“I know he can help,” I said.
“He was always fond of Priest,” she said.
That the cold, reptilian creature I had just met could be fond of anyone was shocking to me, but I’d take Senna’s word for it.
“He’s very angry right now, so we shouldn’t push the issue,” she said.
“Angry? He barely has a pulse,” I said.
She just smiled warmly. “We won’t push the issue,” she said.
“But do you think he will help?” I asked, my voice barely emerging from the tightness that clenched my throat.
Her smile dropped.
“I don’t know.”
Thirty-Three
Priest
“Your stamina is impressive,” Benton said.
I coughed, tried to lift my hand to my face, only to be reminded I was still cuffed to the pipe.
So instead, I turned my head and wiped my face against my shoulder. The blood that now stained my shirt was merely a shadow, something I could barely make out through my swollen eyes. Still, I managed to speak.
“I should say the same for you,” I said.
“Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said.
“You’re welcome. I guess,” I replied.
Then I went quiet, waiting for Benton to fill the silence with his own voice. He seemed to like that, couldn’t get enough of castigating me for my real and imagined sins. I knew this was only the beginning.
He had inflicted his punishment, lots of it, but nothing permanent, and nothing fatal.
The last few hours had only been a warmup. The main event was yet to begin.
“Did you even think about it when you gave him your dirty money, pulled him deeper and deeper into your world?”
I turned, lifted my eyes as best I could to watch him. I was wasting my breath, breath that I would probably be better served saving, but I spoke nonetheless.
“You know there’s no pulling, don’t you? I don’t remember this person, not really, but no one who has ever made it into my association has ever done so involuntarily. They’ve always wanted to be there. Your partner was no different.”
“What about Ms. Meadows? Do you think she wanted to be there? Or do you think maybe, having encountered you will change the very course of her life?”
I recognized what he was doing, but that didn’t stop the acceleration of my heartbeat, the tinge of regret, anger, and fear that started inside me. “I have your word that she’ll be fine,” I said.
“Think of how much finer she would’ve been if she’d never met you.”
“You’ve found something we can agree on,” I said.
I had often, in these days and hours, thought of how much better Milan’s life would have been if I had picked another car.
But I hadn’t, and all I could do now was hope this sacrifice would free her from me.
“So, if I could ask a question of my own?” I said.
Benton leaned back in the chair he had been resting in and nodded. “I’m still a little winded,” he said. “I could use a break.”
My throbbing and, I suspected, fractured if not broken ribs agreed, but I ignored the pain, focused on him.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Haven’t you been paying attention?”
“Let me be more specific. Us here, now, is the culmination of a lot of work. Years, if I’m correct?”
Benton nodded.
“Why? Why go through all this, kidnap the Petran woman, try to set up Clan Constantin…? Why go through all that?”
“Well, you’re a difficult man to get close to. It took a long time to even find you again. Once I did, I needed a way in. I explored all the possibilities,” he said.
“I take it you didn’t find your way in?”
“I did not.”
“Which led to the other theatrics? The shooting?”
“I had to do something to turn up the heat, escalate things. The plan was a little convoluted, but I’d hoped they would suspect you, chase you down, flush you out when you were weak with no resources. I guess I was wrong. If you hadn’t had occasion to run into the lovely Milan, I doubt anything would’ve changed. So in a roundabout way, my plan worked,” he said.
“So it seems,” I said. And by all appearances, it had. His original plan wouldn’t have worked, but in Milan, he had found a weakness I hadn’t had before.
And he’d given me something to fight for, a reason to survive that went beyond my own self-interest.
“Seems?”
I glanced at him again. “It’s costing you a lot,” I said. “Once I’m dead, I wonder if you’ll think your satisfaction was worth the price.”
“I’m curious as to what you mean. Explain,” he said, his eyes narrowing on me with question.