He was not some loathsome rapist, a thug who’d killed for the sake of money or an addled addict thieving for a fix. Neither was he insane or slow witted. She made sure of that. He was her social equal, at least by background, and his crimes were political and symbolic.
Of course they’d tortured him, so he arrived with a bruised body, cuts and punctures on his bare limbs and torso. He had a slice under one eye, and the men who’d made it told her he’d flinched when they were threatening to kill him, but otherwise kept his cool.
Now he was kneeling on the tile, just as still as when they’d worked him over in the basement of the jail. His only motion was to twist his hooded head, listening for what he could not see. Just shy of six feet, with a body earned from living well, but not the ridiculously sculpted physique of a gym junkie. His hands were chained together in front of him, mitts locked over his fingers to keep him clumsy.
