“You talk a lot, but I have something that will keep you quiet,” the first man said.
I cried out when the man who held me twisted my arm and pulled me down, forcing me to bend at the knee. I struggled against him, leaning back against the wall and trying to resist sliding down. He twisted tighter, and I cried out, the pain in my arm making silence impossible.
“Maybe you’ll treat your next customers more nicely,” he said.
Then he twisted even harder, so hard I thought my shoulder might come flying out of the socket.
I cried out again, braced myself to hit the floor, and frantically tried to think of what I would do after that happened.
Then I flew back, my arm free from his grip, back hard into the wall.
I took a moment to regain my balance, and when I heard the cry and then sharp crack of bone, I looked wildly toward the sound.
Priest had twisted the arm of one who had held my arm behind his back, much as the man had done me. With his other, he held the back of the man’s head and then began banging his face against the wall. There was another crack and then a bright splatter of blood that soon turned brown. The man went limp, and would have slid down the wall, but Priest held him tight and continued to pound his face against the surface, the sickening crack of bones now muted, probably because there were none left to break.
I’d never seen anything so brutal, so violent in person. I grew queasy as I watched, but whether that was because of the adrenaline crash that was leaving me shaky or my relief that Priest was there, I couldn’t say.
A second later, Priest let him go, and he flopped against the wall. Dead or unconscious, I couldn’t tell which.
I ignored him, though, and instead I watched Priest, his expression tight, angry, but still controlled as he turned to the man who stood.
“Priest, I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was with you.”
Priest said nothing, but the silence was soon filled by the thud of Priest’s fist against his throat and then a low, wet-sounding gurgle as he fought to catch his breath.
He watched as the man dropped to his knees and then flopped against the wall. Then, he turned to look at me, pausing to adjust his jacket.
“I’m finished. We can go,” he said.
Nineteen
Priest
Fifteen minutes later, Markov’s was far behind us, but I hadn’t said anything and neither had Milan.
My silence was solely because my heart was still rattling around my chest, that mix of anger and something far too like fear making it difficult for me to speak.
I didn’t know why she was silent, though.
Her expression was still neutral, but I remember how she looked at me, her eyes wide as her gaze had strayed from me back to the mangled face of the one who’d touched her and then back to me again.
Was she afraid? Probably. That had to have been terrifying for her.
She could also be disgusted, not used to seeing that level of violence up close, disgusted she had been a part of it.
“Did you find what you needed?” she finally asked.
I searched her voice for a hint of what she might be feeling, but there was nothing.
“No,” I responded a moment later.
And silence again filled the car, leaving me to my thoughts of both Milan and this fiasco.
The entire trip had been a waste of time and effort, not that anything would have been worth putting Milan in that situation.
I laughed bitterly but didn’t say anything when Milan looked at me.
At least Markov had gotten something out of it. The fucker had relished having me come to him, probably even more because he’d known nothing, or at least nothing certain.
I had come to him because I knew others did, and that in their condition, high on drugs and stupidity, tongues were more likely to slip, and maybe say something I needed to know.
That hadn’t happened, though.
Markov had tried to bluff, string me along, but in the end, he’d been forced to confess he knew nothing of what was happened.
I had taken Milan into that viper’s den for no reason. I had exposed her to who and what I was for no reason.
She’d known before. The circumstances of our meeting were definitive proof, and I’d made no attempts to hide anything from her.
But knowing abstractly and seeing were different things, ones that couldn’t help but taint how she saw me.
I’d not been stupid enough to think she saw me favorably. Our physical connection brought her comfort, my protection gave her safety, but she didn’t think highly of me, didn’t do something insane like think I was a good person.
So it shouldn’t matter what she’d seen. She’d be gone in a matter of days. I’d see her reestablished somewhere safe and comfortable and get back to my world. Her opinion didn’t matter in the least.