Chapter 79
Aiden’s mouth trembled open. For a heartbeat everything in the room, the hanging bulb, the concrete floor, the metallic tang in the air reduced to a single sound he was about to make.
“Y… yes,” the confession came, ragged and small. “I did.”
Silence slammed into Jace like a physical blow. His chest constricted until his breaths came in short, raw pulls. It felt as if the room had narrowed to nothing but the space between him and Aiden a space now filled with the metallic taste of betrayal. He could see Aiden’s face, his features damp with shame, lips pressed thin, eyes fixed stubbornly to the floor. The man who had once promised him tenderness, who had whispered safety and held his face in both palms, the one who had made him feel, like he was someone worth loving now could not meet his gaze.
“W...what…” Jace’s voice scraped out, barely more than a strangled sound. “Aiden.... you.... you did what... How.... why...”
Aiden flinched as if struck. His hands trembled. Victor’s laugh broke through the tension like a polished blade. It was high and scornful.
“I can not believe you trusted him,” Victor said as he watched Jace recoil. “And I can not believe you trusted this,” he added, gesturing at Aiden with the pistol tipped in his other hand, amusement glittering in his eyes. “Where you that desperate for love, Rivera? Or is it just that orphans crave affection so much they willl trade anything for it even critical thinking?”
The filthy sweetness of the taunt boiled Jace’s blood. He lunged, he tried to but the ropes were holding him tight the sound that ripped from him was half-sob, half-roar. “Fuck you,” he breathed. Rage purpled the edges of everything. "You are the most vile human i have ever met... i hate you."
Victor gave a short, contemptuous snort. “I don’t have time for melodrama. I have a plane to catch. Bring the boy out,” he ordered, voice flat with businesslike cruelty.
The two gloves-clad men moved like machines. The heavy door in the back opened and men returned carrying a single, slumped figure between them. Noah. Seeing him reduced Jace’s breath to a ragged sound. He looked pallid under the harsh light, thinner than in Jace’s memory. He was awake enough to blink, fright flickering in his eyes as he was set down on a second chair. A ragged strip of tape looped around one wrist where he had been bound.
“Jace,” Noah croaked. “Jace, what—?”
“Shut up,” Victor snapped, indicating the pistol with an elegant jerk. He trained the barrel with a slow, deliberate movement at Noah’s temple that made Jace’s stomach drop. “Tell me where the document is or your brother gets a bullet in his skull.”
“No...no, please,” Jace gasped. Panic rose like bile.“Please. Don’t... don’t hurt him.”
Victor’s mouth tilted into a grin. “Then tell me where the document is. Don’t waste my time.”
Jace’s mind skittered with options, each more impossible than the last. His heartbeat was a wild animal, his entire body keyed to panic. He remembered the moment he had hidden the folder. He slid it into the crack between the concrete and the rusting frame at the entrance of the building when he had felt paranoia crawling his spine.
“It is outside,” he said, voice brittle. A memory the scrape of the slab, the way the soil under the stone had smelled of rain and old iron gathered itself in his throat. “I put it.... in the crack between the concrete and the rusting frame by the gate. I swear to God. You can check.”
Victor’s expression narrowed, amusement curling into suspicion. “Do you think I am so stupid I would take your word for it?”
Jace felt the ropes cut into his wrists anew as he fought to breathe past the panic. “I am not lying.... Check it.... Please..... You can look.”
Victor hesitated, the scorn in his eyes slowly replaced by calculation. He called to one of his men and barked an order so crisp it snapped in the air. “Check it. See if he is telling the truth.” The men moved with the grim efficiency. They disappeared out through the rear; the heavy door creaked and shut with a clanging echo, and for those seconds that followed time folded into a pressure so great it made Jace feel like the air itself might squeeze the life from him.
He watched the doorway as if eyes alone could will the men back. Aiden stood rigid, his jaw working. Noah’s breaths came in ragged pulls. Victor toyed with the gun, the metal catching light as he rolled it between his fingers.
Minutes later they returned. One of the men carried the bulky damp, folded leather of the folder. Then the man handed it to Victor and opened it with a practised flip. He thumbed through pages, the paper whispering.
“Ah,” Victor said, eyes glinting. He closed the folder and lifted his gaze slowly to Jace, the gun in his hand lifted like a scepter. “Nice doing business with you.”
The words hit Jace like a benediction of doom. His stomach turned. He had traded his brother's life for a sliver of proof that would now sit, warm and useless, in Victor’s hands. The room seemed to tilt as Victor’s smile sharpened.
Jace’s throat worked. He had so many things he wanted to say, pleas, curses, but the rope bit and his words choked on air.
Victor did not waste ceremony. In one smooth motion, he lifted the gun, aimed deliberately at Jace. For a shocking second everything hung suspended: the humming bulb, the shadowed ceiling, the raw, brittle air, Noah’s frightened eyes pleading without words.
Then Victor’s finger tightened on the trigger.
The shot cracked, BANG!.. a thunderclap in the stale room and the sound erupted, consuming everything.