Page 77 of Star Claimed Omega
Her spine stiffened. ‘What do you want?’
Vern’s face twisted, his cruel features twisted and warped.
‘What do I want?’
His snarl was pitched with fury. ‘I want fifty of my best men brought back to life and out of lock up! I want my weaponsstockpile replaced! I want the entirefokk-up you handed us yesterday reversed!’
She flinched, her chest tightening.
‘We tried the bridge, using the schematics and codes you provided. We thoughtTheSombrawould be easy with their captain gone on honeymoon,’ he snarled, pacing now, his image distorted with static. ‘That the strong guard was weak without him. We didn’t count on their XO having a death wish and spacing himself, his Signet brothers, and all my freakin’ capos. He and his people lived. MINE DID NOT. Now look at us. Shattered, scattered, and shamed. Why didn’t you warn us?’
Soleil jolted and hissed. ‘I did, I said not to make any risky moves. All along, the plan has been to hit only the prison deck. You caused that shitshow on your own by not listening to me. How is it my fault?’
The man was manic, making wild assertions that made no sense.
‘We were left in the wind when the jail was raided and our people put in solitary confinement. We needed to pivot to a new strategy,’ he spat with venom. ‘Also, Scarletta, never address me that way ever again. Don’t forget who owns you. You are ours, and we own every breath you take.’
She shook her head, so annoyed she lost it. ‘Fokkoff.’
Vern leaned in, his eyes glowing like twin embers. ‘How dare you? I will burn you alive from the inside out.’
He tapped a series of commands into the console on his end of the call, and she convulsed in agony.
As red-hot bolts of piercing pain rode her, radiating from her wrists, so agonizing they seemed to pierce her eyeballs.
It was so protracted that she fell to her knees, writhing until it stopped.
She curled up into herself, shaking even as Vern’s laugh washed over her.
‘Time to up the ante, Scarletta. We need up-to-date schematics of that prison deck. Savvy?’
With that, the projection blinked out, and she was left in the stillness of Santi’s kitchen, her cuffs burning, heart galloping inside her ribs like a trapped animal.
She pressed a hand to her chest.
Wishing a life of no more running or hiding.
Damn, she was so freakin’ tired of being someone’s pawn.
She was also broken and soul-weary of hersecretiveness.
However, the cloak-and-dagger game she was playing remained, and Santi couldn’t know.
Not unless she wanted to breathe her last at the same time.
13
Chapter 13
SOLEIL
Soleil didn’t know how long she lay on Santi’s living room floor, curled up in physical and emotional agony, her cheek pressed to the cool tiles.
Her wrist throbbed, a deep, grinding throbbing buried beneath the skin like an iron band crushing bone.
The sensation pulsed in rhythm with her heart, and each attempted movement felt like flinching through fire.
She tried to move, grimacing as she shifted her weight.
