Chapter 53

FIFTY-THREE

XERO

As Camila rounds the corner of the house with Myra Mancini, the air fills with the sound of feminine squeals. I rise off the bench and retreat into the kitchen, leaving the women to reconnect. Myra might be just what Amethyst needs to feel like she’s finally safe.

I walk past a wall of oak cabinets and enter a pantry filled with shelves of canned food. Stretching my hand up to the highest shelf, I pull the lever that releases the hidden door leading down to the basement. It springs open, revealing a darkened stairwell. As I descend, Myra’s voice grows faint, replaced by the gentle hum of our backup generators.

Fury powers my steps. Knowing that Amethyst is afraid of me is a dagger to the heart. I hate myself for making her suffer after I escaped prison. She should be recovering from her ordeal, not dreading my retribution.

Better still, she shouldn’t have ended up in Father’s clutches at all. I need to find that bastard. Kill him slowly for every torment he and his underlings inflicted on Amethyst. And for all the other women and children he corrupted and killed.

And for me.

I break into a jog, my footsteps echoing off the concrete walls. I don’t stop until I reach the passageway leading to the bunker where we’re holding our most promising of Father’s investors.

Its steel door grinds open under my fingertips, releasing damp air drenched with the mingled scents of blood and sweat. A fluorescent lightbulb swings from the ceiling, casting moving shadows across a dimly lit room equipped with chains hanging on the walls, and a metal table lined with tools.

Its single occupant slumps, blindfolded, bruised, and bound to a chair welded to the concrete floor with metal plates. Four IVs lead from his arms: sodium pentothal to lower his defenses, an amphetamine to keep him alert, scopolamine for compliance, and a saline solution to keep him alive long enough to talk.

He’s a middle-aged man who works out but still piles on the carbs, making him look more bulky than buff. His head is shaved in that defeated way of men losing to male pattern baldness, yet a thick ring of hair on his chin extends up his sideburns and around the back of his head. Nothing says ‘holding on to youth’ like a balding man clinging to his last scraps of dignity.

I press a button on the wall that sends a burst of electricity through the chair. He jerks awake with a scream, the restraints digging into his bloated flesh.

Inhaling a deep breath, I savor the scent of his fear.

“Good afternoon, Carl,” I say. “You and I are going to have a little chat.”

“Who’s there,” he slurs. “Do you know who I am?”

He’s a resistant fucker. Either he’s been trained to resist truth serums or he’s belligerent to the core. By now, the cocktail of drugs should have him broken and drooling. I cross the room and tear off his blindfold.

“Deputy Chief Carl Hunter,” I sneer. “Second-in-command to the Chief of Police of New Alderney.”

Hunter blinks over and over, his eyes adjusting to the sudden influx of light. He squints, closes his eyes then, forces them open. Recognition melts his battered face into a mask of shock. His pupils dilate, and his ruddy skin drains of all color.

“X-Xero? Xero Greaves?” he stammers. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

I flash my teeth at the memory of my piece-of-shit half-brother who I left to fry on the electric chair. “I’m not that easy to kill. Now, let’s talk about Delta.”

Hunter’s face tightens, the shock giving way to defeat, even dread. He swallows hard, his lips pressed into a grim line. No matter how much he tries to maintain his composure, his stoic mask is riddled with cracks.

“My colleagues will have launched a manhunt. They’re probably already on their way.”

I let out a short, humorless laugh. “That’s doubtful, unless they know you flew to Helsing Island for a front-row seat to a snuff movie.”

His gaze darts around the room, his restrained hands clenching and unclenching. “Let me go,” he spits out, his voice rough. “Delta will kill you.”

“Delta abandoned you long before we hauled your carcass onto our catamaran. Do you know what he did when I updated your group chat with photos of the investors’ unconscious bodies?”

He stiffens.

I lean in close, my voice barely above a whisper. “Absolutely nothing.”

Hunter’s eyes flicker with a mix of doubt and fury. He struggles against his restraints, his face flushing red. The veins on his forehead stand out like bolts of lightning.

He draws a harsh breath, his barrel chest heaving to match the rhythm of his rising panic. “You’re lying. Delta wouldn’t. He has an entire team of operatives?—”

“If you mean the Moirai, you’re out of luck. They cast him out years ago.”

I walk to the table of torture instruments and select Hunter’s phone. After unlocking it with his face, I select the group chat and turn the phone so that Hunter can see the screen.

He draws in a sharp breath, his face contorting with disbelief, taking in the truth displayed on the app. The last message reads: ‘Delta has left the group.’

“Now, are you ready to talk?” I ask.

Hunter swallows hard, his features falling into a mask of resignation. “I can’t tell you much. Delta is a secretive man who keeps all his members at arm’s length.”

“I would believe that from any of the other investors we captured, but you’re the only one who never sent any funds. Why would that be?”

We both know the answer. Hunter’s high-ranking position in the police force gives Father the freedom to operate his illicit movie network without fear of being caught. It’s probably how he got Nocturne implicated when X-Cite Media switched from femdom content to snuff.

