I look up at Clare from beneath lowered brows.
“Oh, I know what you like,” I assure her. “I know you better than you know yourself. You think you want a gentleman? A Prince Charming? Someone to buy you flowers and rub your feet?”
Clare’s little pink tongue darts out to moisten the center of her lower lip. She’s waiting, mesmerized. She really wants me to tell her.
“You want permission,” I say. “To be as bad as you want to be. You want to be told to get down on your knees, to open your mouth, to do as you’re told… so you don’t have to feel guilty. Because you’re just doing what Daddy said…”
She’s barely noticed that I’ve leaned much further across the table than I would have been able to do if I were securely tethered. We’re only a foot apart.
2:16.
“I don’t get on my knees,” she says.
“But you will open your mouth…”
Her lips part, probably to argue with me.
It doesn’t matter. I lunge forward, seizing her face between my hands, pulling her up out of her chair and shoving my tongue into her mouth. I kiss her like a conqueror, like an invading army with no boundaries and no mercy. I taste her sweet mouth and I steal her breath and I buy myself the seconds I need to wrap my hands around her throat before Clare can scream, before she can even blink.
2:18.
I look her right in the eye and I say, “Why did Valencia send you here?”
Clare’s eyes widen and now she does try to scream, but I cut her air off with a squeeze of my hands.
“Don’t even think about it,” I hiss. “You’re going to answer my questions, no more and no less. You try to call for help, or you even fucking think about lying to me, and that’s the last sound you’ll ever make.”
Her pulse races beneath my fingers like that poor little heart might explode.
“W-what are you talking about?” she gasps, against the pressure of my hands.
“Don’t fuck with me,” I snarl, forehead to forehead, nose to nose with Clare. She’s up on her toes, those expensive heels barely touching the floor, her slim fingers clutching at my much larger hands, desperately trying to disengage my grip. She might as well try to bend the bars of one of these prison cells. “I know your father’s the DA. Why did he send you here? Who is he working with? What does he want to know?”
“He… doesn’t… know… I’m here...” Clare wheezes, face suffused with blood, lips darkening.
I’m inclined to think that’s bullshit.
But if Clare is going to keep lying to me under the circumstances, it means she’s going to require a level of persuasion impossible to apply inside the prison.
2:20.
The lights go out with a popping of halogen bulbs.
The tiny, windowless room plunges into darkness.
I wrap my arm around Clare’s throat, pull her from her side of the table and start dragging her toward the door.
It’s ridiculously easy to haul her along. She can’t weigh more than a buck ten. I’m more than double that size in pure muscle and bone. She’s kicking, clawing, doing anything she can to break my grip. She might as well wrestle an oak tree—it’s not even a contest.
I’m not worried about the guards. When the power is cut, the generators kick in, automatically sealing all perimeter doors. I’m trapped in D block, but the guards are likewise trapped outside these offices.
Luckily, I’m not trying to get out that way.
I only want to pass from the psych offices to the infirmary.
To do that, I need Clare’s ID card.
2:21.
I haul her over to the infirmary door, swiping her card without bothering to remove it from the lanyard dangling around her neck.
She’s kicking so hard that she’s lost one of her shoes. She manages to connect the other heel with my shin, pretty fucking hard. I tighten my forearm around her neck, snarling in her ear, “Knock it the fuck off. Every bruise you leave, I’m going to pay back on your ass.”
As the infirmary door clicks open, I drag her through.
A chubby nurse catches sight of us. She shrieks, diving behind her desk.
She’s got nothing to worry about—I’ve got everything I need already in place.
2:22.
I heave Clare over to the closest laundry chute and toss her down headfirst. I slide along after her, barreling down the dark metal slide until we land in a massive pile of dirty sheets. Nikita and Erik are waiting, dressed in the dark coveralls, rubber boots, and thick gloves all the laundry workers wear to protect their hands from the harsh industrial chemicals.
“Hurry!” Erik hisses at me.
The sight of my two Bratva brothers galvanizes Clare. She realizes that the power outage was no coincidence, that I’m not simply acting on impulse. She leaps up from the sheets, trying to simultaneously scream and sprint away from us.