“No.”
Richter chuckled, the sound devoid of mirth. “Yes, you do. But what if I’m bluffing? Of course.” He nodded, satisfied. “It’s a solid interrogation strategy, feigning ignorance.”
Gray tracked the beats of Richter’s performance. He had attempted to establish rapport, asserted his dominance, and asked his leading questions, the ones meant more to make his captive nervous than elicit answers.
Right on time, he unlatched the case. It held, as expected, an assortment of tools—blades and pliers alongside things Gray didn’t even recognize. But he didn’t need to. Everything lovingly packed into that case shared a single common purpose.
In Richter’s hands, they were meant to cause pain.
“Fuck, you’re good. Not a flinch.” Richter’s eyes gleamed as brightly as the instruments as he began to lay them out on the table. “I wish we had you on telemetry. I bet your pulse didn’t even budge.”
Gray lifted one shoulder. It gave him an excuse to test his range of motion—which turned out to be pitiful. “I’ve seen worse.”
“You’ve done worse.” Richter clucked his tongue. “But it’s not a competition, is it?”
Bullshit. For an organization like the Protectorate of the TechCorps, for a man like Richter, everything always was. They called it a lot of things—survival of the fittest, the law of the corporate jungle—but it always boiled down to not giving a damn about anyone else. Getting ahead at any cost, and staying up no matter who you had to step on.
Gray shrugged again.
“Mmm.” Richter turned his head and barked at the guards. “Leave us.” As they silently obeyed, he lifted a scalpel from the case, held it up to the light, and rubbed at a spot with his thumb like he was polishing Grandma’s silverware. “Marjorie Chevalier.”
Good thing Gray wasn’t on telemetry, after all. “Don’t know her.”
“Don’t insult me. You two seem to be … quite close.” Richter placed the scalpel precisely five centimeters away from a wickedly curved pair of pliers—probably meant for yanking teeth. “It’s fascinating, really. The woman who raised her wanted you dead, you know. Probably would have put the bullet in your head herself. She thought you were a monster, a sociopath who tortures kittens for fun.”
Gray remembered the endless evaluations. The fact that Birgitte had seen something lurking behind his carefully cultivated facade only proved that her instincts had been pretty damn good. It was hard to hold a grudge—especially considering the woman’s fate. “Was she wrong?”
“Sadly, I think so.” Richter stared at him hard, the sheer weight of it pressing Gray back in his chair. “I chose you for a reason, Matthew. Handpicked you out of that hellhole of an orphanage because I thought you’d be a team player.”
His brain tripped over the words so abruptly he lost the script. “Wait, what?”
“Do you have any idea how many people I had to lean on? How many carefully worded warnings I had to hand out?”
The full import of what Richter was saying clicked into place in Gray’s head smoothly, like a well-oiled bolt on a rifle. He hadn’t been overlooked, passed over. People had wanted him.
Richter kept spitting out his angry words. “One guy was so persistent I had to pay him off and threaten to conscript his kid. All because I thought you had what it took to serve the TechCorps.”
It was the answer to the biggest question that still lingered like a cloud over his life—why wasn’t I good enough? He had been, the whole time. He’d just had the profound misfortune of catching Tobias Richter’s eye. The man had seen the blank mask that Gray had worn like camouflage, that he had relied on for his continued survival, and he’d not only bought it, he’d coveted it.
Gray couldn’t help it—he laughed. “I guess you made a mistake.”
Richter stood and regarded him with cold fury, all pretense of charm and guile gone. “The rest of your squad is dead.”
His helpless humor evaporated. For all Gray knew, it was true. Sorrow tried to sink its inky-black talons into his heart, but he brushed it away. If it was the truth, he’d either have time later to grieve or he’d be just as dead. Either option was better than giving in to the burgeoning triumph in Richter’s eyes.
“If so, how come I’m not in a ditch somewhere with crows pecking out my eyeballs? You could be in a TechCorps boardroom by now, getting a shit ton of commendations along with your piles of credits.”
Richter said nothing, but the tight muscle in his jaw ticked as he ran his fingers over a slim, silver rectangle. It looked like a generic rechargeable battery pack … except for the electrodes extending from one end.
But Gray understood. “Ah, right. You’re not exactly in their good graces right now.”
“Bring her in.” Richter leaned closer to Gray—though not close enough to attack. “I’m going to find out everything Birgitte’s data courier knows. And after I’ve cracked her head open like a melon, I’ll drag her back there to get all those commendations. And you’ll be far too dead to help her.”
Gray’s hands clenched in his bonds. “She’ll never talk to you.”
“When she sees what I have in store for you, Sergeant Gray? I believe she will.”
The door swung open. A massive guard dragged Maya through, one rough hand locked so hard around her upper arm her boots left the floor when he swung her around to face Richter.
She had dirt on one cheek and her wrists secured behind her back, but she looked physically unharmed. Her gaze was wild as it skittered over him though, the depth of her panic a gut punch before she managed to lock it down.
“Oh boy,” she drawled. “He’s literally plagiarizing himself.”
Gray offered her a reassuring smile. “You didn’t expect him to be original, did you?”
“I guess not.” The smile seemed to ground her. He could still see the panic in her eyes, but her voice dripped lazy disdain. “Someone should tell him that sequels never really capture the magic of the first time.”
Gray tensed as the new guards shoved Maya down into the other chair. One flickering glance at Richter’s face showed he’d caught the reaction.
He smiled slowly. “Enjoy your moments of levity, Miss Chevalier. They will be brief.”
Maya held Gray’s gaze as if clinging to a lifeline. Her lips moved in a silent whisper. I’m sorry.
That wouldn’t do at all, so he shook his head firmly. “Remember what I said, Maya.”
Richter reclaimed the stool and rolled it closer to the table—and his villainous collection of torture devices. “Shall we begin?”
Maya’s breathing hitched. “Gray—”
“Remember what I said,” he repeated. He knew she did, so he could only hope she understood.
I will never let myself be used as a weapon against you.
Then Richter lifted the scalpel, and Gray folded in on himself. It was the only way.
KNOX
Knox had successfully sprung his share of traps from the inside. The key, unfortunately, was being underestimated by your opponent.
No one was underestimating him today.