Sensing she’d hit a nerve Corinne smiled slowly in satisfaction and continued.
‘I knew Mac, did you know that? Did he tell you? Back when he was one of us, he and I used to burn up the sheets every opportunity we got. He was a fantastic fuck,’ she told Tammy with a little hum of pleasure. ‘Got me off every time. Why he would waste his time with you I’ll never know, a pathetic whiny cripple. I suppose he felt sorry for you. He always had that bleeding heart of his, that was his only downside.’
Tammy stood slowly, her fist gripped around the handle of a solid lump hammer.
Corinne’s eyes dipped to the hammer and she smirked again.
‘Is that supposed to scare me? You’re way out of your league here. You don’t have what it takes to play this game.’
Tammy didn’t respond, she simply swung the hammer, smashing it into Corinne’s knee, hearing cracking bone and cartilage even as she screamed. Tammy stood in front of her, watching dispassionately until the scream died on her lips and Corinne looked up at her breathing heavily, her eyes filled with hate and pain. Only then did Tammy lean in close to Corinne’s face.
‘Mac’s dead,’ she whispered to her before straightening up.
‘So that’s what this is?’ Corinne heaved out a humorless laugh as she breathed through the pain, the way she’d been taught to. ‘Revenge?’
Tammy watched her silently, the long seconds ticking by and just when Corinne thought she wasn’t going to speak again, she lifted the hammer and smashed in her other knee. A scream tore from her lips and as she leaned forward breathing heavily Tammy leaned in once again.
‘Now who’s the cripple?’ she whispered.
Unable to draw in a breath through the pain Corinne looked up with watery eyes and watched as Tammy tossed the bloodstained hammer back into the box with a loud clatter.
Leaning down she withdrew a large screwdriver and turned her attention back to Corinne.
‘This isn’t revenge,’ she told her slowly, ‘that was just to get your attention. Trust me, when I go after revenge against the Veritas… and I will, I will tear them apart until there is nothing left but ash and memories… You mean nothing.’
‘Then why bother with me?’ Corinne panted lightly as the pain subsided slightly.
‘I would have thought that was obvious,’ Tammy replied as she circled her slowly, skimming her fingers along Corinne’s bare shoulders and allowing the strap of her nightgown to slide down her arm. She softly pressed her fingertips into Corinne’s skin, feeling for the slight dip in the bone of her shoulder. ‘I don’t like you…’ Tammy murmured.
Corinne’s scream ripped through the building, creating an echo, as Tammy speared the screwdriver down into her shoulder, angling it so it protruded from her armpit.
‘Don’t let the crude tools fool you,’ Tammy told her calmly. ‘I was tortured by the best and I picked up a thing or two during my time with him. Nathaniel was very… creative.’
‘What do you want from me?’ Corinne panted.
‘I want you to hurt,’ Tammy’s eyes flashed with emotion for the first time since she’d picked up the tool box. ‘I want you broken and bleeding, and in absolute agony… only then will you be able to feel a fraction of what I’m feeling right now.’
Corinne let out a mirthless laugh.
‘All this over a man?’ she spat, ‘he’s nothing. He deserved to die for betraying us.’
Tammy returned to her perusal of the tool box. This time she retrieved a pair of vice grip pliers. Moving as slowly as her damaged hip and knee would allow her, she stopped beside Corinne and lifted her index finger on her left hand. Securing the pliers around her finger she twisted the locking grip and turned her head to look at Corinne, whose eyes widened.
Tammy methodically snapped every single finger on her left hand, ignoring her screams as she moved to the right hand and continued her grisly work.
It took quite some time, but when she’d finally finished, and both hands were hanging limply from the arms of the chair she looked back at Corinne.
‘Now that I have your undivided attention, I want to know where Theo is.’
‘Theo?’ Corinne’s lips tightened, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Tammy gripped the heavy pliers in her hand and smashed them across Corinne’s face, snapping her head to the side and breaking her nose, which erupted in a bright fountain of blood. Corinne’s head lolled forward, as she tried to breathe through her mouth, unable to draw breath through her crushed septum.
