Shaking his head, aware this wasn't the answer he was allowed to give, he said the words anyway. “I'm sorry, Madam Delgado. I don't know her.”
Her sigh hit him in the gut and he fought against his bladder's immediate urge to empty. “No, no Mr. Matthews. You will look again. You will look again and you will remember.” Her voice was cold, unflinching.
Micah did as he was told. He looked at the picture one more time and examined the curve of the woman's cheek, the way her hand was extended as she leaned toward the person he couldn't see. His eyes traced along the outline of her figure, from her jaw to her elegant neck, then her slight shoulder and down her arm. A thin bracelet hung from her wrist, a shining charm suspended in air at the bottom. Something clicked in his mind, tumblers beginning to grind slowly as a fragment of memory unlocked. He dragged his eyes back to the young woman's face but an internal resistance stopped him. He fought against it but the effort was useless. Returning his focus to the bracelet and the charm, he let that single point fill his vision and the fragment that had begun to emerge expanded. Like a film, he saw his own hand passing over a file of papers, backgrounds he knew he'd built from scratch. With them he handed her a small, portable drive, one he recognized as his own design. He only gave those to his dark work clients. A slender hand reached out to grasp the file and drive, the bracelet sliding with the movement as it was pulled from him. He heard a voice whisper, “Thank you. Now, you need to forget.” He saw the bracelet with its single charm again as her fingers wrapped around his, colored pinpricks of light reflecting off the facets even as he felt comforting warmth surround him, and then he was alone. Drifting. That was it.
He tore his eyes away from the photo and forced himself to look at the leader of the Delgado Family Crime Syndicate. Licking his lips, he nodded to her. “She made me forget. But I gave her something. Backgrounds, identities.” He cast about for more details but there was little else he could add. “It was a long time ago. Five years. Maybe more.”
Belladonna Delgado regarded him, weighing his words. When he didn't break the silence, she closed the distance between them and knelt down in front of him. Rather than relax at this gesture, panic erupted in his brain, signals urging him to flee flaring rapidly. But there was nowhere for him to go. Her hands gripped his thighs and she leaned in, even as he shrank back into the cushions. Anything to create space.
With a practiced toss of her head, she flipped the precisely sculpted waves of hair that draped one side of her face over her shoulder. Without thinking, Micah sucked in a breath at what was revealed by that simple movement. Scars roped the skin, twisting it, pulling it into painful knots. The skin sank in beneath her cheek bone and the edge of her eye was canted, angling unnaturally.
“It is grotesque, I know.” She released her grip on his legs, one hand tapping the photo he now clutched. “She did this to me. She stole from me and left me to suffer.” She paused, letting the weight of her words sink in. “And now, I will collect what is mine. So, tell me, where is she?”
Micah could only shake his head, fear preventing him from forming any words. He couldn't tell her what he didn't know. He swallowed the disgust he felt as the woman in front of him pouted at his refusal, her lips pursing, the damaged skin puckering sickly at the movement. Nausea curdled in his stomach. He didn't have the answers she demanded. He managed to whisper, “She touched me and made me forget everything. I don't know. Truly.” He wasn't too proud to beg in this moment. “Please, you have to believe me. I don't know.”
Madam Delgado pushed his knees apart roughly, erasing the little space that had separated them. “Oh, I do believe you. But she didn't take it from you. She hid it. We just have to uncover it.” Her fingers crawled up his chest, coming to rest on the skin of his throat, an uncomfortable pressure that promised bruising. She waited there, her gaze on his, moments ticking by. He didn't dare break the silence. She shifted her balance, her weight suddenly heavy enough to suffocate him.
When she spoke, her voice was frigid. “So now we dig.” Aching cold suddenly poured into him, freezing the skin beneath her fingers and burrowing its way deep inside. His blood iced in his veins and the pain made him scream and buck. Heavy hands pressed him down and the unrelenting cold spread through him, peeling through layers until he felt it completely, a raw wound gaping open for her examination. The tears on his face crystallized and he screamed again, his voice echoing off the walls.
Finally, names poured out of him, incomplete pieces but more than he'd realized he knew. The pain of it
