Page 73 of Villains and Vengeance
‘Think you can crack me that easily?’ I hiccup, willing my eyes to dry. ‘Go fuck yourself, Iron.’
* * *
Axel
It’s hard to breathe,my chest hurts and I can see that Jayce is feeling it too.
‘What the hell is he doing to her in there?’ I growl, getting up from the table while Maddox is watching at the door and not focusing on keeping me subdued for a moment.
Daemon bars my way. ‘He’s talking to her, that’s all.’
‘Bullshit,’ Jayce snarls, gripping his seat so hard that the wood begins to splinter.
I pace in front of Daemon.
‘You can’t do this to her. She was going to take us with her. That was the deal!’
Maddox glances at me from where he’s watching Iron’s interrogation of Jules, his expression shuttered.
‘The deal is whatever I say it is,’ he answers tightly.
‘She won’t break,’ Jayce mutters from behind me. ‘She’s strong. Iron won’t get shit out of her.’
Maddox shrugs. ‘You know as well as I do how good he is at this. He’s not even warmed up yet. Wait until he starts pulling her teeth out, her fingernails.’
‘You’d let him hurt her like that?’ I ask, not sure what is happening to the head of our clan, but rapidly concluding that he’s not in his right mind. ‘Where’s that British honor you care so much about? She can’t even fight back.’
‘I’mnot doing anything. If she wants it to stop, she just needs to tell us what we need to know. It’s as simple as that. Once she does—’
‘You give her to Dante?’
Maddox’s silence answers my question.
‘You can’t do that,’ Jayce says.
‘We have a deal with the demon king. We have to see it through or none of us are getting out of here.’
‘We could still take her with us,’ Jayce says.
Maddox rolls his eyes. ‘Do shut up, Jayce. We’re not taking the deceitful girl home with us to play Happy Families. We almost did that once before, remember?’ He turns back to watch Iron again. ‘She’s made her bed and she deserves to rot in it.’
I try to calm down, keep my head so I can reason with Maddox.
‘It would be better to keep her as leverage until the final moment,’ I try.
Maddox sighs. ‘Yes, that’s what I intend to do. I’ll be handing her over just before we leave.’
I grit my teeth. ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘I think she’d be useful to take with us, but fine.’
I go back to my seat voluntarily. Jayce stares at me, baring his teeth in anger.
‘You abandon her if you want,’ he whispers, ‘but I’m not going to.’
I give him a look. ‘I’m not abandoning anyone,’ I say loudly. ‘She’s a conwoman and a thief.’ I grin like this was all just a little fun. ‘But she sure made being here a lot more pleasant,’ I laugh.
I answer Jayce’s look of fury with an incredulous one of my own. Does he really not get what I’m trying to do?
Finally understanding dawns in his eyes and he lays off.
