Get three.

What did that even mean? Kill them? Was she supposed to stab them with the crudely shaped weapon?

“You can do this.” Something in her face must have given away her fears, because Maraveet reached through the bars and grabbed her arm. “You have to do this, Juliette. Do you understand?”

Juliette swallowed. “What about you? You seem to know what you’re doing—”

“Because there is nothing they can do to me that I haven’t already been through before.” Something about the deadpan way she said it made Juliette’s blood run cold. “But I won’t let you go through the same. I’m going to make sure you get out of here.”

The bit of plastic bit into Juliette’s clammy palm. “Why?”

Maraveet never wavered. “Because my brother loves you and losing you would kill him.”

While the idea of being loved that deeply by Killian made her heart patter just a little faster, Juliette couldn’t shake the doubt his words had cut into her. But there was no point bringing that up now.

“You don’t think he’d be hurt to lose you?”

“He better be.” The woman drew back. “I’ll haunt him if he isn’t, but I’m not you and he needs you, so you need to make sure you get back to him.”

Her gaze lowered to sharp point of hope resting in the palm of her hand. “How do I even use this thing?”

Maraveet shifted closer. “Grip it firm and when you do use it, go for soft tissue.”

“Soft … tissue?”

Maraveet nodded like she was explaining a complex recipe. “The eyes, throat, and genitals are the best places and ensure they won’t get up any time soon.”

The very idea of jamming that thing into another person’s eye made Juliette’s insides waver. Bile shot up into her throat before she swallowed it down.

“I don’t know about this…”

“It’s them or you,” Maraveet said with a bite. “And trust me, the games are only just beginning.

Chapter 27

The betrayal was a crippling lance sweeping through him with a cruelty that made his insides feel torn. There were no words for the hurt and shock that came with the knowledge that someone he knew, someone he trusted would hate him so much that they longed to destroy him.

“I trusted you.”

Brown eyes darkened by dilated irises, eyes Killian had looked into since he was a boy peered up at him from a face he had once trusted without question. He sat tense in the chair. His navy suit unusually rumpled, revealing his loosened tie and wrinkled dress shirt. He hadn’t made a run for it, which had surprised Killian. Instead, he sat hunched and defeated in the chair, staring down at his knees.

“Why would you do this?” Killian asked, unable to bring himself to care that all his pain was radiating through his words, weakening them. Weakening him. “I don’t understand.”

Marco said nothing.

“Sir, perhaps I can have a few words with him?” Frank offered.

Killian shook his head. “No, please leave us.”

Aside from Frank, Vi was there, as well as Aaron, Dominic, and Jacob. His men left promptly without question. Vi hesitated, but she relented and followed the others out. Frank shut the doors behind them.

Neither Killian nor Marco moved. The silent battle of wills only hurt all the more. A part of him wanted to lunge across the desk, wrap his hands around the man’s throat, and squeeze until he told Killian where Juliette was. Another part of him couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the fact that someone he trusted would do something so horrible.

Climbing out of his chair, Killian started around the desk separating them. He stopped once he was directly in front of the other man. The table edge settled along his ass cheeks.

“Where’s Juliette?” he asked quietly. “Where did you take her?”

Marco remained stubbornly silent. His pale face was tight with fear and guilt. Killian leaned back. His feet flattened on the floor as he rose. His hands curled into the ledge. It was all the restraint he would allow himself.

“I could have you tortured until you talk,” he mused softly. “I could do many terrible things to you and I want to. I want you to suffer for what you did, for what you’re doing to her right now. It’s only the fact that you’ve been part of my family since I was a boy that is saving you. It’s the only reason I am willing to give you a chance to tell me where you took her and who has her. If you tell me, you won’t die a slow and horrible death. If you don’t…” he let his words trail off. “You know what I am capable of. You know the things I will not hesitate to do to people who hurt those I care about. Juliette is mine and I will take down anyone who stands in my way of getting her back. So, what will it be?”

Marco shifted. His eyes lowered to his knees. He seemed no closer to speaking, but Killian would fix that.

“Do you want to know something amusing?” Killian paced away from the desk and circled around the man in slow, even strides. Each clip, he noted, nudged a subtle flinch from his driver. “Had Juliette been here, she would have probably asked me to spare your life. She would insist on it. Not for your sake, but because she has this insane notion that she can save my soul.” He made a full round and stopped in the same spot. “She keeps insisting I have one, which I can’t honestly say I believe. But she does. Do you believe you have a soul, Marco?”

The sharp point of Marco’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

“I don’t think people like you and I are allowed to own a soul,” he continued. “We’re not good people. We live by laws that are not permitted through the gates of heaven so I can see why one might not care how they live the rest of their lives when their eternal fate is already sealed. There is blood on both our hands, but unlike yours, mine was never the blood of the innocent. I have not made the world a lesser place by taking a life worth living. But you … Juliette is innocent. She is good and pure and untainted by the things we have done to survive. Taking her, hurting her, will not bring you peace. It will, however, bring you me and, while I will not kill you, I will let you will live every day in hell where I will bring you to the doors of death in the most excruciating methods imaginable, but I will never let you pass through. So, I will ask you again, one final time, where is Juliette?”

There was a tremor in Marco’s hands as he slid them along the leather armrests. He had yet to raise his eyes, but his breathing had quickened. His entire body seemed to vibrate beneath the layers of his clothing. Sweat glistened along his brow, plastering dark strands to hollowed temples. Knuckles bulged white beneath the pulled skin of his knuckles. But no explanation passed his pale lips.

Killian straightened. “If that is your answer…”

He began towards the doors.

“I don’t know!” Marco’s frantic voice stopped Killian after only three measured steps. “I wasn’t told where they were taking her.”

Killian turned and went back to the desk. “By who? Who took her?”

Marco hesitated. “I don’t know.”

Anger welled beneath the calm he struggled to maintain. The edges of his limits must have shown in the clenched set of his jaw and the dark fury writhing behind his eyes, because Marco visibly recoiled. All the blood vanished from his face. It bleached his lips white and his eyes were enormous.

“I never met the person in charge.” His chin lowered. “He sent me a text with a location and instructions.”

Killian perched on the edge of the desk once more and studied the other man carefully. “Some person you’ve never met texted you with instructions to kidnap Juliette and you just hopped to it?”

If possible, Marco seemed to shrink even more in his seat. “It was the same message I got the first time.”

Killian’s fist left his side before he could pull it back. It flew into Marco’s jaw with a satisfying crack and nearly sent him flying backwards, chair and all. His knuckles blazed with pain that rocketed up the length of his entire arm, but it was worth it.