Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 51248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 205(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 205(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
Carter said I shouldn’t watch. He said to stay away until it’s done. In this life, you don’t disobey. I can’t fucking stand it, though. She’s mine, even if she was only using me.
My throat goes dry and my stomach twists into an iron knot. I can’t not watch. I can’t stay away. Even if she did betray me, I’m the one who let her in.
My little pet, and her sins, are my responsibility.
Just outside the soundproofed room, I pause, unsure of myself and unsure of everything. Gripping the handle, a single thought pushes me forward: I don’t want this dragged out. It needs to be over with. One way or the other.
The dark enclosed space is ten by twelve by twelve feet. It’s large enough to house the machinery and equipment necessary for interrogations. The vision of her, behind this door, sickens me. My wish was that she would own up to her deceit, they would leave her for me and then I would see to her end. As much as I loathe it, we cannot have rats among us. And a rat can’t leave after witnessing what happened with Scarlet.
But almost two hours in, she hasn’t admitted anything. She hasn’t said a word and Nate attributes it to going easy on her. All I want is for this to be handled and done. I can’t fucking breathe waiting for the end.
Agony seeps into my veins as I open the door and I’m greeted with her screams. Their backs are to me to my left where they watch Ronnie raise the machine. I can’t see her from behind it all, but her frantic screams paralyze me with a terror I’ve never known.
“Just one name and you can come out,” Ronnie says calmly with authority, and the anger that rings through me is unnatural and uncontrollable.
“Declan,” she whimpers.
“Declan’s not coming. Now give us the name of the person who came to you for information.”
“Please,” she barely gets out, her voice so small and the chatter of her teeth louder than the words she can manage. Every step I take is without my conscious consent. My feet move one after the other. I can feel Nate’s and Hale’s eyes on me as they watch, dutifully.
“It can all be over for you,” Ronnie says. My heart beats in time with every stride until she comes into view.
The sight of her destroys me. My Braelynn.
Soaking wet from the top of her head, her dark hair is stuck to the sides of her face, and her eyes are reddened even though her lips are blue. “Declan,” she whispers and everything in my vision turns red as her eyes roll back. The iron cage is lowered and she screams out our safe word.
Red. She cries out for me to stop it all.
Out of everything to come from her, out of every word to hear.
My intention was to confront her, to tell her I know the leak could only be her. That I’m the one who set up the trap to expose the rat and that it kills me she betrayed me. I would have given her anything. I was fucking falling for her like a fool.
I saw her interrogation play out in my mind’s eye and I hated it, but this … this is a hell I didn’t know could exist. “Get her out.” I order the command beneath my breath. There’s scurrying from behind me, but it’s then that she sees me. She’s lowered into the water, trapped in a cage and sinking.
Her black dress clings to her and when she sees me, her mouth opens to say something but water rushes in. She nearly chokes on it.
“Get her out!” I scream with a fury I didn’t know was possible. The crane grinds and groans as Braelynn sputters. “Going easy on her.” I mutter the words from Nate’s text as rage consumes me. They’re torturing her. Her entire body shakes as she heaves in air and the cage rises.
“Red!” she screams in a shrill voice searching for me in the dark room, but I’ve already moved behind her.
Without a thought at all, with everything blurring around me, silently I remove my gun from its holster. I’m only vaguely aware of my actions.
“Boss?” Ronnie questions with thinly veiled fear and surprise before I pull the trigger. The gunshot is muffled from my silencer and practically drowned out by the objections from Nate and Hale. A perfect red circle forms in the middle of Ronnie’s head, and the look of shock on his face is almost comical before his dead body falls to the ground, blood spilling from the wound.
“Get her the fuck out!” I scream, not stopping, not waiting, but getting in the damn tub myself.
All I can see is red as I open the locks to the cage. Red blood, reddened eyes, everything is red. Nothing could ever be black and white when there’s so much red.