Page 117 of Poisoned Promise
He jolts in the metal chair he’s bound to when he locks eyes with Dove, then whimpers as Reese presses the gun a little more firmly against his skull.
“If you hurt him—,” Dove begins but she’s cut off by Reese.
“Oh my god shut the fuck up! Did you come here thinking you could threaten me into giving Alex to you? You’ve been out of the game for a long time, bitch. You’re not in control here and I sureas shit don’t fear the fucking Nightingale.” He purses his lips and spits on the ground with a grunt. “Fucking ghost story.”
“You might not fear her,” I warn him in a low, cold voice. “But you sure as fuck better fear me.”
“Awwh Felix.” He pouts dramatically. “Are you still bad that all this time you thought I was your friend but actually I was Caterina’s friend? She’s not one to share, you know that. Y’know, if you had actually listened to me and made some of those deals yourself, you might have become bigger than her. Then I might have switched loyalties once she washed into obscurity, but you always just had that big, gigantic Nico-shaped chip on your shoulder.” He laughs dryly. “Man, she played you like a fucking fiddle. How does it feel knowing who he truly was? You dedicated your whole life to the memory of a man like that?”
Every word is a threat, a taunt that drives the needles of irritation deeper and deeper into my skin.
I want to kill him.
I want to tear him limb from limb and make him stop talking because he’s a fucking rat drunk on power and I want to take it from him.
But that anger is softened by the utter distress of Alex between us and something warm and unfamiliar curls just underneath my ribs. A determination to get him out alive.
“You talk a lot,” Dove remarks. “Assholes who talk a lot are just trying to fill the void of their insecurities. Is this the first time you’ve had a little power? I can tell. You’re like a kid in his very first candy store and you know what that stinks off?” Dove breathes deeply. “Insecurity.”
“Insecurity?” Reese takes the bait immediately. “Fuck you! If I were insecure inanyway, it wouldn’t be me standing here with a gun to your kid’s head. But I was the one who picked up on his phone call. I was the one who tracked him long before you two made your shitty fucking escape. I was the one with the foresight to keep tracking his little bestie's number in case he called. I mean, who the fuck calls their dead friend?!”
Reese’s laughter echoes around the warehouse and Dove shifts her weight from one foot to the other.
Now it makes sense.
Bree and I never found anything on Alex because Reese had Alex before we escaped and started the search.
It never crossed my mind that we couldn’t find him because they already had him.
Caterina’s test to see if I killed Dove must have been the final nail before the reveal, a reveal that Toph gloriously fucked up.
“Wow, you look like shit,” comes Toph’s voice from behind Reese.
“Toph?!” Reese spins around but his gun never shifts against Alex’s temple. “Fucking hell. A triple agent, huh? I never saw that coming.”
“You should have,” Toph remarks. “If you knew anything about me then you would have seen right through my lie. My loyalty to Felix was never up for bargain.”
Now we have him surrounded. All we need to do is get Alex away from him and this will all be over.
“Mom,” Alex wails suddenly, having shifted the gag off his mouth with frantic jaw movements. “Mom, I'm so sorry! I was scared, I was so scared and I just wanted to hear a friendly voice so I called Mike?—!”
“It’s okay, honey!” Dove can’t stop her voice from breaking. “It’s all okay honey. I swear. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Nothing wrong?” Reese turns back to us with a sneer. “He called his dead friend and walked right into my arms. How fucking stupid did you raise this kid?”
“Manipulating a fucking child is nothing to be proud of,” Dove growls. “It’s lower than low. But that’s where you’ll always be, Reese. You’ll always be the little fucking rat scurrying for crumbs, eager for acknowledgement that will never come.”
“You’re surrounded,” I pipe up, barely able to contain the knot of heat growing in my chest. “Give it up and you might still walk away.”
Reese presses the barrel hard against Alex’s temple and he whimpers, sending a ripple of tension through the entire room.
“I’m not surrounded,” Reese snarls. “You think I came here alone? But it doesn’t matter because I’ll be walking out of here without issue. Wanna know why?”
Dove and I exchange a brief glance and both her hands curl into fists. “Enlighten us,” she mutters.
“You’re coming with me.” He nods at Dove. “It’s pretty simple. I have Alex. Caterina wants you. She wants you because she hates you, she hates that you killed her son and she hates that Felix loves you. So she’s going to take you, and you’ll spend the rest of your days not knowing if Felix has done a good enough jobkeeping Alex safe or if he’s already dead in a gutter somewhere. So I’m here for an exchange, Dove. Alex goes free and you come with me.”
“Over my dead body,” I snarl heatedly but Dove cuts over me without a second thought.
