Berk twists the knife once, enough to spike adrenaline through him but not enough to do actual damage. The sound that leaves him is almost inhuman.
“That was for wasting my time,” she says calmly. “Lie again and I’ll carve the truth out of you.”
He’s shaking so badly I can see it from across the room.
“They’ll kill me,” he chokes. “If I talk, they’ll kill me.”
Berk slides the blade out and wipes it on his shirt. “What do you think we’re gonna do if you don’t talk?”
He breaks.
“I don’t know the girl,” he gasps. “But I know Dean and Bryce. They pay me. Drops. Packages. That’s it. I don’t meet them or ask questions.”
“What about Horizon Logistics—the shell company?” I ask from my place behind Berk. My voice sounds nothing like it normally does. It’s quiet. Deadly.
Jory swallows. “Money comes from there every couple of weeks. I don’t know who runs it.”
“Your contact?” Rowan presses.
“I don’t have one,” Jory insists. “They message me. A time. A place. Sometimes a PO box with the package already inside. I grab it. I drop it off.”
“When’s the next one?” Ronan asks.
“I don’t know,” he whimpers. “Nothing since the dock the other day. I swear that’s everything. Please.”
There’s a long stretch of silence. He’s panting. Bleeding. Crying.
Berk slides her knife back into her boot and stands. The sound is soft, final. Ronan steps beside me. Rowan moves to her other side.
Jory finally understands the shift.
He’s told us everything he can.
And that means he has nothing left to bargain with.
The begging begins messy. Half words, wet sounds, spit flying because his busted lip can’t form any words properly. He keeps trying to look at Berk like she’s his salvation, and every time he does Ronan cracks him across the face with the butt of his gun.
“Eyes down,” Ronan snarls. “Or I take one of them.”
The guy jerks his gaze to the floor immediately.
We already planned to kill him once he talked, so I’m not invested in his comfort. But then Berk leans into me, fingers brushing my arm as lightly as a warning fluttering through my veins. Her voice is barely a whisper.
“Keep him busy.”
I nod once, no questions asked. She moves toward his phone on the table, pulling another device from her pocket like a magician producing a blade. I catch the slight tilt of her wrist, the way her fingers dance across screens. She is already cloning the phone before Jory realizes she’s even touched it.
He’s blubbering, “Please, man, please, I didn’t mean any of it, they forced me, I swear, I swear.”
I let him ramble. Let him drown himself with pathetic promises while Berk sweeps his entire digital life into her pocket.
Once she’s done, she turns back toward him and softens her face. Not real softness. Calculated softness. A gentle expression that makes monsters confess and cowards fall apart.
She crouches in front of him. “Hey,” she murmurs.
He nods fast, like a bobblehead on crack.
“I believe you,” she says sweetly.