Page 19 of Dangerous Silence
“You’re a man of your word,” Demi said, her voice muffled. “You made a promise.”
And what good was a promise to a dead man? A dead man who had lied to his daughter for her entire life.
“You’re a good man, Axe.”
I wanted to laugh. I had been born into this life, trained to be a murderer. There was nothing good about me; I was numb to my core. Everyone had their task, and mine, right then, had to do with getting rid of Muro’s slime.
“You made a promise,” Demi repeated, her voice quivering.
It was finally getting to her. That strength was falling, knowing that she was trapped. I kneeled down again, looking into the peephole. It was about the size of a round coaster, enough to give her air and some light, but not enough to stick her hand through to try and escape.
Her gray eyes found mine; fight pulsed in her pupils.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said, her tone menacing. “If you let me go, I won’t tell a soul. But you need to let me go, Axe. Before you make a very big mistake.”
I smiled. The grin washed over me. Oh, the mistakes I had made didn’t begin with Demi Walcott. They began long before she was born. That very first time I took the knife from her father’s hands.
That was if you believed in right and wrong.
She kept speaking, making up nonsense to convince me to let her go, but common sense was working its way into her brain too. Her eyes shifted beyond me, then stilled with the truth; if this was my torture lab, then killing those men wasn’t a mistake. Nor was putting her in a cage ‘an accident.’ It was a passion.
“If you make any noise,” I said quietly, “I will cut your tongue.”
She stared at me, her eyes racing back and forth.
“You wouldn’t,” she said.
“I would.”
“But you promised my dad you would—”
“I promised your father I would keep youalive,” I said sharply. “We never agreed to what that meant.”
My boots thudded on the concrete. The door swung and closed quietly. I stood outside of the workroom for a moment, checking my weapons and rope, acknowledging the guards at the sides, then let my eyes adjust. There was one more soldier out there. I had to work quickly.
I traveled through the woods. A tree lay on its side. A few yards down, another tree was too close to its neighbor, the roots growing up out of the earth. If you didn’t know it, you would miss it and trip over the roots hidden by the ivy. But I knew these woods better than the apartment I slept in.
A dark figure was crouched, peering at the reception, a sniper rifle on the ground, aimed through the trees. I came closer, step by step, waiting as he looked for the right target. I swooped in behind him, pulling his neck into a tight noose, then dragged him through the trees as he tried desperately to get some air. I pulled it up, letting his weight hang on the rope. I could have killed him there, but I wanted to play. And I wanted Demi to see how much of a mistake this was. Because mistakes didn’t happen on purpose, and I was going to use every last second of this man’s life to prove that to her.
I opened the door to the workroom, wrung zip ties around his ankles and wrists, and right before I knew he would expire, I opened the rope, giving his lungs freedom. He gasped.
“It’s you,” he said. “You.”
I hoisted him up, letting him drop onto the metal table. The baseball bat was underneath him, but causing him discomfort.
“You!” he said again, sneering at me. His breathing hoarse.
“Tell me about Cannon,” I said. “What’s his name? His real name?”
“Cannon will never bow down to you.”
I huffed. I never expected Cannon to obey me. I expected him to die.
“What’s his name?” I repeated.
“I’m not telling you shit, mother fucker!”
I let out a sigh, letting the sound float between us. How much could Demi hear?
