“Anything more to tell us, minister?”
A pause. He’s breaking. When he doesn’t say anything, Cain submerges him in the water a second time.
The first time I saw Cain torture someone, I had to look away. I hated that I did. I wanted to face the cruelty he inflicted, because it was always, always justified. With ruthless determination, he gets what he wants when he wants it, but he always has good reason. He doesn’t torture for sport and never without a damn good reason.
This is why I hired Cain. This is what we came for. I need these fucking answers.
Bubbles emerge from the water. He’s got Descamps right on the edge.
Cain looks in my eyes as the minister faces his own mortality, and I feel that stark, honest truth to my very soul. We don’t speak. We don’t blink. We stare in solidarity of a shared purpose, and I love him for it.
He lifts Descamps out of the water. A rivulet of water floods his eyes and face, his hair dripping onto the cold concrete floor below. The light blue dress shirt he wears is soaked from the collar to the first three buttons, his pants still untouched. Cain slams him back on the floor.
“Answer.”
“Fine! Fine,” he says, crying softly to himself. He glares at Cain, and his words feel like venom. “I had an affair with her mother when I was newly ordained.”
Now that, I didn’t expect.
Ew.
“And?” Cain stands with his arms crossed on his chest. “If you think we have all day, minister, I can speed things along—”
“No! No,” Descamps whimpers. “I… I knew her well. We ended what was between us and went our separate ways. I began my ministry and she… she married Violet’s father. They had her less than a year after they married, but I always kept in touch with Anya.”
Anya. I’ve never heard anyone use my mother’s name.
Cain nods. “Go on. I know you’ve got more to tell us, Gray.”
“You were the one that married them,” I said.
Gray nods.
“And you were the one that knows why they were killed.”
Gray looks away, not answering, but when Cain lifts the chair, Descamps screams. “I’ll tell you more!”
Cain thumps the chair back on the floor. “Go on.”
Gray shivers and looks out to where his team sits, but every one of them’s restrained. Still, just to be sure, I walk over to the door with my Wilson in hand, half hoping someone will give me a reason to shoot. Cain continues the interrogation.
“Her parents did some work for them. For… for me.”
He hangs his head and looks at the floor.
He didn’t say my father… he said… my parents?
I turn back to him just as something crashes behind me. My gun’s raised and pointed in seconds. A huge, muscled guy with a gun comes straight at me. My finger hovers over the trigger. I’ve shot the target at the range so many times I could do it in my sleep, but I’ve never shot a human. In a split-second, I imagine the torn flesh and blood, the pain in his eyes. My hesitation costs me. He tackles me to the floor before I can shoot, as a gunshot blasts.
He screams, grabbing at his shoulder, and as crimson blood spurts to the floor, he rolls, and Cain’s deadly voice echoes in the small room.
“Move again, and I shoot you between the eyes.”
I want to kick myself. Goddammit, I couldn’t pull the trigger and Cain had to come and clean up my mess. I want to cry.
Instead, I make up for my hesitation in the only way I know how. I swivel, propel myself forward, and grab his wrists to secure him in place. Cain comes up beside me and ties him down.
“That’s my girl there, buddy,” he warns in a tone that’s anything but friendly. “You fucking try to hurt her and you’re dead.” The guy stares at Cain like he just saw the devil himself. Cain has that effect on people.
“You were saying, Gray?”
Gray shakes his head, crying, but when Cain reaches for his chair, he screams like someone’s bitten him. Cain drops the chair to the floor. Blood spurts from Gray’s temple.
He’s shot. Someone shot him.
Adrenaline courses through me while I look for who could’ve possibly killed him. Cain looks to me, then immediately dismisses me. I stare at my own gun as if it shot him without my permission.
It makes no logical sense and takes half a minute to really register with me.
Someone shot Gray.
That someone was not me, and it was not Cain, nor was it any of the bodyguards we have restrained here.
Someone shot him because he was about to reveal a truth they didn’t want known.
Cain curses and pulls out his phone.
“Get down for cover, Violet,” he grates, as tires squeal. Whoever killed Gray just took off. I fall to the floor and lay flat as Cain makes a phone call.