Page 39 of Corrupted

"I don't know," Leon whined. "I swear. I've told you everything I can think of. Please…"

"Everything you can think of?" Gianni echoed. "I guess you better think about things you haven't thought of yet. Otherwise, I might have to find some different music to play for you. What about some kid's music?"

"That would be evil," I remarked. "I've heard some of it since… I came home. It would drive anyone crazy."

"Exactly." Gianni grinned. "Can you imagine hearing 'climbing goat, goat, goat,' over and over? Or the next chorus, 'fainting goat, goat, goat.' I guess whoever wrote that has a thing about goats."

"I think they have a thing about earworms," I remarked. "Excuse me if I stick to Bobby Sparkle."

Gianni snapped his fingers. "We could play that and pretend we're at a school disco."

Leon groaned. "You're both out of your fucking minds."

Gianni crouched down in front of him. "That's not a nice thing to say about my woman, Leon."

Leon raised his chin and almost managed to look defiant. "Why don't you go on and kill me then?"

He sucked in a ragged breath and spoke in a hoarse voice. "Kurt enjoyed raping her. I enjoyed watching it. I enjoyed every moment of it. I was hoping he'd let me do it too. I wanted to stick my cock in her mouth and make her suck it."

I pushed down the spike of anxiety at the memories his words evoked.

"I was just about to tell Gianni I thought you'd outlived your usefulness." I stepped closer. "But for that, you can live for a while longer." He deserved to suffer a little more for bringing all of that up. A lot more.

His head flopped back down and he groaned softly. Frustrated that his attempt to provoke us into killing him had failed miserably.

His next words came out in a pleading rush. "Jase's last name is Andrews. Jason Andrews. He was an old friend of Kurt. Hammer's real name is Wade. I heard Kurt call him that once. I don't know what his last name is, I swear. They might be brothers, I don't know."

Gianni glanced over to me questioningly, but I shrugged. Neither name was familiar. Leon might have made them up in the moment, to give us something.

I pulled out my phone and sent off a message to Damon to put his contacts onto finding anyone by those names.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Gianni asked. He gave Leon a shove, just enough to force him half a metre sideways, and put more pressure on his wrists.

Leon screamed. "Fucking hell. Please, for fuck's sake, I don't know anything else."

"What about Kurt's addresses in Dusk Bay?" I asked. "You must have some idea. Where were his minions supposed to take me?"

"I don't know." He shook his head and winced.

"I don't believe you," I said. "I might reconsider letting you live for longer if you can give us more."

"On my laptop," he said finally.

"We got it from Clarissa, but haven't been able to get into it yet," Gianni said. "You can imagine what that did to the twins' egos. Especially Parker. He prides himself on that shit."

"I can tell you how to get in," Leon said eagerly. "There's more information on there. Most of it is encrypted. You'll need my help to access it. If you let me go, I can?—"

Gianni said. "Tell us how to get in. If that works, we might decide to go easier on you."

Leon exhaled, long and ragged, but started to explain.

"I'd be impressed if he wasn't a toad," Parker said. He lounged over the kitchen island, Leon's laptop open front of him. "I've never seen encryption like this. He must have developed it himself."

"Is there anything useful on there?" I asked. As far as I could tell, computer code was another language. One the twins were apparently fluent in, but that made little sense to me.

"That depends on your definition of useful," Parker said. "There's a shit load of records of transactions. Money coming in and out, goods being moved around. That should help us find some of the shipments he stole from us. And from the Bell family." He glanced at Hunter, who didn't quite meet his eyes.

"What about addresses?" Damon asked. "In particular, in and around Dusk Bay?"

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