“I already told you, it’s—”
“If you sayin the groundone more time…” Zeke pivots awayfrom me back to his bounty hunter. “I want you to hurt him.”
“Hurt him?” Frank repeats.
“Yes, get the information out of him.”
“Ah, you mean that you want me to torture him.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Why the fuck not?”
Frank takes a knife out of its sheath at his hip, but uses it to start cleaning under his nails instead of stabbing me, which I do appreciate. “You didn’t pay me for that.”
“What?”
“You did not pay me to torture someone. You paid me to find someone. Which I did.”
“Because Itoldyou how to do it. Because they have that girl with them. I told you she would be looking for you.Iam the one that said she wasn’t going to let it go and that you could use it to your advantage.”
“Doesn’t matter whose thought it was. What matters is that one of the three of ‘em was found. As far as I’m concerned our contract is finished, and I’m due the rest of my pay so I can get out of this shithole.”
“You can’t go now.” Zeke gestures in my direction as if to prove his point. “And youjusthit him, so why not—”
“That was for me.” Frank’s eyes flick to mine. “He’s really fucking irritating.”
“Then hit him again because he’s irritating.”
“No, anything else you have to pay for.”
I nod in a show of support. “Always good to know your worth when negotiating compensation with an employer.”
“Would you shutthe fuckup?” Frank says.Well, see if I take his side again. “Besides, I don’t think torturing him is going to work.”
Zeke turns back to me, and I tilt my face up to the light shiningthrough the window so he can see the scars. Even hold up my arms so he can see the ones visible on my forearms beneath my rolled-up shirt—Aiden’srolled-up shirt. I smile as Zeke registers them, registers their meaning, but he doesn’t appear ready to accept it yet.
“I’ll pay you. I’ll give you a cut of the money,” Zeke says to Frank. “Just make him tell you where it is.”
Frank seems to consider it for a while before at last he says, “You’re not asking him the right questions. He’s not getting it. Those two that were with ‘im…” He looks at me, assessing again. “What are they to you?”
“Ah, well…history will say we were friends.”
He walks forward and kicks me hard enough in the side to make me wheeze before he crouches down and does a much better job at looking intimidating than Zeke did. “You really don’t know when to stop running your mouth.”
“I’ve…” I try to suck in a breath, but the sharpness to it tells me he’s cracked at least one rib. “I’ve been told that before.”
“You ever been told that yourfriendsare dead because you wouldn’t shut it?” He tilts his head as he smiles. “How sure are you that they’ll even come for you at all? Guessing they are the ones that have the money. And they have each other. Maybe they don’t need you.”
I meet his gaze. “Still not getting it, Frank.”
“I’ll spell it out for you then. Hear that girl you have traveling with you is a pretty little thing. If I were your partner, I’d be wanting her all to myself.”
I say nothing, and he grins, thinking he’s found a weak point.
“Don’t tell me that it hasn’t crossed your mind. I know she must mean something to you. You bellied up to that bar just because she thinks I shot her daddy, right?”