Page 36 of Silver Lining (The Diamond Trilogy 3)
My friends from the CIA circle around like wolves around a corpse.
One of them steps forward to hit me again, but the man with perfect shoes holds up his hand.
“Give us a few minutes alone.”
“But, sir—” Their ringleader steps up to the side of the guest of honor’s chair, genuine confusion on his face. “This man is a highly trained operative. Are you sure—”
“He’s tied up, starved, and beaten to within an inch of his life.” Our newest arrival adjusts one of his sleeves. “As long as you guys have been doing your jobs, I have nothing to worry about, do I? Now leave.”
In the answering silence the torture squad files out in a neat row.
“So,” I say when we’re alone. “You gonna tell me who the fuck you are? Because I know you’re not military. No one in the ranks can afford that tie.”
He looks smug. “Why would I trust you with that information?”
“You want me to work for you, right? That means I’ll have to know who you are. Besides the fact that if you don’t like what I say, you can put a bullet between my eyes.”
“You can call me the senator.”
“Is that supposed to be ironic? Like you’re actually in the House of Representatives, so we call you the senator to throw them off the scent?”
The senator straightens his jacket, frowning down at me. He looks fucking terrifying. Like a man possessed. I’m not sure if I can feel appropriate levels of fear, except when it comes to Holly. I shouldn’t be afraid of this guy at all, but there’s a glint in his eyes I don’t like. “This woman,” he says. “She can be yours. Tied up in a penthouse suite whenever you get back from a mission. Whatever you want. You were underpaid before. Underappreciated. That changes now.”
“I prefer to do my own kidnapping, but thanks.”
“Women. Money. Anything you want can be yours if you work for me.”
“I think you might be getting ahead of yourself.” I flex my fingers so they don’t fall off from being restrained behind my back. “People are going to look into the colonel’s business now that he’s dead. People will find out that the two of you were connected. Maybe they’ll ask questions. I could probably help them connect a few dots.”
He grits his teeth, and for the first time since he entered the room I’ve gotten under his skin. I rotate my wrists around in the bonds to see if the rope loosens up.
It doesn’t.
The senator is openly scowling. Openly hating the fact that I remember things from a time other than now. He strides toward me, eating up the distance between us in four long steps. But he doesn’t stop when it would be normal. He stops right in front of me and reaches down to the front of my pants.
“What the fuck—”
The sentence dies mid-thought because he squeezes. The senator is crushing the life out of my balls. They feel flattened. Irredeemable. I’m never going to be able to repair the damage he’s done. This is for Holly. All of this is for Holly. Remember that.
He twists, and pain explodes across my belly. It’s punctuated by the senator laughing. “If I get my hands on your girl,” he says. “I’m going to fuck her until she bleeds from her pussy.”
I focus on breathing through my gritted teeth. Fuck, I’m angry. I’m so angry, and it hurts to be here. There’s one way to make it hurt less.
I let my eyes close, then murmur something unintelligible.
The senator leans in closer. “What was that?”
“Fuck you,” I tell him.
“Remember.” His forehead is inches from mine. “Remember what just came out of your mouth, asshole. Remember that when I’m reaming your pretty little girlfriend in the ass.”
I mumble again, and the senator can’t resist. He just can’t. He leans in even closer, struggling to understand me and probably hoping to have me shot right now.
That’s when I snap my head forward and slam my forehead into the senator’s head. He reels back, sitting down hard on the floor and sucking in deep breath after deep breath.
My own head hurts.
It hurts like a bitch.
Like a cracked skull. A dying star.
He’s still down there when I maneuver the rope around my wrists into a position where I can leverage my own body weight to get it off. By the time I’m freed from the goddamn steel chair, the senator is coming around to regular consciousness. He gets his feet under him, eyes searching for the door, but I haul him up higher.
It gives me the perfect positioning for an effective choke hold.
The senator, it turns out, doesn’t have a lot of experience being in a choke hold. He doesn’t struggle nearly enough. A few halfhearted swipes at my arms and face and he’s already going limp in my arms. When his head falls to the side I drop him to the floor.
