Page 56 of A Vocation of Violence
He laughed—a low, guttural sound devoid of humor—and the room seemed to constrict around us. “Very well,” he growled, moving closer until I could feel the heat of his breath. “Your tenacity will be your undoing, Miss Mahoney. I shall enjoy breaking it.”
His presence loomed over me, oppressive and unyielding. Yet even as the threat of pain closed in like a storm cloud ready to burst, my mind scoured the situation for any sliver of advantage. Anything that could be turned against him, any oversight on his part that I might exploit.
“Break me, then,” I challenged, mustering the remnants of my courage. “But know this—you may force me to bend, yet I shall never truly be at your mercy.”
“I am not without Mercy, Fiona,” he said. “But Dieter here has none.”
Dieter was not so large as Croft, tall as Jorah, or lethal as Night Horse, but he was some Prussian amalgamation of all these traits beneath a perfectly pomaded light head of hair. He looked through me, as if his dark deeds were already done, and I was the rubbish left leaking after.
My gaze ricocheted to the very edges of where the light touched the echoing, empty chamber, desperately seeking something, anything, that might offer me a shred of hope. It danced over the grainy textures of brick and mortar, the vague shadows cast by the feeble light struggling to penetrate the dense air, before finally settling on a pile of detritus in the corner. An ember of resolve kindled within my chest. A weapon could be hidden there. Perhaps my salvation.
“Your eyes betray you, Miss Mahoney.” Drumft’s voice cut through the haze of my thoughts, as cold and sharp as a knife’s edge. “Seeking your escape? Futile.”
“Escape?” I echoed with feigned innocence. “Why would I flee from such charming company?”
“Charming,” he scoffed, stepping closer, dropping his voice to a vile whisper. “You are too common for my bed, Fiona. Too educated for your own good. The Irish taint in your blood is almost as repulsive as that of the Jews.”
I swallowed hard against the bile rising in my throat. His words were like acid, corroding the very air between us. But I couldn’t afford to recoil, not even from this. “Truly, that was why you killed Vivienne?” I asked, my voice steady despite the tremor in my soul. “Because she was born a Jew?”
“Vivienne was born a mistake,” he spat. “A beautiful lie that concealed filth. She allowed me to sully myself with her impure blood.” His disdain twisted into a grotesque smile. “Lena, on the other hand, was but a pawn, lured by coin, yet I never sullied my hand with touching her. A fate far less than she deserved.”
“Such mercy,” I murmured, the irony bitter on my tongue.
“Mercy?” He laughed. “Their kind does not deserve mercy.”
“What about Claudia?” I pressed, needing to understand the full measure of his depravity.
“You mean ClaudiaFrenkelhere? Her father is a rabbi.” He sneered down at her, and I had the abrupt impulse to shieldher body from his disrespectful gaze. “Blackmailed to betray her mistress, then coerced into servitude,” he said with casual brutality. “Her fate was sealed from the start.”
His confession was a serrated blade to my heart. Claudia, whose only crime was being born. I’d assumed her surname was shared with the family she’d been staying with. Instead, she’d shared initials with a crucial piece of evidence found at a murder scene—and it had occurred to no one she might have been clever enough to change her name.
Because she was the serving class.
I didn’t have time to wallow in my shame, but I felt it, deeply.
In the suffocating darkness, a feeble spark of hope flickered to life within me. By some fortuitous twist of fate, my trembling fingers brushed against a knot in the ropes—a loose, careless thing. It seemed almost a mockery of my dire predicament, but I latched on to it as though it were a lifeline cast into stormy seas. With each delicate tug, I willed the fibers to yield, praying for the shadows to cloak my desperate endeavor.
“Come now, Fiona.” Drumft’s voice slithered through the gloom. “You must realize the futility of your situation. The sooner you give me what I want, the sooner any unpleasantness will be over.” He nodded to Dieter, who wouldn’t stop looking at my hair as he approached. “Dieter will first cut away your clothing to search it…then we will begin searching your body for hiding places.”
I ignored Drumft’s taunting, focusing instead on the slow give of the rope. If courage had a taste, it was the metallic tang of fear mingled with resolve upon my tongue.
“Please,” I began, my voice breaking as I let the mask of composure slip. Granted, my fear wasn’t entirely acted, as there was plenty of panic surging through my blood to draw from. Tears welled in my eyes, spilling over as I sobbed and begged for mercy. “Please, don’t do this.”
The ropes had slackened enough for me to use the sweat to slide my little finger free, then a second one, a silent victory in the oppressive darkness. But before I could dream of unfettered wrists, Dieter towered over me.
“Begging suits you, Fiona,” Drumft sneered, relishing my apparent despair. “But you should have given me what I asked for before I had to deploy Dieter.”
I dropped my head as if in defeat.
“And you…should have tied my feet.”
I lashed out as swiftly as I could, the sharp toe of my day boot connecting audibly with Dieter’s shin bone. He yelped a German curse word and backhanded me with such force, I tipped over, chair and all.
The impact of my landing rattled my teeth and stole my breath.
But it also broke the rickety chair.
The last vestiges of my feigned sobs turned to grunts of exertion, and my fingers, slick with perspiration and fear, grasped at the jagged wood.
