Dangerous Desire

23

He blinks slowly, his lids drifting open and shut, his pupils dilated as if he’s been drugged. His voice shaking, he breathes, “Thank you.”

Then he shoves me aside, picks up his knife from where he dropped it on the floor, strides over to Raphael in the chair, and plunges the blade deep into the center of his chest.

NINE

NAZ

Halifax, Nova Scotia. An Atlantic Ocean port in eastern Canada, it’s known for its maritime history, charming waterfront boardwalk, iconic lighthouses, and the Citadel, a star-shaped fort first established in 1749 to defend from various enemies approaching by sea.

It’s also so cold it can freeze your goddamn balls off.

Especially in the water.

In October.

At night.

“So here’s how this is gonna go, Catherine,” I tell the well-dressed middle-aged woman Connor’s got gagged and handcuffed on her knees in two feet of icy black water on a deserted part of the rocky beach south of town. “I’m gonna ask you a question, and you’re gonna give me an answer. If I don’t like your answer or I think you’re lying, my colleague here will dunk your head underwater and let you reconsider for a while. Then we’ll start over.

“I should warn you, though, that he’s got a pretty crappy sense of time. Thirty seconds, ninety seconds . . . it’s all the same to him.” I adopt a concerned expression. “How long can you hold your breath?”

She stares at me with hatred, not fear, blazing in her eyes.

Interesting.

Connor is wearing a sour face, which I know is because I called him my “colleague” and not my “superior officer” or simply “boss.” He doesn’t like these kinds of breaches in protocol. The military has a definitive hierarchy it enjoys drilling into the brains of its recruits, and though we both left the corps behind years and years ago, there are some things you just can’t shake.

“Oh, hang on a sec.” I pull my cell from my pocket and snap a few pictures of her wet and bound. “In case we need it for your obituary,” I say cheerfully, and put the phone away.

That didn’t intimidate her, either. She looks like she’s mentally putting a voodoo hex on me. This broad’s a tough nut to crack.

“So. Question one. Are you ready? Here we go: You and your husband own a yacht by the name of Silver Shadow, correct?”

Her fury is momentarily waylaid by confusion, evidenced by the way she stops glaring and squints at me.

“Nod or you’re going under. Salt water stings like a b***h when you inhale it through your nose.”

She nods.

“Okay. Good job! Question two: Your husband is currently aboard the Silver Shadow, correct?”

More nodding.

“Beautiful! You see, you’re a pro at this!”

Connor shakes his head and rolls his eyes, but I ignore him. We all have our ways of interrogating hostiles. Mine might be a little unorthodox, but I find having to frighten a woman extremely distasteful—sheerly on principle, though I’ve known a few women who were way more evil than any man, and it’s not fair to discriminate based on gender, but c’mon, you just shouldn’t be mean to girls—so I go with a few easy questions and a lot of support and encouragement so hopefully they won’t be too traumatized or have too many lasting mental and emotional scars for their therapists and romantic partners to deal with later on.

Although this particular hostile doesn’t seem to require kid gloves. I suspect I could strap her with explosives and a dead-man trigger and she’d spit in my eye.

“Question three, and this one is very important, so think hard before you answer.” I drop my friendly smile and my voice and stare right into her eyes. “Where. The f**k. Is he going?”

She makes a sound like a growling animal. I let her stew in her juices for a while as I continue to stare at her, then motion for Connor to remove her gag.

As soon as the cloth is free of her mouth, she takes a deep breath, then launches into a long and passionate speech about how we better kill her or she’s going to slice off our balls and choke us to death with them. Disembowelment will also occur, as will severing of limbs, etc. etc., before she dissolves our corpses in vats of acid and dumps them at sea.

Damn. I’ve met less-hardened prison wardens.

“We’re not going to kill you.”

When she looks surprised, I add, “I mean, probably not. We don’t want to. Well, I don’t want to, but . . .” I point at Connor while hiding my finger behind my other hand. Then, in a stage whisper: “That one’s nuts. He loves knocking broads around.” Then I spread my hands, like What are you gonna do?

She looks at Connor and makes that animal growl again. Connor stifles a sigh.

I’d feel sorry for her if I didn’t know what she and her husband have been up to for the last few decades, namely money laundering, facilitating transfers of illegal weapons from bad guys to even worse guys, and drug trafficking. A few hundred kilos of coke and fentanyl here and there to pad their bank accounts and bankroll their lavish lifestyle.

Oh, and let’s not forget the girls.

All the underage kidnapped girls the seemingly ideal citizens Mr. and Mrs. Bergé shuttle from one port to another aboard their luxury sailing yacht, the Silver Shadow, headed toward short, brutal new lives of degradation, humiliation, and unimaginable abuse from men who pay top dollar for virgins.

It is truly mind-boggling what you can discover if you know how to scour the dark web the way Tabby does.

So no, I don’t feel sorry for this fat little worm in a soaked Chanel pantsuit, but she’s still a person of the female persuasion, so she won’t get the worst of my temper.