Page 59 of Silver Sinner

"I-I don't know how many times I can tell you, I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Money, whore!" Green leans close and yells directly in my face. "We know you have it stashed, so just fucking give it to us!"

"I have nothing!"

"Liar!"

"I have no money! No matter what you do to me, I can't give you what I don't have!"

"Liar!" He screams and grabs my jaw, pinching his fingers cruelly into my throbbing cheek. "Layla Cross, we know everything about you. We know you work at Frank’s diner. We know where Madeline goes to school. We know you never splash out and we know you were a prostitute for two years, so we know you made fucking bank for the shit you did. Places like where you worked? They pay big, and living here like some kind of fucking pauper won't mask the fact that we know you're stinking rich, so where the fuck do you hide it?!"

He might as well have been speaking another language because I heard nothing after Madeline's name. I haven't heard from her since I woke up, and the blue masked man has been gone for what feels like hours. I'm torn between fearing the worst and praying they won't lay a hand on her.

"Please," I gasp. "Don't hurt my daughter. I don't have anything! I can't give you anything! I barely have two hundred dollars in my bank account until payday!"

"We don't care about that, you fucking cunt! We care about the shit you've got stashed, the thousands you've hidden so you don't have to pay the tax man! Well guess what, we're the fucking tax man, and we've come to collect!"

"Please!" Tears trail down my cheeks, pouring unhindered as I wrench my jaw away from his grip. "You can take everything, but there's no money to find. There's nothing I swear, I swear!"

His palm collides hard with my cheek, and I gasp, briefly disoriented until wails and cries from Maddie rise up from deeper inside my apartment.

"Maddie!" Her pain is like an injection of adrenaline and I surge forward, straining against my binds and kicking out at Green. He trips and crashes into the table, rolling off to the side. "Maddie!"

The oven door finally dislodges and falls open, giving me extra room to surge forward. I turn around, brace my feet against the door, and pull with all my strength. Unfortunately, there's no give in the plastic ties around my wrists, and they cut deep into my flesh as the yellow masked man surges forward and drops down onto me with his entire weight. All air is forced out of my lungs as he pins me with a knee, pressing my skull down onto the tiled floor with his hand. The cold barrel of a gun is thrust against my kidney.

"You fucking bitch, if you won't talk then maybe I'll go see what your darling little girl can tell me⁠—”

"Wait!" I scream, my eyes bulging from the strain. "There's a necklace, I have a-a necklace! It was a gift, okay! I-I don't know how much it's worth but it's probably a lot. It's all I have! Please! Please! It's all I have! Take it! Just don't touch my daughter! Please, please, please take it. I don't have anything else!"

Yellow finally leans off me and hauls me up by my hair. I sag back against the counter, panting and dizzy. Behind Yellow, Green climbs to his feet and shakes his head, then cocks his gun and aims it at me.

"Fucking bitch," he snarls.

"This?" Yellow paws at my chest and grabs the pendant Pierce gave me. "You can afford this but you tell me there's no fucking money?"

"It was a gift!" I sob as he rips it from my neck, leaving a sharp burn around my throat. "It was a gift."

"For fuck’s sake," comes a third voice, and the blue masked man storms back into the kitchen. "What the fuck is taking so long? The fucking kid won't stop screaming, it's doing my head in!"

Only, that's not a man. The heavy clothes hide her figure, but the voice is distinctly female. Cold dread leaks through my gut.

I know that voice.

"Come on bitch, huh?" Blue advances toward me, and there's a lilt to her voice as she makes a poor attempt to disguise herself. "Where's the money, bitch? We know you have it! So fucking selfish, aren't you? Gotta be a lot to buy this kind of silence!"

"A-Amy?" I gaze up at her with wide eyes, and the air around us freezes.

Despite the mask, her mouth clearly falls open and she raises her head, exchanging a glance with the yellow masked man next to her.

“Amy... is that you? It is, isn't it? Oh my God, oh my God what are you doing? Oh my⁠—"

Blue suddenly grabs the top of her head, ripping the mask off. The blown-pupil, wide-eyed, angry face of my best friend stares down at me. Her hair's matted to her forehead from sweat, and she looks at me with nothing but venom.

"Amy…" I can scarcely believe what I'm saying.

Her mouth twists and her lips part but as she takes a breath, a gunshot rings out. Blood and brain matter explode out the right side of Amy's head, spraying the wall and the fridge. In the fraction of a second after the shot, she stares deep into my eyes.

I watch the light go out, and all the warmth of life in her eyes immediately darkens.