Bending his neck, Hunter closes his eyes, tightens his lips, and swallows. “You’d better kill me, because I don’t have any information.”

“I hoped you’d say that.” I slip on a pair of gloves, not wanting to contaminate my hands with his filth.

His head snaps up. “What?”

The first punch lands with a satisfying crunch against his cheekbone. He grunts, his head lurching to one side from the impact. I lean in, my teeth bared.

“I need to work out a fuckload of frustration, and you just volunteered your bloated carcass as my toy.”

His eyes widen for a fraction of a second before reverting to the stoic mask. I pull back my fist and deliver another punch to his gut. He jerks forward in his restraints, releasing an explosive grunt.

I continue with a series of jabs and uppercuts, filling the room with echoes of flesh hitting flesh.

His body jerks and shivers with the impact of each blow. Blood trickles down his nose and from his split lip. I take pleasure in his pain, in the way his body moves with each blow, and in the way his face contorts and twitches under my assault.

But it’s not enough.

“Tell me something,” I say. “How does it feel to star in a snuff movie, rather than jerk off from the sidelines?”

His gaze flickers, a fleeting moment of surprise, followed by horror.

“Did you think I would slice through your throat and carve out your heart?” I ask with a laugh. “That would be too quick, too simple. You deserve a performance to rival X-Cite Media.”

Hunter’s body stiffens, his breaths quickening. Leaving him to stew on my words, I return to the table and pick up a nightstick.

“What?” he asks, his voice rising with panic. “You going to fuck me with that?”

“And give you the satisfaction?” I swing it at his temple, delivering a cracking blow that echoes through the room.

His head lurches to one side, with blood splattering against the concrete. His guttural scream rings through my ears like a symphony.

I strike again, this time hitting the side of his jaw. The weapon connects, and a tooth flies across the room in an arc before landing with a clatter on the metallic floor.

His body convulses, shaking against his restraints as I rain blows across his shoulders and arms and chest. A man like this is to be savored, not slaughtered. Screams echo through the room, the sound so animalistic and raw that my veins thrum with satisfaction.

I step back, observing my handiwork. All traces of the hardened officer are gone, replaced by a whimpering wreck. His body trembles, caked in a colorful mix of sweat and blood.

“What do you want to know?” he rasps.

“Ready to talk so soon?” I ask, feigning disappointment. “I was just starting to enjoy our game.”

He blinks up at me, with blood-red saliva trickling from the corner of his mouth. “Tell me.”

“Let’s start from the beginning,” I ask. “Who is Delta, and what is your relationship?”

He inhales a rattling breath and exhales. “His name is Dalton Grey. We trained together at the FBI Academy.”

The revelation hits me in the solar plexus like a flying kick, but I hide my shock. Both at this fascinating insight into Father and at the confirmation of his real last name.

“Go on.”

Information bursts out of Hunter like a sewage pipe, revealing the tale of a corrupt group of agents who decided to provide assassination services to the underworld.

“It started out as an undercover mission,” he says through ragged breaths. “Then Dalton and the others decided to get organized and set up a firm called the Moirai Group.”

I nod, already knowing Father was part of its management team.

“We recruited convicted and disgraced agents at first, offering them work. But paying for their silence proved too difficult.” He gulps. “That’s when Dalton got the idea to recruit teen runaways. We set up an academy and trained them to be assassins. They were loyal and dependent. Best of all, no one looked for them.”

I swallow hard, forcing my features into a mask. It’s a grisly mirror reflecting my own upbringing.

“What was your role in all this?” I snarl.

“I left the bureau to climb the ranks in the New Alderney Police Department. Someone needed to protect our interests from the inside.”

He continues along these lines, explaining the early days of the Moirai, and how it built into the country’s largest firm of assassins with Father’s unique methods of recruiting and corrupting children. I glance at the camera’s red light, making sure it’s still recording.

“Tell me about X-Cite Media.”

“Don’t you see, boy?” he asks through rattling laughter.

My pulse drums in my ears, filling the quiet room with its deafening rhythm. I grit my teeth at his condescending tone, fighting to keep my features composed.

“What do you mean?” I ask, my voice tight

“He started X-Cite Media when he fell out of favor with his partners,” he rasps. “The bastard son he fathered with one of our female operatives went rogue, poaching personnel from the organization and stealing clients. The others told him to handle you, but he failed.”

My stomach drops. I had no idea my birth mother was another assassin. Hiding my shock, I snarl, “And?”

“When he failed, they wanted you and him both eliminated.”

My jaw clenches.

I knew my acts of sabotage got him ousted from the firm, but Father was supposed to die, not skitter into another branch of crime like a cockroach.

“He left before they could kill him and bought a media company.” Hunter’s hollow laughter echoes through the room. “If you hadn’t screwed with the Moirai, Dalton would never have gotten into snuff.”

“Bullshit,” I spit, my lip curling.

“It’s true. X-Cite Media turned into a snuff site because of you. And your daddy issues.”