‘Shall we try that again,’ Tammy asked coolly. ‘Where have the Veritas taken Theo?’
‘I don’t know.’
Tammy leaned in and grasped Corinne’s broken knee and felt the cartilage crack beneath her palm as she squeezed, causing Corinne to shriek in agony.
‘WHERE…IS…HE…?’ she demanded slowly.
Corinne screamed louder as Tammy squeezed.
‘WHERE?’
Tammy released and squeezed again.
‘WHERE?’ she shouted.
She reached over and pinched the other damaged knee.
‘LONDON!’ Corinne shouted through her screams of pain.
Tammy let go.
‘London,’ Corinne panted, breathing hard, ‘they’re taking him to London.’
‘Where in London?’
‘Please,’ Corinne whispered as she looked up, ‘they’ll kill me.’
Tammy bent down, leaning closer, ‘what do you think I’m going to do?’
Corinne watched as Tammy straightened up and limped back a few steps.
‘Where in London?’
‘I can’t,’ she shook her head.
Tammy stared at the woman curled over in her chair, her skin clammy and her usually immaculate hair disheveled. She was proving hard to break. Tammy had to admit she’d figured she’d break easier. It seemed they’d both underestimated each other.
She wasn’t sure she had the stomach for much more gruesome torture than that she’d already inflicted on her. It had taken a steel will and everything inside her to keep her insides from roiling at the sound of snapping bones.
‘There’s another way…’ a sly little voice inside her said. ‘Give in and I’ll give you what you want…’
Tammy took a breath and stepped back further, until she was almost in shadow. She could feel it, the darkness writhing inside her belly, in her gut, in her chest and it was powerful. It flexed restlessly. It wanted out.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she could hear another voice, Mac’s voice. She lifted her hand, feeling the darkness flood her veins and her skin tingle.
Suddenly the light caught the diamond on her finger, and it sparkled. A light in the darkness. Mac wouldn’t want her to do this. What she was doing wasn’t justice. It was retribution, it was revenge, it was about not being a victim anymore.
For a second her hand fisted and lowered. Mac wouldn’t want this, he’d tell her… he’d… a fresh wave of grief hit her like a sucker punch to the stomach and she almost howled in pain.
Mac wouldn’t say anything to her ever again, they’d taken him from her. The anger and pain stiffened her spine.
‘Where…’ Tammy lifted her hand again, ‘in London?’
Corinne shook her head.
Tammy felt the power flood her body as she released it. It was vast and all-encompassing as she gave in and let go. It was glorious; she’d never felt such a high. It whipped through her, like a drug, intoxicating. It was hers, she smiled slowly, she could do anything she wanted.
She looked to Corinne.
‘Burn,’ she whispered darkly.
Corinne shrieked, her head thrown back and her spine arched at a painful angle. Her ribcage ignited, glowing a hot sooty orange through her thin cotton nightgown. It was like her bones were on fire except there were no flames, just heat and excruciating agony.
Tammy just watched dispassionately.
Finally, when she’d screamed herself hoarse and could barely make anothe
r coherent sound Tammy released her. She slumped back in her seat trying to drag lungful’s of air in, but every time she breathed and expanded her ribcage it caused her searing pain.
‘Where in London?’ Tammy repeated calmly.
‘How did you…?’ Corinne croaked.
‘All that time watching me, and you still have no idea who you’re dealing with,’ Tammy replied coldly. ‘Now, one last time and then I’m really going to make you hurt. Where in London?’
‘The headquarters,’ Corinne’s voice broke on a sob, ‘the Veritas headquarters.’
‘And where exactly is that?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied, her eyes wide with panic as Tammy lifted her hand again. ‘I don’t know… I swear,’ she sobbed, ‘only the most senior members know. There are five of them, you have to be invited in; only the top tier and Faraday himself know the location.’
‘Why do they want Theo?’
‘Something about an ancient language,’ she shook her head, ‘they think he’s the key because he can see the ancient language. I swear that’s all I know.’
‘Who are the five?’ Tammy asked quietly.
