“Berking, enough of this melodrama. Let her go.”
Berking’s hands remained on her throat, and she gasped for breath. He was panting slightly and looked completely insane, eyes wild and face flushed with excitement.
Blake sighed and put the glasses down on a small table next to the couch. He pulled out the gun and pointed it at Berking. “Berking, let her go now.”
Berking blinked at Blake, nonplussed. He slowly removed his hands, sending Saffron into a paroxysm of coughing and sputtering. “No need for that. Just checking to see how much they know,” Berking muttered.
“It doesn’t matter what they know; they’ll be dead in a few minutes. We’ll be off with our money and with our scapegoat in place,” Blake said, gun still pointed at Berking. With his other hand he smoothed his hair.
Desperate for a hint of humanity, Saffron spoke with a rasp. “Mr. Blake, please—”
Blake, his eyes flashing, took a step toward Alexander and pointed the gun to where he lay on the floor. He cocked the hammer.
“Next time you speak,” Blake said coldly, “it’ll be a bullet through his body, Miss Everleigh. Berking may have no discipline, but you’ll find that I do. I’ve waited a long time for this, and I find myself a little impatient. I’m not going to torture you for answers, nor will I tolerate anything further from you.”
Saffron believed him. Her hopes of convincing Blake to let them go, or simply tie them up while he and Berking escaped the country, were silenced. Tears streamed down her face as she looked between Blake, who’d gone back to examining the yellowing water in the glasses, and Alexander, praying for his eyes to open.
“We can give it to her first,” Blake said to Berking. “Then when he wakes up, we can give it to him.”
Berking nodded, apparently cowed by his cold partner. Saffron watched them, her heart pounding, as they brought the glass near her. She desperately tried to remember what shade of yellow her own infusion of xolotl had been. She had put in three leaves of medium size. There were four in her glass now, and she didn’t know how long they’d been steeping. Alexander’s would likely steep until he woke up. What would that strength of infusion do to him?
The two men stood over her. Berking wrenched her hair back once again, forcing her mouth open with his other hand. Her breath caught in her throat when Blake touched the hot glass to her lips. She sputtered and his eyes narrowed. He took the gun from his waistband and pointed it toward Alexander once more. Saffron stopped struggling. The hot, bitter liquid poured into her throat, and she gagged.
“Drink it,” Blake demanded.
She drank. The lightning strike of pain hit, and the world around her went dark.
* * *
“It is supposed to be incredibly toxic.”
“Check her heartbeat.”
The voices, quiet as they were, echoed and rang in Alexander’s aching head.
“Very fast,” Berking’s voice reported.
“Looks almost the same as our little concoction. No wonder they believe xolotl nearly did in my dear Cynthia.”
They’d given xolotl to Saffron?
Footsteps, then there came the swish of fabric on leather.
His head throbbed from all angles. How much longer would they wait before they started hitting him to wake him up? He could withstand a lot of pain, but Berking was clearly bloodthirsty, and Blake indifferent.
“Did you get the rest of the aconite?” Blake asked from across the room, sounding as if he was merely asking about the weather. “We might find it useful before long.”
“No, the damned girl took it,” Berking said. “Had to give the other two plants to Glass to make more of the solution, but he said it wouldn’t be ready for another few days.”
“We’ll have to leave it behind then,” Blake replied. “We can’t wait around for another batch. After we’re done here, we’re leaving. You’re quite sure Glass has been paid off well enough to keep him quiet?”
Alexander’s mind was roused at the mention of Glass. Who Berking had written the check to? Not a bet, after all, but for making the poison.
Berking grunted unhappily and agreed. “He came back for more after he heard of the investigation, but I’ve paid him half a fortune. He should keep quiet.”
“And there’s no one else?” Blake’s voice was quiet, but razor-sharp. There was a huff from Berking. “If you try to cross me, Berking—”
“You’ll what?” Berking growled. “You’ll trick me out of my money, Harper?”