Page 76 of The Kingpin's Call Girl

She doesn’t listen, of course. She’s eyeing my face, all concerned. I know what she sees—fat lip, big, angry bruise on my cheekbone, goose egg on my head.

I point at the door.

“But your face—let me put some salve?—”

“Nope.”

“It’s on the bedside table. It’ll help reduce the swelling.”

I stalk right up to her. “You may think because you played nursemaid and saw some scars that we have some sort of connection. But we don’t have a connection; we have a transaction.”

Hurt flashes in her eyes, but she doesn’t make a move because it takes more than this for a girl like Edie to back off.

“You gonna make me throw you out in nothing but my shirt?”

“Fine.” She puts her clothes back on and comes out all ready to go, but she hesitates, wringing her purse straps. Of course.

“What?” I demand.

“I need to know. Whoever did that to you... to your back andall that. Were they ever held accountable? Did they answer for what they did?”

The scars.

“What do you care?”

“What do I care?” She looks incredulous. “Because of what they did to you, that’s what. That happened when you were young. Was it at the whatever school?”

“Look, Edie, shitty things happen all the time. A lot of really shitty things are happening to a lot of people this very second. There’s nothing to be done about it.”

“But this shitty thing happened toyou,” she says. “It happened to you when you were young, and it’s not okay.”

“Go.” I point at the door, voice hard.

“No,” she says, defiant. “I need to know if they ever answered for what they did to you. If it’s some institution still operating, they need to be shut down. If it was a person...” Her eyes flash with conviction. “They should pay.”

“And you’d be the one to hold them accountable?” I ask, incredulous.

“I would.”

“How exactly would you manage that?”

“I’d find a way.” Her voice drops, fierce and determined. “I’d make them pay. Don’t think I wouldn’t.”

My pulse races.Shewants to avengeme? Something deep inside me turns upside down, the ground shifting beneath my feet. I let her touch me in that bed, but it was nothing compared to how she’s reaching into me now. Suddenly I need her back in my bed with an urgency that stuns me—a hunger almost stronger than the vengeance I’ve sworn.

I shake myself out of it.

I don’t do relationships. This is a transaction. It can never be more.

“If you must know,” I say casually, “they did, in fact, answer for what they did. You’re right that I was a kid. I was sent to aschool for bad kids down in the jungles of Tucumayo. Very old-fashioned and Draconian ideas of things. All iron rods and fire and brimstone. You know Tucumayo?”

She shakes her head, expression unreadable.

“It’s a tiny jungle principality between Suriname and Brazil, and there’s a notorious reformatory there. Bad kids were sent there from both North and South America, and there were a dozen adults in charge. I slaughtered them all—the adults, that is. Not the kids.”

She straightens. “Excuse me?”

“Well, I slaughteredmostof the adults, let’s say.”