‘I don’t know their true identities, only Faraday does. They each are known only by a number and they wear a signet ring with that number in roman numerals etched into its face.’
‘And this Faraday? Who is he?’
‘Jonathan Faraday, he is the Veritas, although very few have actually seen him. No one knows anything about him, how old he is or where he comes from. We only know if Faraday tells you to do something you do it or you die.’
‘Thank you, Corinne,’ Tammy replied, ‘see that wasn’t so hard was it?’
Tammy turned and disappeared back into the shadows. For a second Corinne, almost breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that she’d just leave her there in the abandoned building where sooner or later someone would find her.
She was soon disabused of that notion when Tammy reappeared, this time holding a hand gun.
‘Do you recognize it?’ Tammy held the gun close to Corinne’s face. ‘I found it in your apartment.’
She stepped back slightly so Corinne could see her better.
‘Shooting you with your own gun,’ Tammy almost smiled, ‘it has a nice symmetry to it. A nice sense of poetic justice… like falling on your own sword.’
‘No,’ Corinne shook her head, ‘you won’t, this isn’t you,’ she replied in panic. ‘You’re upset and you’re hurting. You wanted to hurt me, I understand that. In your position I’d want the same thing, but you’re Mayor Tammy Burnett, you’re not a cold-blooded killer.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, my name is not Tammy Burnett,’ she aimed the gun at Corinne’s head. ‘My name is Temperance Beckett.’
Corinne’s eyes widened in realization a fraction of a second before the bullet entered her forehead and blew out the back of her skull. Her head sagged forward, with a small trickle of blood dripping from the wound to her white nightdress.
Tammy drew in a deep breath as she stared at the dead woman and felt nothing.
Slipping her hand into her pocket she withdrew her phone and pressed connect, listening calmly.
‘Hello? Tammy is that you? Where are you?’ Olivia’s worried voice answered.
‘Theo is in London,’ Tammy told her evenly. ‘The Veritas have headquarters there. I’m sorry I can’t be more precise.’
‘London?’ she could hear the confusion in Olivia’s voice. ‘How do you know? Tammy what’s going on? Where are you?’
‘I’m sorry Olivia,’ Tammy breathed quietly into the phone.
‘What are you sorry for?’ Olivia’s voice softened. ‘Tammy please come home, come back to us, you shouldn’t be alone right now. We’ll take care of you, I promise.’
Tammy closed her eyes and swayed; for one brief moment she was tempted.
‘Don’t come looking for me,’ she whispered and hung up.
She ripped the back off her phone disconnecting the battery.
Tammy stared at Corine’s lifeless body. This was it; she’d crossed a line and she could never go back. Tammy Burnett was dead, she died at Roni and Jake’s wedding right beside the man she loved.
Temperance raised her hand once more, feeling the now familiar surge of power through her body. She felt good, she felt strong. Strangely enough she no longer felt pain from the injuries Nathaniel had inflicted on her. Pulling her jacket off her shoulder she looked and noticed the scars left from her torture were gone. She took an experimental step back and found she no longer had a limp. The pain in her hip and knee was also no longer there.
She smiled slowly.
She watched as her hand glowed. Corinne’s body hardened, turning gray, like it was made of stone. Cracks started to appear, and she began to crumble, chunks of her form broke away. Suddenly her husk split and collapsed in on itself leaving nothing but a pile of ash.
‘Ashes to ashes…’ Temperance whispered as her eyes turned black.
She knew what she had to do now. She was going to take the Veritas down, every single last one of them until the only one left was Jonathan Faraday and then… then he was going to pay for what he had taken from her.
A thick plume of black smoke coiled around her and when it cleared, she was gone.
23
‘Tammy?’ Olivia shouted into the phone, ‘Tammy?’
She tried to call her back, but the line was dead.
‘Damn it,’ she muttered.
‘Was that Tammy?’ Jake walked into the library rubbing his wet hair with a towel and tugging on one of Theo’s T-shirts over a pair of jeans he’d also borrowed. ‘Did she say where she is? Is she okay?’
‘No,’ Olivia’s face creased with worry. ‘Something’s really wrong; she wouldn’t tell me where she was, and she said not to come looking for her.’
