Page 242 of I Will Break You
“Toss him out on the street with a warning. If he calls the police, we’ll cut off body parts.”
“And the doctor?”
“She stays until she can remember something useful,” I snarl. “Tomorrow, I’ll get Amethyst to write down a list of questions she’s always wanted to ask her shrink.”
He nods. “And McMurphy?”
My steps falter. I’d almost forgotten about that guard. “Take me to her.”
Jynxson and I walk through a winding passage, our footsteps echoing off the stone walls. Tonight has been one revelation after another. By now, Amethyst will be awake, wondering where the hell I’ve gone.
He stops outside a door. “It’s this one.”
As I move to push it open, Jynxson grabs my arm. “Are you going to kill her?”
“No, but I’ll make her wish I had.”
I walk in, finding her huddled in a corner, with her knees tucked to her chest. She bends her head, obscuring her face with a curtain of dark brown hair.
My lip curls and my mind dredges up every minute of powerlessness she forced me to endure. McMurphy thought she could blackmail me into intimacy by interfering with my relationship.
She didn’t just intercept Amethyst’s letters, but skipped my morning exercise in an attempt to coerce me into accepting her advances. When she failed, she taunted me at my lowest, thinking she would make the last hours of my life miserable.
If my team and I hadn’t worked so diligently to perfect my staged execution, this worthless parasite could have jeopardized its success.
I slam the door, enjoying how it makes her flinch. She dips her neck, her shoulders rising to her ears.
“Tell me about your relationship with X-Cite Media,” I say.
Her head snaps up. “Greaves, is that you?”
“Know my voice, do you?”
“How did you…? But I saw you die.”
“Yes, and you did a great job recording it for that website. What do they pay you for such exclusive content?”
She shakes her head. “No… That wasn’t me.”
I hiss through my teeth at the transparent lie. Closing the distance between us, I reach down and grab a handful of her hair. “If the next thing you say is a waste of my time, I’ll make sure you never get to spy on another man’s private moments.”
“Xero, please,” she whispers.
Cradling the side of her face, I rub the pad of my thumb over her closed eye.
She shivers.
“Give me something if you want to walk out of this room alive,” I growl, pressing my thumb into her socket.
“Greaves,” she says through panting sobs. “Don’t rip out my heart. I could have done a lot worse.”
I chuckle, the sound low and deep. “If you want to survive the night, then you’ll tell me about X-Cite Media.”
“Okay, okay. One of the prisoners doing life for murder mentioned the site, saying they pay for content. I uploaded the video clips and got a fixed fee. I wasn’t hurting anyone. You were supposed to be dead.”
“Who’s your contact there?”
“A man named Harlan,” she says. “I’ve never met him. It’s all been online. Please. That’s all I know.”