Kill Switch (Devil's Night 3)
“And thanks to me, Michael doesn’t know that you’re letting me hide out right under your noses.” I pinned her with a look. “Your ass would be grass just as much as mine, so stow it.”
She cocked an eyebrow but didn’t press further. She knew she had more reason to be afraid of me than I did of her.
Still, though…as much as I kind of enjoyed our little exchanges, it pissed me off she wasn’t wary of me anymore. After everything I’d tried to do to her and could still do to her.
I looked up, seeing her staring at me.
“What?” I took another drag, walking over to the windows.
“I thought you’d blackmail him with the info I got,” she explained. “Or ruin some of his partnerships.”
She was talking about Winter’s father.
“I must say, you exceeded my imagination.”
“Impressed?” I glanced over my shoulder at her as I flicked off the ashes on my cigarette.
“Scared,” she clarified.
I chuckled. “I can live with that.”
“And guilty.” She sat down on the arm of one of the couches, and I could see her watching me out of the corner of my eye. “I can’t believe you did that today. You went for the jugular, and man, you know how to commit, don’t you? What the hell have I gotten her into?”
“Aw, don’t worry. She was going to answer to me with or without your help sooner or later anyway.” I blew out smoke and turned around, heading for the ashtray on the table.
“Don’t hurt her,” Rika said.
But I just breathed out another laugh as I ground the butt of the cigarette into the dish. “Coming from the woman who offered up all the info I needed to take her father, her home, and her fortune.”
Winter’s father shared the same accountant as Rika’s family. The same disgruntled and anxious accountant who hinted that Winter’s father, Griffin Ashby, might have swindled Rika’s late father on some real estate deals years ago. I’m not quite sure how she got the proof, but she didn’t show up at my door until she had it, knowing it might be exactly what I needed to take down the Ashbys.
And in exchange, I’d help her get something she needed, as well. Something I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to give her just yet. I liked her coming around, and I didn’t want it stop.
“You know what I mean,” she continued. “Don’t hurt her.”
You mean other than taking everything Winter owned and putting her in a perpetual state of dependence on me?
Or hurt her as in…
Yeah, that was what you meant, wasn’t it? Don’t hurt her.
“Do you know how much Will bled in prison?” I asked her. “Do you know how hard Kai had to fight to hold down any food because his gut raged with nerves and fear from constantly having to look over his shoulder?”
Her stern look remained steady on me.
“Do you know that no matter what Michael paid or who he bribed, there were people paying more to see the rich, entitled sons of the Thunder Bay elite suffer in prison?” I kept going. “Do you have any idea how sick they both got from lack of food and sleep to balance the fucking excess of fear and pain?”
Her gaze dropped for a moment, uncomfortable, but she stayed quiet.
“Yeah, well, neither do I,” I told her. “Because I wasn’t there.”
Her eyes shot up, looking confused. I walked, circling the perimeter of the room as I continued. “Three levels below cell block six, in the basement, down a dank corridor, below five feet of concrete, is where I was.” I fisted my hands, the anger returning almost immediately. “For three years. You didn’t know that, did you?”
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Her eyes, so blue even in this dark room, pierced mine.
“Banks thought she was doing me a favor,” I said. “And Gabriel agreed with her. He had too many enemies and those enemies had soldiers on the inside. I was more at risk than Kai and Will, so I was put in solitary confinement.” I drew in a deep breath, the blood under my skin growing hot. “Twenty-three hours a day, seven days a week, all day, every day, for one-hundred-sixty weeks. That’s one-thousand-one-hundred-twenty days. Twenty-six-thousand-eight-hundred-eighty hours, Rika.”