"I'll tell you right now, kid, I own half the badges in Greenvale," Sully bragged, his face twisted in a cocky sneer. "Instead of worrying about throwing me behind bars, you'd better start worrying about staying breathing."

Sully's smugness was the final match to the powder keg of Connor's temper. Moving with terrifying speed, Connor closed the distance and buried his fist into Sully's gut, over and over, until Sully gagged and coughed up blood over his own shoes. Tied up and missing teeth, Sully's fighting spirit was entirely useless against the relentless assault.

Hearing the sickening thuds, Connor's crew rushed into the room, ready to jump in.

Connor held up a single, blood-knuckled hand. "Stay outside."

Sully wheezed, gasping for air, but still glared up at Connor. "Take these ropes off and fight me like a man."

He thought he could bait Connor into a fair brawl. In a sanctioned ring, Sully's experience would be a lethal advantage. But Connor wasn't interested in honor. He looked down at the bleeding man and spat in disgust.

"You think you've earned the right to fight me? You're a rat living in a sewer. You aren't worth the skin off my knuckles. Stop wasting my time. I'm going to ask you one last time—where is Felicia? Tell me now, and you walk out of here in one piece. Keep your mouth shut, and you'll beg me to kill you."

Sully wasn't intimidated. He just laughed hoarsely. "I've had thousands of punks just like you begging on their knees. You're nothing."

Connor's gaze turned pitch black. "You're about to find out exactly what I am."

He signaled to his men. Two of them dragged a massive, thick burlap sack into the center of the room. The sack was tied shut, but the fabric writhed and shifted unnaturally. The faint, frantic sound of scratching and high-pitched squeaking leaked from inside The. rats inside were starved suffocating, and desperate to escape, but the thick rope kept them trapped.

When Sully heard the chittering, the color drained from his face.

"Ever read about medieval torture?" Connor asked, his voice dead flat. "No, of course you haven't. You're uneducated trash. Allow me to give you a history lesson."

Real fear finally clawed at Sully's throat. He didn't know exactly what Connor had planned, but when the crew grabbed him by the shoulders and began forcing his bound body feet-first into the writhing sack, he started to scream.

They shoved him in up to his chest and pulled the drawstring tight around his torso. The second Sully was plunged into the dark, the starving rats swarmed. Deprived of food for days and driven mad by the confinement, the rodents

immediately sought out the only fresh meat available. They scrambled frantically up his pant legs, their sharp teeth tearing violently into his flesh.

Sully had been interrogated before. He had been hauled in by the cops countless times, but he always

walked free because of lack of

evidence. Felicia had vanished

as long as she stayed a ghost, there was nothing directly linking Sully to Dorian's execution. It was just a financial dispute. Sully had banked on that technicality to keep him safe.

But he had grossly miscalculated. He never imagined Connor would bypass the law

entirely and resort to something this completely barbaric.