Page 55 of Brutal Queen

“I’m okay, just went to a dark place there for a moment,” I say, trying to reassure her.

She kisses my cheek with the lightest of touches. “It’s okay to not be okay all the time. If anyone understands that, it’s me. You want to talk about it?”

I glance towards the driver and she nods, understanding that it’s not something I want to discuss now. “I think it’s about time I talk to someone, about when I was… away. Though I’m not sure it should be you. I’d do anything to make sure you never have to think about those things again,” I say, my voice low and barely above a whisper.

“There’s nothing you can’t say to me, but whatever you would prefer,mio re,” she says, bringing my hand to her lips and kissing my fingers.

I close my eyes and nod, focussing on the gentle back andforth of the pad of her thumb as it strokes across my skin. Her touch is the only thing that chases the images away.

It takes around twenty minutes to make it across town through traffic and by the time we pull off the street, my heart rate has settled and I’m feeling more centred. We’re on the East side, not far from where they found me. Our proximity to the place I nearly died should pull me straight back to my maudlin thoughts, but instead, it reminds me that I survived.

Stepping out of the car, I walk around to open the door for Aurora. Once she’s clear, I close it and tap on the roof, signalling Michael to leave.

“Are you ready to have some fun?” she asks, stretching up onto the tips of her toes and easing my face down to hers. “I think maybe we should take this opportunity to vent some of our internalised rage.”

“Not sure this is the healthiest form of self-expression, but it sounds like a plan,” I reply, pulling away and stretching out my neck and shoulders. “Let's do this.”

We enter through the side door of what from the outside looks like a storage facility. After being funnelled through a little corridor, we exit into a hexagonal room with a rolling shutter on each wall, two of which are open wide. Above each shutter is a series of numbers separated by hyphens, and after staring at them quizzically for a few moments, Aurora leans over and explains, “It’s the max voltage in each room and the number of devices you can have in operation at any one time. Etta loves her gadgets, but is very much a safety first girl.”

“You approved this?” I say, raising an eyebrow at her.

“As a leader, I encourage creativity… Besides, electroshock is an effective method of interrogation.”

I glance between the two rooms with their shutters open. They’re opposite each other and both of our guests, who lookhalf dead, are facing forwards, strapped to the back wall of each double garage-sized unit, forced to watch each other. Sinclair is sitting at a desk off to one side, typing furiously while Benny and Nico are currently in the room to our left, fiddling with the knobs of a rather viscous-looking contraption.

“Please tell me they’re not dead already?” Aurora shouts towards Nico.

Hooking a thumb over his shoulder, Nico replies, “This one’s just passed out again, and the other one wouldn’t stop crying, so I knocked him out. I’m sure they’ll come round soon.”

I lean over Sinclair’s shoulder and take a look at his screen. I have no idea why, because as usual I have no fucking idea what any of it means but invading his space when he’s in a hyperfocus is usually the least jarring way to pull him out of it and get him to explain the importance of what he’s working on.

Sinclair may know how we all tick, but he’s not the only one that knows how best to support this team.

“Fill us in then. What did we miss?” I say when he finally stops typing.

Leaning back from the screen, Sinclair looks a little surprised to see us. “Shit, sorry, didn’t hear you come in.”

“It’s all good. What’s got you working away so feverishly over here? Don’t tell me these fuckwits had valuable information.”

Sinclair laughs. “Yes, and no. It’s what we thought. They supply girls to The Knights and in return the fraternity is compensated generously. But that’s not all Max has tasked them with.”

“What do you mean?” Aurora asks.

Sinclair leans forward again and pulls up some bank statements on the screen. “If the victims fit certain criteria, they’re delivered directly to Max,notThe Knights.”

“Are you telling me these fucks are not just sentencing their victims to sexual slavery, but if they’re his type,they’re delivering them to a serial killer?” Aurora questions, unable to suppress the rage in her voice, shouting out the last part through gritted teeth while turning her head to glare at our guests.

The emotion radiating off her is echoed inside me. Knowing that these women are paying the price for my freedom feels like a bullet to the chest. If I were back there, chained in his basement, then he wouldn’t need these girls. My stomach churns and bile burns my oesophagus, forcing me to swallow it back down.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Sinclair replies, his voice sounding raw, obviously as sickened as we are.

“How the fuck did this arrangement even start?” I bark. “How did they even get on Max’s radar?”

Sinclair winces and takes a deep breath. “I’m afraid that’s my fault.” His tone is solemn and pained, like he’s disappointed in himself. I look at Sin, completely dumbfounded at how any of this would track back to him. He runs a hand over his face before dropping it to his laptop and turning the screen towards Aurora.

“I don’t speak cyber-geek, Sin. I’m going to need your words,” Aurora informs him, looking as confused as I feel.

Sin stands and starts pacing back and forth behind the desk. He looks like a caged lion, wild-eyed and tightly wound.

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