‘We have someone working on the inside: a trusted member of the Rebels’ inner circle, whose loyalty we have bought. We’ll be informed of their every move! We strongly suspect that the strike will happen at the end of the year, at our annual New Year’s Eve bash. He and the Rebels will need a few months to prepare for their “surprise” attack. It certainly won’t happen soon.’
‘Excellent foresight. However, are you sure this informant can be trusted? And who is the traitor, may I ask?’
‘That must remain a secret, I’m afraid. I know you don’t approve of me withholding information from you, but for this plan to work, nobody can know of the informant’s identity but myself and Sigurd. Needless to say, the informant is a close and trusted friend of Gisborne’s. We don’t mess around; we needed someone very close to him, and we got that someone. They’re in our pocket completely, I assure you.’
Mr Wang stroked his rough chin with callused fingers, masticating silently over everything Hrothgar had just said.
‘I see. Excuse me, but you must please allow me to concur with Mr Ma briefly.’
Mr Wang turned and explained everything that Hrothgar had just told him to Mr Ma, who listened intently but expressionlessly. After Mr Wang had finished explaining things, Mr Ma turned to Hrothgar and communicated a few phrases in sign language, staring unwaveringly at him with his dead, milky eyes. Hrothgar, despite outweighing the man by threefold and towering over him like an elephant, appeared to shrink beneath this man’s Medusa gaze, and it seemed that he was wilting under the power of those pitiless eyes.
‘What did he say?’ he asked Mr Wang.
‘He appreciates your efforts to bring Gisborne to heel, but should he discover that within this scheme there is any treachery on your part, he will show you no mercy whatsoever. The Huntsmen will take you and make sure that you die a very protracted and painful death. Don’t fuck with us, Hrothgar. Don’t.’
Hrothgar smiled coldly and clasped his hands in front of his chest. ‘I assure you, my loyalties lie with Mr Ma, and Mr Ma alone.’
‘Make sure they do, for your own sake.’
Adriana had been listening carefully to this entire exchange. She had no idea what was going on, and indeed a lot of what they had said seemed to make no sense whatsoever, but as the Japanese woman had instructed her to, she made a mental note of what had been said about William Gisborne, the Tiger.
The old man communicated in sign language to Mr Wang, who relayed the message to Hrothgar.
‘Mr Ma wishes to enjoy the teenage virgin now. Please have someone escort us to the presidential suite and have the girl prepared as soon as possible. Thank you.’
With that, he and Mr Ma left the room. Hrothgar turned to Roxana, his emerald eyes burning with sadistic wrath.
‘Listen now, you little whore,’ he growled, switching to Russian and pulling out the tanto, ‘if you do not do your best to please that filthy old sack of shit, I will open you up from your pussy to your throat with this knife, and feast upon your entrails while you watch!’
He gripped her by the arm, but Adriana grabbed Roxana’s other arm and pulled the girl close to her, holding her tightly. Her heart pounded washes of paralysing fear through her trembling body, but something in her mind railed against this trepidation and burned with an indomitable courage.
‘Take me instead, master, please, take me instead,’ Adriana begged, with stinging tears biting savagely at the corners of her eyes.
Hrothgar slapped her viciously across her face and tore the girl out of her grasp.
‘This is the one he wants, not you, you stupid bitch!’
Adriana stared into Roxana’s eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks.
‘I’m so sorry little one, so sorry,’ she sobbed. ‘Just … just pretend you’re somewhere else, think of good memories…’
‘Adriana,’ Roxana wailed, thrashing futilely against Hrothgar’s potent grasp, ‘help me Adriana, help me, I don’t want to go! Please, help me, no, help me, let me go, let me go!’
The girl’s pleas were too much for Adriana, and something snapped within her. Possessed with a sudden, desperate madness, she sprang to her feet and attacked Hrothgar with the blind fury of a cornered beast. However, she was no match for the huge man, and with a malicious laugh he planted a crashing punch on her jaw that sent her reeling onto the hard floor.
‘You have spirit, Storm, I’ll grant you that,’ he growled, shaking out his hand after uncurling his fist. ‘I’ll let you get away with such foolishness this time … but don’t ever try that again. I’ll rip your lungs out of your ribcage if you do.’
Stunned, she lay on the cold tiles and groaned. Through her blurry vision, the last thing she saw was Roxana being dragged out of the room, her cries echoing as if from a half-faded nightmare in the cold grey light of dawn, before darkness enshrouded her vision and she sank into unconsciousness from the knockout blow.
18
ADRIANA
The throbbing pain in her jaw was what roused Adriana from her fitful daze of unconsciousness. She groaned as light pried open her eyelids and forced stabbing scalpel blades into her brain, and the sharpness of the light was as treble to the baritone ache in her jaw, where Hrothgar’s fist had crashed into it.
She rolled over and heaved herself up onto her knees. After she got up from the floor, she flopped onto the bed, where her thoughts shifted to Roxana and the vile, decrepit man who had taken her. She choked on a tight knot of a sob, and nausea reared its flared cobra head at the back of her throat. No, she could
