Stirling woke up cold. Icy cold. Knowing he was lying down, he prised open his eyes to figure out where he was.
Head throbbing, recollections of the smack against the back of it hitting him as hard as the implement had, he blinked away his blurred vision to try to absorb the unfamiliar surroundings. Simultaneously, he reached for something, anything, to protect him against the chill.
Because he was stark bollock naked. As he looked down, all he could see were familiar mounds of pale white flesh in the shadows of the room; he quickly ascertained that his arms and legs were spread and secured to the bed.
As he moved, as he fought against the restraints, the crumple of plastic below him told him this was more than a sex game devised by the woman he had gone there with. The woman who, as was now more than clear, had set him up.
Bitch.
‘You’re awake. Good.’
He instantly knew the voice though it took him a moment to place it. And a moment longer to realise where it was coming from.
He stretched his neck to see Nate sat behind him.
Stirling glanced back around the room before fixing his attention back on Nate. ‘What is this?’ he demanded, not knowing whether to feel infuriated or panicked.
‘Chat time,’ Nate declared.
Stirling laughed. It was a deep and uncomfortable laugh from a place that failed to see any humour in the situation.
Because there was nothing funny about Nate’s clinical expression, or the sobriety in his eyes. There was never anything funny when Nate looked at anyone like that.
‘Seriously, Nate. What the fuck is this?’
‘I have some questions I’m going to ask you. We’re not going to play any games. Your reluctance will do nothing but draw this out. I will get the answers I want. All you have to do is decide just how slow and painful you want your death to be before then.’
‘I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing, Nate, but Antonia and Jonah will kill you for this. You know they will kill you for this. Whatever your issue, you need to rethink.’
‘Frank Newton had a son. He was called Aidan. Where is he?’
Of anything Nate could have asked, he wasn’t expecting that one. ‘Aidan? What’s he got to do with anything?’
‘Where is he, Stirling?’
‘Why?’
‘Get the gist of this. I’m the one asking the questions. I want to know where Aidan is.’
‘What do you want with him?’
‘The gist, Stirling.’
Stirling shook his head; turned away, flipped both his middle fingers up. But his head soon rolled back as he heard the chair scrape behind him, as he felt movement in the air as Nate stood up. He watched him head around to his left side.
Nate held something in both hands – a small rock hammer in one, and something out of sight in the other. He prised Stirling’s hand open, specifically the middle finger of his left hand.
Stirling’s stomach coiled in horror as he watched Nate place the needle under his exposed fingernail. He jolted, wrenched and squealed as Nate hammered the needle in deep – once, twice and then three times.
The pain shot through him, causing him to clench his teeth, to squeeze his eyes shut, to arch his back with the agony of such a tiny implement in such a sensitive place.
‘What the fuck?’ Stirling hissed, staring back up at him through watery eyes.
Nate didn’t answer, he merely straightened out Stirling’s ring finger.
Stirling wanted to believe it just a threat this time. The second needle to be drummed into his hand begged to differ.
‘He’s dead!’ Stirling said. ‘What the fuck are you doing, Nate? Aidan’s dead. He was killed three weeks ago.’
Nate’s gaze locked on his. ‘Killed by who?’
Stirling swallowed hard, already knowing he had said too much.
Nate extended Stirling’s thumb, the needles already embedded beneath his fingernails preventing Stirling from clenching his fist to stop him. He placed the needle beneath his thumbnail.
‘The Voys,’ Stirling said. ‘The Voys did him in. They’d had an insider in with us for over two years. They were in it for the long game. They poisoned him. Three weeks ago. They poisoned him. Right under our noses.’
‘Why?’
‘Nate, this is a mistake. Do you hear me? This is a huge fucking mistake.’
‘Antonia and Jonah Hordas have a special skill. A skill they used the night Mack and Hugh Cordell tried to assassinate them. Did they get that skill from Aidan?’
Stirling stared up into Nate’s uncompromising eyes. How the fuck he knew any of that was anyone’s guess. ‘You’re deep, Nate. Too deep. You hear me?’
‘Did they get it from Aidan?’
‘No more, Nate. I’m not uttering another word until you tell me what the fuck you’re playing at. Is someone paying you, huh? Is it them? Is it the Voys? It’s got to be the Voys.’
‘Did they get their skill from Aidan?’ Nate asked. ‘And if so, how?’
Stirling laughed. It was another deep, embedded, uncomfortable laugh. ‘You’re getting nothing more from me. Do what you like. You’re going to kill me anyway. Have a blast with it. And fuck you, Nate. That’s all I’ve got to say.’
Nate’s fingers brushed Stirling’s left eye a moment later, forced his upper and lower lids open.
Stirling’s breath snagged. His whole body stiffened in horror. But he told himself there was no way. Nate could be a clinical bastard. Everyone who had contact with him knew that. But he knew him. They’d known each other for years. They’d known each other right back when he’d gone with Frank to collect the kid. The kid who would make up for Frank’s deficit those past few years. The kid they so desperately needed. The kid that they thought Frank couldn’t reproduce.
Nate kept Stirling’s lids open at the same time as he placed the needle down over his pupil. It all happened so quick that he didn’t even get another second to protest.
Nate wasn’t just a clinical bastard. It was confirmed: Nate was fucking psychotic.
Stirling gasped with pain, his entire body jolting as the needle entered his eye. He wrenched and squirmed, barely able to breathe, the room spinning, his entire body breaking out in a cold sweat as it entered a state of shock.
He looked up to see Nate resting his palms either side of his head, gazing down into his now single functioning eye.
‘You want to do the rest of this in the dark, that’s up to you,’ Nate said. ‘I have several hours until I need to be out of here, a fuck load of needles to go and a fuck load more places in you to secure them. The longest I’ve needed to sustain this practice is five hours, and that was in the very early days. If you want to try and break that record, be my guest.’ He leaned close to his ear. ‘Because I know what you did to Jasper,’ he whispered. ‘And I’m not OK with that. I’m not at all OK with that. So, please, take as long as you want.’