Not one word came in manner of reply.
The bastard was not going to break. Not this way, at any rate—and as Assail’s palm itched for his dagger, he didn’t trust himself with that sharp blade.
Gutting the motherfucker was not what he ultimately wanted.
Assail moved in close. “I want you to pay careful attention now. Are you with me?”
Benloise’s head lolled, but his eyes did stay open—so Assail went around to the back of the SUV. Popping the hatch, he lifted out the bound and gagged man they had kidnapped before going to the gallery.
Benloise’s brother put up no fight at all. Then again, Ehric had snuck behind Eduardo in his home and punched a syringe full of heroin into a thick vein in his neck. The man was now also naked, and the far fitter condition of his body suggested that he was both younger and more vain—he had a spray tan over some measure of muscular development.#p#分页标题#e#
Assail threw him at Benloise’s feet.
He didn’t expect the surprise to sway things. But what was coming next would.
While the elder Benloise watched, Assail rolled the unconscious man onto his back, removed the gag, and took out a second syringe. In its fragile belly, Naloxone, the antidote used commonly in emergency rooms to combat opiate overdoses, was a clear liquid—and as he jabbed the needle into Eduardo’s arm vein, it wasn’t long before the pilot light came on again.
Eduardo woke up in a rush, torso jerking off the snow.
Assail took the man’s jaw in a hard grip. Wrenching the head around, he growled, “Say hello to your brother—let us be polite.”
Eyes popping wide, Eduardo immediately started speaking in Spanish, and Assail cured him of the impulse by taking out his dagger and pointing it in his face.
“Your brother has a place where he takes people to kill them. Where is it?”
“I do not know what you are—”
Assail straddled the man and grabbed the hair on the top of his head—as Eduardo used a great deal of product, it was a greasy mess, but he managed to get a passable hold. Putting the blade under the man’s chin, he made sure to speak nice and slow.
“Where does he take people. I know there is a place, private and secure. Not at his house. Not downtown.”
The elder Benloise brother finally spoke in a rush, the words to his brother guttural and punctuated with ragged breaths. In response, Eduardo’s eyes became even larger, and one didn’t need to know Spanish to catch the drift: You say anything and I will kill you myself.
Assail put his body between the two and got down eye-to-eye with Eduardo. “I’m going to hurt you now.”
Pick a place, anyplace.
Assail decided to start with the shoulders. With a quick stab, he thrust the blade deep into the flesh below the collarbone—painful, but not fatal by a long stretch.
As his ears rang from the screaming, he kept the dagger in place. And his grip on the hilt.
“Where is it?” When he didn’t get an immediate reply, he twisted the knife. “Where does he take them?”
More twisting. More screaming.
Which was when Ricardo spoke up again, his voice cutting through the drama to reinforce his message. Agony was going to win, however—Assail would make sure of that.
Backing off and giving dear boy Eddie a moment to rest and recover, he watched the hilt of the dagger move up and down in time to tortured respiration.
Oh, how the mighty had fallen. Eduardo was always the nattily dressed financial controller. But here he was, hair a mess, eyes bloodshot, snow smudged all over his naked skin.
Assail regarded him with all the compassion one would bring to still-thrashing roadkill. “Don’t listen to him. If you do, I will kill you slowly. The only way to save yourself is to tell me what I need to know.”
Ricardo barked something sharply.
“Do not listen to him.” Assail kept his eyes locked with Eduardo’s. “Talk to me. Save yourself.”
Eduardo kept trying to see his brother, but Assail shifted positions with that panicked stare until Eduardo moaned, his eyes getting hidden amidst his crinkled face.
Assail gave him some more time, until patience was lost. Reaching out for the dagger, he announced, “I’m going to hurt you again—”
“It’s north!” Eduardo yelled. “On the Northway! North! Southern side of Iroquois Mountain! Only road up to the property breaks off from the base! Go a half a mile and you’ll see the drive!”
Up against the SUV, Ricardo exploded, fury evident in every syllable even if the sentence particulars were lost for lack of translation.
Assail breathed in deep through his nose. There was no scent of subterfuge coming from Eduardo. Fresh blood, of course, and the acrid sting of terror. Also, a rather touching shame that reminded Assail of root vegetables fresh out of a cellar.