Chapter 1076
Alistair stopped. He turned slowly, his eyes burning with that familiar, dangerous fire. “Excuse me?”
“We don’t go in guns blazing,” Skye said, walking over to him. She placed her hand on his chest. His heart was hammering—a war drum beating beneath the tactical vest. “Harper Cole wants you to lose control. She wants you to slaughter everyone so she can paint you as a monster. We need Lee to talk. And men like Lee don’t talk when they’re tortured. They talk when they think they’ve been betrayed.”
Alistair covered her hand with his. His skin was hot, his grip tight enough to bruise. “Lucian is running out of time, Skye.”
“I know,” Skye said, holding his gaze. “That’s why we have to be smarter than them. Felix, I need you to fabricate a voice recording. We need to make Lee believe his new employers have ordered a hit on him.”
Two hours later, the Queens warehouse district was shrouded in a grey drizzle. They sat in the back of a surveillance van parked two blocks away.
“Target is moving,” Felix said through the comms. “He’s heading to his car. He looks nervous.”
“Now,” Skye ordered.
Gabriel’s team moved. It was surgical. Secretary Lee—a balding man with a nervous tic—barely had time to unlock his sedan before a bag was thrown over his head and he was shoved into the back of a waiting SUV.
They brought him to an abandoned textile factory they owned on the outskirts of the industrial zone. It was a cavernous, echoing space smelling of dust and old grease. They strapped him to a chair in the center of the room.
Skye stood in the shadows, just outside the circle of light cast by a single hanging bulb. Alistair stepped into the light. He wasn’t holding a weapon. He was holding a scalpel. He didn’t say a word. He simply let the light glint off the blade.
Lee was hyperventilating. “Do you know who I work for? You’re dead! You’re all dead! Cole will burn this city down!”
“We know who you work for,” Alistair said, his voice a velvet threat. “The question is, do they still work for you?”
“What are you talking about?” Lee stammered, sweat beading on his forehead.
“Felix,” Skye said into her earpiece.
Felix pressed play on the speaker system rigged in the rafters.
A synthesized voice, modulated to sound like the distorted calls of Harper Cole’s operatives, filled the room.
“Asset Lee is compromised. He knows the transport route. Initiate Protocol Zero. Clean slate. No witnesses.”
Lee’s face went the color of old ash. “No… that’s… that’s impossible. I’m loyal! I arranged the pickup! I handed Graves over!”
“Loyalty is a budget item,” Alistair said, stepping closer. He dragged the flat of the scalpel blade across Lee’s cheek. “And you just became too expensive.”
“This is a trick!” Lee screamed, straining against the zip-ties. “You faked this!”
Skye stepped into the light. She was wearing a white trench coat, stark against the gloom. She looked at him with pity.