Page 209 of Breaking Rosalind
I suck in a deep breath, thankful for the reminder. We covered interrogation techniques at the academy, but they skipped the part about handling grief and personal entanglements. Maybe they didn’t expect us to form emotional attachments in such a competitive learning environment.
Cesare opens the door, and we step into a dark space. He places a hand on the small of my back as the room brightens with fluorescent lights.
Dr. Daniel hangs upside down on the external spokes of what I can only describe as a giant hamster wheel. He’s spattered in blood and naked, save for a black ring at the base of what’s left of his penis. The subtle rise and fall of his chest is the only sign that he’s alive.
Outrage explodes from my heart, filling my veins with molten fury. I stride up to the man who tortured and mutilated my best friend.
“You don’t get to sleep your way out of this.” I punch him in the gut.
His body jolts, and the walls echo with a shocked moan.
“Better.” Stepping back to get a better view of his face, I turn to Cesare. “Bring his head to eye level.”
With a nod, Cesare pushes a lever on the metal contraption, making it rotate with several jerky clanks until Dr. Daniel hangs upright.
He glares at me through bruised and bloodshot eyes. The bridge of his nose bends to one side then the other, from where I slammed my head into his face, and his skin is still speckled with blood.
“You’re going to answer some questions,” I say, my voice eerily calm. “It’s in your best interests to cooperate, or we’ll keep you here in agony until you rot.”
“The Moirai won’t take kindly to you colluding with targets,” he rasps.
“How would they react to knowing you’re murdering operatives?”
His swollen face splits into a sickening grin. “What makes you think I’m acting without authorization?”
My breath catches, but I keep my face in a neutral mask. “What does that mean?”
“Gunther signed you over to me for medical research the moment you left the building. And when Britt failed to report to her new mission, Gunther gave me her, too.”
Blood roars through my ears, and my insides twist with guilt. “What are you saying?”
“No operative leaves the Moirai,” he says. “Nobody gets to retire, either.”
“So, Gunther wrote her off?”
“She was spreading rumors. Rumors that started when you told her about the promotion plan,” he replies, his gaze raking over me with a taunting flicker.
My stomach drops.
The cameras must have picked up the conversation we had when I escaped Cesare and discovered that Gunther told everyone I’d been promoted overseas.
“You got her killed,” he says with a gurgling laugh.
Cesare pushes past me and sticks a metal object into the doctor’s gut, making him roar with agony. “Cut the crap,” he snarls. “The only people who got her killed were you. You and Gunther.”
“S-Stop,” Dr. Daniel gasps, his face contorting in pain as he tries to squirm away from what looks to be a prod, but it’s firmly embedded in his gut.
I grip his chin. “Answer my questions, or my friend here will infuse you with five-thousand volts of electricity. You might have been trained to endure pain, but no human body can survive cooked organs.”
The doctor shudders. I have no idea if Cesare’s cattle prod is that strong, but neither does this bastard.
“What do you want to know?” Dr. Daniel asks through gritted teeth.
“Where’s the tracker?” I ask.
His gaze drops to my belly. “Inside your cesarean scar.”
My jaw clenches. Of course, he would assume the scar wasn’t from a hysterectomy. He’s the man who administers my birth control shots.