Page 73 of The Queen’s Shadow

I moved the gun from his head to his shoulder and fired once. The barrel was pressed back into his forehead again before he even started screaming.

“No one can hear you.” I deadpanned, watching him writhe in agony on the dirty mattress like the gutted pig he was. I cracked the gun across his face and his head snapped to the side.

“Shut the fuck up and spread your legs. If I have to ask again, the next bullet is going between your eyes.”

He whimpered, but he more or less managed to quiet down. I allowed him to clutch the wound in his shoulder, as a reward for doing what he was told and opening his legs wider.

“Good. Now, we’re going to play a game. I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to give me an honest answer. If you answer wrong, I’m going to remove a body part.”

“And… if I answer right… you’ll let me go?” He looked at me with so much hope in his eyes that I almost laughed.

“Sure, I’ll let you go.” I promised, and his eyes lit up. “I’ll let you go like you let Kasha go.”

He nodded. He was either too consumed by pain to understand the implication, or like most people confronted with their mortality, he selectively heard ‘let you go,’ and desperately clung to it. I didn’t really care either way.

“Where do you think she is? Give me a list of places you and your shit friends were going to look.”

“There are a few more private clubs on The Boulevard that even I don’t have access to. We were going to see if we could find her there. If she’s not there then she’s in The Gauntlet, in the royal brothels. Only inner-city residents have access to those.”

“Give me the names of every single place you were going to check.”

Koliath rattled off nearly fifteen establishments. I tried not to growl in frustration at how many there were. This was going to take longer than I wanted it too.

“I can take you to them,” he said, his voice desperate. “I have connections, I can try to get you in.”

I looked pointedly down at his severed ankles and back up at him.

“I don’t think you’re taking anyone, anywhere, Koliath. Your friends that we were going to meet for cards. What are their names?”

“Charno, Itadin, and Barraeck.”

My lip curled in disgust at how easily he gave up his friends. All three of their names were in Kasha’s notebook, which meant they were on my list.

Another wave of chilling, cold rage rushed through me. I took a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth. I needed to stay in control. The thought of anyone touching Kasha was enough to make me want to skin someone alive. The fact that I was so close to four men who had hurt her was nearly unbearable. I literally felt like the ground was shifting beneath my feet. I closed my eyes briefly to regain my equilibrium, and when I opened them, Koliath was whimpering again.

He knew he was fucked. Deep down he knew it.

“Please, let me go, I’ll do anything... I’ll give you anything you want.”

I leaned in over him, pressing the tip of the blade into the crotch of his pants enough that it pierced the fabric.

“When you visited Kasha, what did you do to her?” I asked, my voice was quiet. There was no anger in my tone. It was just a question.

“Listen, I don’t know why you care. It was a hundred years ago; you probably weren’t even born yet! It’s ancient history!”

“Wrong answer.”

I drove the dagger forward between his spread legs, plunging it deep into his prostate. His screams were reminiscent of a cat in heat. The sound raked over me and the cold in my blood warmed slightly.

I smiled.

His cry made me feel good enough that I wanted to make him do it again. I twisted the blade inside him, and he began to sob.

“Tell me what you did to her.” My tone was casual, light even. As if I were trying to convince a friend to share the details of a one-night stand.

“Please, stop.” He begged, tears and snot dripping down his ugly, twisted face.

“Is that what she said? When you raped her?” I pulled the knife out of him and slammed it back down into his thigh, until I felt the tip hit bone. He howled again and I rolled my eyes.