Page 6 of The Wicked

“We don’t work for anyone.”

He kept his eyes on me, bringing out the plastic baggie, and revealing my anklet. “How do you explain this?”

I eyed the jewelry, my heart hammering before I looked up at him, nerves crawling up my spine. “What does that have to do with anything?”

He studied my face as he spoke. “It was found at the scene of the arson. For such a careful operation… you must have wanted to be found.”

Fuck… I dropped my head and blew out a breath. “It probably fell off, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t even realize until now.”

“Do not lie to me.”

“It’s the truth. My crew and I—we—we work alone. Wait—Where are they?”

He let silence fall before he stepped closer to me and slipped the bag into his pocket, his gaze roaming my face. “Dead, alive, being tortured as we speak, it is of no importance to me. Tell me what I need to know and stop wasting my time.”

“I already told you,” I gritted, meeting his gaze. “We work for no one. We know no one but each other. If it’s your money you want, as you already know, we took some and burned down the rest; we can return what we took—we can—”

“You do not want to lie to me; aside from the fact that I can see through it, I am a liar who hates liars.”

My gaze locked with his. “Doesn’t—doesn’t that mean you’re lying right now?”

He went quiet, blinked, then, “What?”

“If you hate liars—and you are a liar—doesn’t that mean you hate yourself?”

His expressionless eyes stared into mine—if I weren’t tied to a chair, probably about to die, I would have commended the way he stopped his thoughts from being highlighted on his face.

He nodded. “You think I am here to play psychology with you.” He pointed his gun at me, and I heard a loud bang before I felt the pain spread from my shoulder to my whole body. It was as if my breath had been sucked out of my lungs. The cry that left my mouth was harsh and hoarse.

The bastard shot me.

For the first time, his eyes turned hard and he leaned in again, placing his gun-free hand on the shoulder he just shot, his thumb pressing against the wound. “Now, I ask again—” Through my blood-and-sweat-soaked shirt, his thumb dug deeper into the wound as if fishing to find the bullet.

“Gah, fuck!” I yelled. The pain was blinding, and I ground my teeth together as tears fought to leave my eyes while I held them at bay.

“Who paid you to steal from me?”

“No one!” I screamed between my teeth in anger and pain. “Please—please stop! I swear we did it alone—fuck!” My lips trembled.

“Truth, I need the truth.”

He dug his thumb in again, and I squirmed and bit back a cry at the pain that had me lightheaded.

“Talk.”

“Why—whywould I fucking lie! You are The fucking Wicked. People fear you—more than anyone—in this—business—no one could pay me a million dollars to fuck with you—no one but myself. As we have done before, I trusted myself to do this without any casualties, and my people trusted me. No one sent my team or me—we did it of our own accord—because we could.”

“How do you explain the tracking device on the anklet?”

I shivered in pain. “Safety purposes, I swear. Our job is dangerous; it was meant to be on me.”

Then there was silence. A moment of him watching me and me breathing heavily while watching him.

Suddenly, he removed his hand from the wound, and I sagged in relief while he straightened and looked away, wipinghis forehead. “This is a waste of my time,” he muttered under his breath before looking back at me. “How can you all be so stupid to steal from someone like me? You thought you could get away with it?”

“We did,” I said before I could stop myself.

“Angelo!” he yelled into the silence, and a young man walked in. Composure in place, his hair brushed back and curled at the tip, his brown skin tanned, lips pursed. His eyes moved to me for a swift second before they settled on The Wicked.