Page 95 of Sin Like the Devil

“I’ll rip you apart for hurting him!” I scream.

“Where is Carlos?” Rick asks calmly.

“I told you that I don’t know!”

He sighs, the stickiness of his breath stirring my hair. “Perhaps you need a different motivation. Selfish cunts can’t be controlled by hurting others, right?”

Raine tries to sit up at that, but Owen draws back his foot and boots him firmly in the kidney. He lands flat on his back, unable to contain his heart-rending howl. There’s blood splattered all over him.

“Ease off,” Rick drones. “Come hold the bitch down. Watch him, Ant.”

Stomping and kicking, I do my best to break free as I’m forced to the floor. Owen positions himself over me, seizing my wrists then stretching them high so I’m pinned with my arms above my head.

Taking the lower half of my body, Rick casts an eye over my predicament. He looks far too fucking smug. When he gets close enough, I quickly snap out my leg and kick him right in the face.

“Ow!” he screeches.

Removing his hand from his face, I’m awarded with the sight of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Damn, I got him good. He moves to sit on my legs, his disgusting weight bearing down on me.

“That wasn’t very nice, Rip.”

“I don’t know where Carlos is!”

Rick shakes his head, now straddling my thighs. “He steps one foot out of line, and he’s gone. No parents or siblings to worry about him. Just us. Convenient, huh?”

“He was probably transferred or some shit!”

“You think I’m fucking stupid?”

Striking me hard, the hit causes my head to snap to the side. I feel my lip split and blood begin to ooze from the stinging cut.

“Where is he?”

When I don’t respond, he repeats the same move. My neck and head ache as I blink back tears. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna give him shit, though. His friend is probably dead.

“How do you live with yourself, huh?” he seethes. “Selling for the goddamn enemy?”

“Wait—”

“You make me sick.”

Raine’s distant shouting doesn’t stop Rick from striking again. Again. Again. Each hit harder than the last. Slaps turn to punches until I can feel the blood drenching my battered face. Everything is spinning and ticking.

“Stop it!” Raine yells. “She doesn’t know!”

“Bullshit,” Rick rages.

Boneless, I cough up blood. “Probably dead.”

His next blow halts. “What was that?”

“They just… remove troublemakers. He’d be easy to erase.”

The festering fury in Rick’s eyes amplifies. Owen holds my wrists tight as he grabs my jaw, his grip bruising, causing teeth and bone to creak like old wooden beams. I’m surprised nothing has broken yet.

“Where do they take them? The people they want to erase?”

It isn’t worth my life to reveal that information. Of the tiny minority who know about the Z wing, no one knows its location. Only me. If I reveal it, I’ll face a far worse fate than this.

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