Quinn grabbed at the railing, growing dizzy. She couldn’t miss the rage in the woman’s eyes. “I told River Ex Nihilo’s women would die one by one to make up for Julien’s death. Guess you’re first.”
Quinn blinked hard, trying to stay alert, but some kind of sedative was pulling her under fast. The last thing she noticed before she slipped into unconsciousness was the woman had no eyebrows or eyelashes. Just hard, angry eyes filled with a pulsing hate. The small bits of visible skin looked puckered and discolored, as though something had eaten away at her face.
If Quinn had to guess, she’d say acid.
???
Blinking her eyes open, Quinn lifted her chin off her chest and looked around. As the room slowly came into focus, she gave her groggy head a shake...and immediately wished she was still unconscious.
All kinds of old torture devices surrounded her, some familiar-looking and others a mystery she never wanted to solve. It was a macabre collection ranging from the very simple—like pincers used to rip flesh apart—to an actual guillotine.
A shiver tore through her as she studied the device’s tall, upright frame with an angled blade suspended at the top. A condemned person’s neck would be secured in the pillory at the bottom of the frame and then the blade would be released. Swift and forceful, it would decapitate the victim with a single, clean pass.
Her stomach soured and she pulled her attention away, letting it travel over thumbscrews, a rack, a garrote, a scourge with barbed balls and even an iron maiden laden with wicked-looking spikes. As her brain began to clear the fog from whatever drug she’d been given, she looked down and saw her wrists were tied to the armrests of a wooden chair. Not ideal, but she’d be able to break free after working on the bindings. Twisting and tugging at the ropes, she did her best to slowly loosen them. She’d learned long ago that panicking solves nothing and she’d been trained how to resist and survive enhanced interrogation.
She also knew one thing for certain—you didn’t need complicated machinery to cause incredible pain, and these medieval instruments would make a person scream in a very short amount of time.
If she had to guess, she was underground. A mustiness permeated the air and it felt slightly damp. A basement, maybe? Although it felt deeper. Like she was in some kind of subterranean tunnel. Or, the freaking bowels of hell.
Her mind wandered back to her run-in with the woman on the stairs. It had to be Camille Mercier. After falling into the acid, Quinn understood why she always covered up. The scars caused by the severe burns must be extraordinary. It was crazy to think she’d survived.
“Ah, look who’s finally awake.”
Malcolm Grendel approached and Quinn inwardly sighed. She hated his gangly, skeletal appearance. Saint called him Skeletor and she couldn’t think of anything more appropriate. Grendel had watery brown eyes and looked sickly.
But his true sickness involved the perverse pleasure he took in torturing his victims. Brax told her how Grendel had tortured Saint then locked him up in a box and left him to die. Luckily, Ex Nihilo had come to the rescue. God, she hoped history would repeat itself and his team would come storming in at any moment.
Now, seeing the thin-lipped grin he gave her sent a chill down her spine. She could only imagine what he had planned. The CIA had taught her techniques to deal with pain and torture, but that didn’t mean she wanted to put her knowledge to the test.
Cross Mills entered the room a moment after Grendel and Quinn decided to play indignant.
“What the hell is going on?” she demanded. “This is ridiculous. Untie me now before you really piss me off.”
“Enough of the bullshit,” Cross said. “I think we’re past lying to each other.”
“Alright,” she said calmly. “Then why don’t you explain your connection to the Mercier twins.”
“I’d rather hear how long you’ve been back in your ex-husband’s bed while pretending to be loyal to me.”
Shit.He knew.
No more pretenses.
“What the hell are you planning tonight?”
His face lit up. “So many good things. A lot of people are finally going to get what they deserve. Tonight, Camille and I are going to be judge, jury and executioner.”
“Guess she survived her acid bath,” Quinn said flatly.
His face turned thunderous. “The tank next to the acid was filled with water. I got there just in time to pull her out and save her. I was running through the back door while Ex Nihilo was running out the front.”
He turned his hands over and, for the first time, she noticed the extensive scarring.
“Saving her destroyed my hands. Luckily, the good doctor here is a surgical genius when it comes to reconstruction. While I’ve had several skin grafts, Camille has endured hundreds. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be burned by acid? How it feels as the acid eats away at the skin and muscle tissue, layer by layer? Sometimes, like with Camille, it can reach all the way to the bone, where it begins to disintegrate.”
Quinn didn’t say a word. Keeping her head held high, she did her best not to let the horror story affect her.
Cross stepped closer, his cobalt eyes darkening with a hate so palpable, it was rolling off him in waves.