Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 128488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
A nobody to them. Less than that. They chose people who could be easily dismissed. No one would miss them should they disappear. No one would listen to them if they told their story. And these men made sure nothing checked out. Few lived, anyway, so who cared if there were a handful of scattered crazies with a similar story too outrageous to believe? Certainly not the police. They’d made sure of that.
“I don’t think tonight’s your night, Vitucci,” the man said softly, leaning toward him, his rotund belly preceding him and bumping Caspar’s. “One of them has lost a hand.”
“Hmm,” Caspar hummed disinterestedly, taking a long sip of his champagne. He wondered if this was the old man who’d taken Noelle’s virginity so many years ago. That man had had this same physique. The man tipped his own flute back, guzzling it in one gulp. There you go, you disgusting hog. Bottoms up.
The server passed by, presenting another full tray of champagne. Caspar drained his glass and took another, as did the old man. “It’s almost a shame that things look so bleak for them,” the man said.
Caspar smiled. “Almost,” he said. The man ambled away. Caspar looked around. Everywhere here there were bankers and politicians, members of various agencies, and high-powered attorneys. The amount of money they represented was in the billions. They could buy their way out of anything.
Or so they believed.
But they had missed something. Eventually they always did, because they thought themselves invincible.
The man who now called himself Leonard Sinclair was standing at Dedryck’s side, watching him from across the room. Caspar raised his glass to Leonard—Fontane, the spoiled son of a judge and the man he’d once watched rape his sister and tear the necklace from her throat as Caspar had been bound and helpless. He’d taken to the debauchery quite easily, as Caspar remembered. Fontane still didn’t recognize him, not only because they believed him dead, but because Caspar had been a nobody when he’d known him before, invisible to men such as him. Caspar had guessed correctly that Fontane had kept his sister’s diamond, the one Caspar assumed the bastard took out now and again to remind himself how untouchable he was.
Fontane raised his glass in return. Caspar knew very well what the man was cheering to. He hoped Vitucci would be dead by the end of the night. And perhaps his hope was well founded. But there was much Fontane did not yet know.
The room dimmed slightly, a hush falling over the party as the screens around the room blinked to life. The final act had arrived.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Grim hissed out a breath, pain radiating up his arm as he used his teeth to tie off the makeshift bandage he’d fashioned from the sleeve of his shirt.
His head swam at the sight of the blunt end of his arm. His fucking hand was gone. You made it out of that room alive, though. It’s only a hand. And your right one at that. His father had beat him each time he used his left hand to write, convinced that it meant Grim was stupid. He’d minded him at home but defied him at school and once he had moved out of his house. Take that, you mean ole fucker. Noncompliance pays off in the end, he thought, barely suppressing a manic laugh.
He hadn’t left Cedro. That was the point. Tears tracked down the kid’s face, and he swiped at them, trying to hide the fact that he was crying. He wasn’t so hardened that he didn’t still have the ability to cry. And Grim was glad for that. Grim knew what it was like not to feel. It was no way to live. Hence the fact that he’d been on a suicide mission prior to being abducted.
He supposed some would consider it an irony that he was currently fighting so hard to live.
“Cedro,” he said, and Cedro turned his head, his eyes held to his, obviously trying hard not to look at Grim’s wrapped stump, blood seeping through the gray fabric. He’d lost a lot of blood in the last few hours. It was now or never. They’d been given all the tools. He’d received the messages sent by the unknown person. He didn’t know if they were tricks or lies, but they had to try. He raised his left hand and did the sign of the cross. Cedro let out a slow breath but then tipped his chin. He’d understood the sign.
Grim lay down, attempting to sleep. They would need rest for what was to come. His phantom hand throbbed with agony, and a bead of sweat rolled down his cheek. He felt hot and clammy. His eyes found the poppy twisted around a bar of his cage, and he pictured his daughter, the vision of her face becoming clearer the longer he focused. He hadn’t allowed himself to picture her for so long, and now he saw her in every corner of his small cell, in the room where they tortured him, and in Cedro’s eyes as he looked at him from across their divide.