city. My legacy. My daughter.” He leans in, face inches from mine. “It’s time I take everything from you.”

He gestures to the guards. “Start the feed. Let the world watch him die slow.”

The phone camera goes live.

I see the red dot blinking, the audience already building on whatever shit-tier app they’re using for this.

Theodore raises a fist, dramatic. “Bring the other one.”

Will.

They drag him over, and chain him to the gurney next to me.

He’s barely conscious, eyes rolling back in his skull.

Theodore crouches by his head. “You can die first, if you want. Or you can watch your King die piece by piece. What’s your preference?”

Will mumbles something, but it’s just air and blood.

Theodore stands. “Suit yourself.”

He turns back to Sienna. “Finish it. If you can.”

She hesitates, just for a second.

I see it.

No one else does.

She walks to me, blade still in hand.

She kneels at my side, bends low so only I can hear.

“Twenty minutes. West wall.”

I nod, barely.

She digs the tip of the blade into my forearm, just below the elbow, and slices along the nerve until it blazes fire.

I bite my tongue to keep from screaming.

“Goodbye,” she whispers.

She stands, hands slick with my blood.

Theodore smirks, then walks to the guards. “Leave them to argue about who dies first. Let the King stew in his own mess for a while.”

He strides out, Sienna at his side.

The phone camera keeps rolling.