Ruler (Wolves of Royal Paynes #2) - Kiki Burrelli Page 0,65
be named Athena Harod, and there was evidence of a woman her age who lived by that name, but the Athena Harod I found in public records had been declared missing and presumed dead over twenty years ago.
"Tell us who your employer is," Knox ordered without anger. He didn't get frustrated during interrogations or lose his temper. He was a continuous, unrelenting force, allowing his hostage no moment to gather their head before riddling them with more questions, the same questions, asked in different ways until the hostage cracked.
Athena laughed with her head down. Her hair fell in her face, sticking to the sweat on her forehead. "I'm not afraid of you. Pull out my fingernails, dismember me alive—you can't do anything to me that is worse than what they will do if I talk."
"Than what who will do?" Knox asked, as though he were asking her if she wanted that for here or to go.
Athena lifted her face, staring unblinking at the room. "Kill me. That's the only way this ends."
"I'll do it," Diesel offered, hands twitching toward the explosives at his belt.
His thirst for blood matched my own. I wasn't here gathering information for myself, though. I was here for Storri, and I knew for a fact he would not want the woman tortured. "I don't care about your employer. Tell me what happened to Storri's aunt, the real Selene Warler."
"Dead," the woman spat at the ground. "I killed her."
A flurry on the ground to my left brought my gaze to the floor. There was a small hole where rodents had chewed through the plaster in the wall. Mice were to be expected in this part of the hotel. We came down here only for maintenance and interrogations. There were plenty of access points from the outside in, but that didn't explain why I'd already noticed a parade of mice in that same spot. Unless…
My heart skipped a beat. Anger welled inside me, not that Storri was being sneaky, but that he'd likely been told everything we'd learned so far, and I couldn't be sure he'd been told with compassion.
"Why? When?" I snarled, losing my patience under the pressure to get answers and get them quickly so I could return to Storri.
"Because I wanted to," she bit back.
I dropped to my haunches in front of her and peered under her hair into her dark brown eyes. She was the enemy, but she was a human, one hundred percent. We'd thought we were fighting hellfire and demons, but she was flesh and bone. "Athena…"
I waited for her curiosity to get the best of her. Eventually, her forehead lifted. Our eyes met.
She was older than I'd been imagining. Storri's aunt would've been in her fifties. This woman probably was too.
"You think you're doing something brave, but you're not. We know you work for Portal."
The woman flinched, showing more fear at that one word than she had at any of our threats.
"We know you work for Portal and that they want Storri because he is a nephilim."
"Faust—" Knox warned.
Generally, spilling everything you knew already to the individual being interrogated was a bad tactic, but we weren't interrogating a suspect, that much had become clear to me. We were hearing her last words. I'd give her the chance to do something good right now, at the end of her life.
"We know others who have worked for Portal. They're dead now."
She laughed again, but this time there was no gusto. Her moxie had drained, but she still tried to play the part. "Should've read their contracts," she grumbled.
"Would they be any less dead if they had?"
"No, but then they'd know not to go blabbing. You say the name, you die. It can't get simpler than that."
The name being Portal. Had that been how Jazz's dad had died? He'd combusted, covering the room in ash. Had that happened simply because he'd spoken the name Portal?
"Okay, you say the name, you die. What name did Selene Warler say?"
"Oh God, please don't, stop?" Athena blew a puff of air up her forehead, dislodging the hairs stuck there. "Something along those lines anyway."
Diesel growled.
"She was a miserable bitch," Athena snarled, twisting her head to face him. "She hated Storri. Hated Storri's mother. I went through her junk. Diaries, journals, photos. She believed Storri's mother was a slut and a whore who got knocked up out of wedlock. You think I'm evil? That woman died never giving two shits about your precious angel."