Page 103 of Phantom Mine

“I’m not telling you shit.”

“What if we promise to spare your life?” The raw, uncontrollable urgency in her voice reveals her despair, and Rocco doesn’t miss it.

“You want to know where I buried your friend?”

She drops to her knees next to him, clutching the photo so fiercely it folds in her hand. “Yes.”

His eyes shine cruelly. Even as he bleeds out from half a dozen bullet wounds, he still chooses evil.

I holster my gun.

“If you save me, I’ll tell you,” he promises.

I close the distance, grab Valentina by her upper arms and tug her to her feet.

“Wha—” she exclaims as I walk her backwards a few steps. “What are you doing?” she demands, eyes wild. “He’s going to tell me where her body is!”

“No, he’s not.”

“He just said—”

“He’s lying to you,cara,” I say, gently. She would see it too, if she wasn’t so emotionally involved. “He’ll never tell you where she is, not now that he understands how much it means to you.”

She shakes her head and pushes against my chest, refusing to hear me. “No, he will. He has to.” She tries to step around me but I move to the side. Glassy eyes whip back up to mine. “He has to!”

Clasping her face in my hands, I bring mine level with hers so she can see the sincerity in my eyes. “If I thought there was even a one percent chance he might tell you the truth, I’d drive him to the hospital myself, see that his life be saved, and I’d face the consequences for attacking him. But he’s just toying with you, Leni. Giving you hope just so he can snatch it away and revel in your pain is the type of shit he gets off on, trust me.”

“No…” she moans brokenly.

“I’m so sorry. I wish it could be different—”

“Your friend screamed the entire time I slit her throat,” Rocco crows from behind me.

Valentina’s face fractures, her features screwing in heartbreak. My heart feels like it’s being put through a food processor as I watch her crumble before me. I’m spinning around before he’s even done, roaring, “Shut the fuck up.”

“She screamed for her mummy and daddy, even as her blood spurted out of her. There was so much of it, it was fucking awesome.”

I cover Valentina’s ears, mouthing so she understands me, “Don’t listen to him.”

The tears waterfall down her face. Her breathing is wild, like she’s on the verge of a panic attack.

I want to reach into her chest and breathe for her, I want to reach into her mind and quiet her pain, anything to calm her down. Whatever it takes.

“I can handle it,” she assures, removing my hands. “I can listen to every gruesome detail if he tells me where he put her. Maybe that’s what it’ll take for him to tell me.”

I hear him make a strangled groaning sound behind me. He doesn’t have much longer to live at this rate of blood loss. Likely less than an hour.

“No.”

“But—”

“I’m going to cut it out of him,cara. I’m going to make whatever he did to Adriana look like a spa day compared to what I’ll do to him. I’ll take him apart piece by piece until he tells you everything you need to know, I promise.” The words tumble out of me in an urgent oath. “But I can’t—”

“Don’t ask me to leave,” she interjects. “I’m staying.”

Everything in me wants to tell her to go, but the fiercely determined look on her face tells me that I have a better chance of asking her to wait for me on the moon.

Suddenly, Valentina’s eyes shift from my face to over my shoulder and grow wide with terror. Her face goes white, losing all color in an instant, and a startled cry leaves her lips.

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