‘Fuck,’ Jake frowned, ‘that sounds pretty final.’
‘I think she’s leaving Mercy,’ Olivia stared down at her phone.
‘Did she say anything else?’
‘Only that Theo is in London,’ she glanced back up at Jake.
‘London? What the hell is he doing in London? And how does she know?’
‘Exactly,’ Olivia shook her head. ‘She wouldn’t say, and I have a really bad feeling.’
‘A bad feeling about what?’ Roni wandered into the room clutching a mug of coffee, wearing some of Olivia clothes and her damp hair pulled up into a ponytail.
‘Tammy,’ Olivia sighed, ‘something’s going on with her.’
‘You mean apart from watching the man she was in love with gunned down in cold blood?’ Danae added as she followed Roni into the room, with Logan sitting on her hip resting his head on her shoulder.
‘Are you tired baby?’ Olivia reached out for her son, who leaned from Danae’s arms into hers. ‘Where’s your sister?’ she murmured to Logan as he snuggled into her arms.
‘She’s right here,’ Davis walked slowly into the room holding Theia’s hand as she toddled alongside him.
‘Davis,’ Olivia nodded, ‘it’s looks like we’re all here. Now all the cops are out of our way… no offence Jake…’
‘None taken.’
‘We can figure out what our next move is,’ she finished, as she watched her daughter settle down on the floor next to a pile of toys.
‘Jackson and Shelley have taken Miller home. They also dropped Dominic and Fiona off on the way; they said to call if you need anything,’ Davis leaned back, propping himself up against Olivia’s desk. ‘Tommy and Louisa have also gone home, Louisa’s pretty upset about Mac.’
Olivia nodded, swallowing down the painful knot of grief burning in the back of her throat. There would be time to mourn their friend soon enough, for now they needed to get Theo back.
‘Where’s Callie?’
‘We don’t know,’ Roni answered, ‘she said she had something she had to take care of. She disappeared when the cops and paramedics showed. We haven’t seen her since.’
> ‘It’s probably better this way with just the six of us,’ Olivia looked down at Scarlett who was sitting quietly on the old couch with Beau curled in her lap. ‘The less people who know about this the better. What did you tell the cops about Theo?’ she turned to Jake.
‘I didn’t tell them anything,’ Jake shook his head, ‘so far I’ve managed to gloss over the fact that Theo is missing. It’ll raise too many questions about who took him and where he’s been, when we get him back. I’m hoping we’ll find him before anyone realizes he’s gone. Right now, they’re focused on who killed Mac.’
She watched as Jake swallowed back his own grief and rage.
‘We’ll need an interim Chief,’ Jake shook his head, ‘I’m heading down to the station as soon as I leave here. It’s a mess. We need Tammy, she’s still the Mayor. We’re going to have to manage this investigation very closely. Depending on who they get to fill in for Mac will determine just how much shit we find ourselves in. We need to come up with some sort of plausible explanation for just what the hell went down last night.’
‘What is going on with Tammy?’ Roni asked. ‘I only caught the tail end of that conversation as I walked in.’
‘Okay,’ Olivia laid Logan, who was now sleeping soundly, down on the couch beside Scarlett. ‘Tammy called me a short while ago. She said that the Veritas have taken Theo to London, I don’t know how she knows, she wouldn’t say. She also told me not to come looking for her.’
‘That doesn’t sound good,’ Roni frowned.
‘No, it doesn’t’ Olivia agreed, ‘it sounds like she’s going to run.’
‘She may need the space,’ Danae said quietly. ‘Losing Mac was a big shock for all of us, but it’ll hit her the hardest. Maybe this is how she’ll cope.’
‘I’m just worried about her,’ Olivia replied.’
‘I’ll stop by when I leave here and check on her,’ Danae decided.
‘God,’ Olivia tilted her head back and breathed deeply, blinking back the glassy tears. ‘What a mess.’
‘It’s going to be okay Olive,’ Jake wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
‘I just want Theo back,’ Olivia mumbled into his chest.
The Veritas Page 27
