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Moore and Tennessee took turns on our prisoner, and the minutes ran together as they worked in harmony. When one needed a break, the other stepped in. They asked basic questions, guided by Grey and me when needed, and their interrogation styles complemented each other perfectly. Looking at Grey, I knew he noticed it too. We’d have to get them working interrogations more often. They had a knack for it, despite their participant refusing to give up what we wanted.
Tennessee gave up first, his usual affable nature nowhere to be found as he perched next to Grey to watch, but Moore kept at it. He and Rey had always been close, and the loss of his best friend had severed a little bit of his humanity. Zander was the only tie to answers we could boast, and the longer he held out, the more unhinged my enforcer became.
“I don’t know anything!” Zander repeated over and over, but Moore didn’t hear him. He didn’t back up either. He kept going. Slicing and hitting and punching. Small wounds that hurt more as they compounded. He took out his grief and pain on the only person he could.
Finally, when Zander was on the edge of being too far gone to help us, I had to call it. “Enough.”
Moore immediately stepped back, panting and gasping for air, and it wasn’t because he was tired. It was heartbreak. He was walking around missing a piece of himself. I could see it written on him the same way I felt the hole in my chest, and it killed me that it was my fault.
“Tennessee, take him upstairs for a drink.”
Moore glared at Zander, desperate for another turn, but didn’t argue. None of us spoke until the door slammed shut behind them.
“He’s crazy.” Zander’s nose was broken, and blood covered the lower half of his face, his voice muffled and wet because of it.
“He’s in pain,” I corrected. “Rey was like a brother to him.”
“I swear, I don’t know anything about the shooting.”
Staring down at the mess my men made of him, I believed him. Zander was selfish by nature. If he had intel that could save his skin, he would’ve said something. “Then why should I keep you around?”
His eyes widened. “Don’t kill me. I can be useful.”
I scoffed. “You haven’t been yet. All you’ve done is waste time I don’t have.”
Zander’s eyes darted around the room, and I could see his mind whirling, searching for anything to save himself. When he looked back at me, I saw nothing but victory and felt a little of it myself. “There’s a new player in town.”
That was not what I was expecting.
I felt the air shift as Grey settled into that preternatural stillness he’d perfected. A new player coming to town just weeks after a failed assassination attempt had bad news written all over it. I focused all my attention on my only link to information. “Who?”
“Don’t know.” Zander shrugged casually, but it missed the mark. Hard to be casual when you were tied to a chair and desperate not to die. “Leader’s native to the area, but that’s all the info I’ve got. It’s all hush-hush.”
I tapped my fingers against the chair arm, mind racing. He was still hiding something. The hunch in his shoulders gave him away.
“It’s a group, not just a man?” I asked.
Z nodded fast enough to give me a kink in my neck. “Oh yeah. Big group, too. Leader says he’s been recruiting for years.”
Gotcha. I hummed. “Very hush-hush, indeed.”
Grey pulled his gun and pointed it at Zander, who blanched. “What are you doing with that?”
Neither of us answered. A gun to the face was pretty self-explanatory, especially when he’d just snitched on himself.
“How long have you been meeting with this new enemy, Zander?” I asked, settling back in my chair. I saw it then, the scared mouse that he tried to hide. The one that said he knew he’d done a bad thing. All three of us knew he was dead, but he was still trying to find a way out of it. He had to try for his life one more time.
“I-I haven’t met with anyone.”
I tilted my head. “You weren’t with this new group the last few weeks?”
“No. I told you I was lying low.” His lies were so bad, I could nearly smell them in the air.
“And I believed you until a more plausible answer was presented. Now, I’m officially out of patience. What’s the name of this group, Z?”
Zander swallowed hard, the thick sound loud in the silence around us. “I don’t?—”
Grey cocked his gun, and Z jerked at the sound. “Tell her the truth, or you’ll die right here, right now.”
