Page 31 of The Veteran

I glanced at Ronan and Kade, and Ronan shook his head, so I remained silent.

“Bitch,” he snarled. “I asked, where’s the money?”

“Shut up.” Kade’s voice was low and dark. “You don’t get to talk to her. As far as you’re concerned, she doesn’t exist. Got it?”

“But she’s right there,” Parrish pointed out.

I wisely kept my mouth shut.

“Rich and John will get their hands on her sometime,” he said, speaking to Kade now. “And it won’t be pretty.”

Kade twitched, as though he wanted to lunge at Parrish, but Ronan laid a hand on his shoulder to stop him. Parrish sunk onto the chair opposite them.

“Tell us about the riot,” Ronan said, his tone even. “Who planned it?”

Parrish gave an insolent shrug. “Don’t know. Not my business.”

Ronan leaned forward and, for once, I caught a glimpse of the dangerous man beneath the suit. He’d always struck me as a nice guy, but there was nothing nice about the way he stared down Parrish.

“I think it was you,” Ronan told him. “You and Rich and John. I think you planned the riot so you’d be able to escape, but you got caught up in the thick of it and they left you behind.”

“You don’t know anything.” But Parrish looked like Ronan had caught him off guard.

“Was it your job to get things started?” Ronan asked. “They made you do the dirty work and then abandoned you?”

Parrish scowled. “It wasn’t like that.”

Ronan grinned. “Ah, but you did start it?”

“No! I, uh…” He fidgeted. “No.”

“They’ve always been closer to each other than you, haven’t they?” The way Ronan stated it like a fact, I almost felt sorry for Parrish. Ronan had clearly struck a nerve and he was going for broke. “Rich and John always look out for each other first. You’re just the hired help.”

Parrish shot to his feet, and a nearby guard jerked to attention, but then Parrish slowly sat back down. “We look out for each other,” he said dully.

“Sure you do.” Ronan’s tone was dismissive. “What were you planning to do after you were free?”

“Get as far from this shithole as I could,” Parrish growled.

“Really?” Kade demanded. “Or were you planning to hunt down Sage and torture her until she told you where the money is?”

Torture?

My stomach rolled, and I sensed both Ronan and Kade turn toward me as if in slow motion.

Who’d said anything about torture?

It made a sick kind of sense. If those men did think I had the money, how else would they make me tell them where it was? But still, something about the factual way Kade had said it made me wonder. Had Jessica been tortured?

Bile rose in the back of my throat and I swallowed—hard—and forced myself to shut down any outward reaction. If I was visibly upset, it might affect how much Parrish was willing to say.

My hearing went fuzzy and I couldn’t concentrate on anything as Ronan and Kade continued questioning Parrish. Blood pounded in my ears and I felt myself sway, but I gripped the edges of the seat and held on for dear life. I could get through this, and then I’d demand to know what they’d been keeping from me. Every last detail of it.

13

KADE

Parrish didn’t give us any useful information. The entire trip felt like a waste of time. When Ronan had tried to turn Parrish against his friends, it went nowhere. He might be a murderer, but the guy was loyal. And now Sage knew about the torture, or at least suspected. Why couldn’t I have kept my big mouth shut? I’d let my fury get the better of me, and now Sage was pale and quiet as we passed back through security.