Chapter 32 #2
In the end, it’s Anatoly who steps forward. “Vhat does Luke haf to say about dis?” His accent is thicker than usual, and his face bears no trace of the customary softness I normally sense beneath his rough exterior.
“Luke understood the job when he took it.” I face him down with the same cold composure with which I built my empire.
Only I’ve never felt so cold and alone inside while doing it. And I’ve certainly never had to draw on my mask for Anatoly.
His eyes narrow, but our shared past, for now at least, seems enough to stop him from speaking.
Then Enzo leans over the desk, his hands clasped on the marble surface. “This is bullshit,” he says flatly. “And you know it, Zin.”
The rest of the staff nod emphatically.
“Luke belongs here.” Nadja meets my eyes with a slightly defiant expression. “You know he does.”
Charlie scowls at me. “Nothing works without him. Luke gets us. And what about Paddy?” She looks at me accusingly. “Is he going to leave, too?”
I stare at them, for once lost for words. “I—Paddy?” My head spins. “I’m not sure. I—well, I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”
Anatoly raises his eyebrows derisively. “Seem to me, you not thinking at all.”
There’s a collective murmur of agreement.
I shift uneasily, for once horribly aware that I have no idea what to say.
“Hmph.” Anatoly snorts and turns away. “Vell. Enough talking, den.” Stalking stiff-backed to the door, he wrenches it open and takes up his position outside, hands folded stiffly in front of him.
Enzo gives me the kind of scathing glare he normally reserves for difficult guests.
“No argument from me.” Pulling Nadja close, he busses her cheek and gives her shoulder a comforting pat.
“Send me through the final list tomorrow, darling. We’ll talk then.
” Giving me a final dirty look, he heads for the door, stopping to exchange a commiserating look and murmured aside with Anatoly.
“I’ll be in the limo,” Charlie says, not attempting to hide her dark expression as she pushes past me.
Nadja drops her head, busying herself on the computer to avoid my eyes. “You should probably go down to the basement,” she says without looking at me. “Luke brought some interesting company back with him.”
I take the elevator to the basement, breathing deeply in an attempt to still my racing heart.
What the fuck is happening?
I faced down my father’s vor. Killed more men than I like to recall at close range.
Nothing has ever shaken me as much as the disgust I just witnessed in the faces of my closest staff.
They’ll come around, I tell myself. They were happy enough before Luke came. They’ll get over his departure.
Except an uncomfortable feeling in my chest tells me that’s a lie.
I can hire someone else.
Only I know there isn’t anyone else. Not like Luke.
There’s no one who possesses his uncanny knack for sensing what each person needs. Who notices the things everyone else misses and fixes them before they become a problem.
No one capable of creating that indefinable feeling of happiness that has permeated my business from the first day he arrived.
But none of that matters, I think feverishly as the elevator glides to a halt. If Luke stays, he’s in this world for good. There’ll never be a sunlit beach for him, with a child clinging to his shoulders.
Only men who want him dead—and who have the means to make it happen.
Keeping Luke here means putting a target on his back he can never remove.
The doors open, and I enter the basement.
Luke isn’t in the Viewing Gallery, nor any of the lavishly decorated fetish rooms surrounding it.
I walk all the way to the back of the basement, until I reach a soundproofed door with no window.
It’s the only truly secure room in the entire building, a bare concrete cell with nothing more than handcuffs chained to the wall.
A last resort, as such, for any threat that might need to be contained until disposal.
I should have known.
Luke isn’t the kind of man who requires props for his interrogations.
Taking a deep breath, I turn the handle and pull the door open. Luke, clad in bike leathers, has his back to me. He’s looming over a man chained to the wall, whose face has already been beaten to a bloody pulp.
The moment I step inside, a thick arm snakes around my neck.
Fuck.
“Let her go.” Luke growls the words without turning around. I’ve no idea how he knows it’s me.
“It’s her,” I hear someone whisper.
“Shit,” mutters the man behind me, dropping his arm. “Sorry, Miss.”
I fight a sudden, slightly hysterical urge to laugh.
There are half a dozen men, including Paddy, in the small space.
Of various heights and ages, they all share the unmistakable taut poise that marks them as killers.
Only right now, they’re all looking at me with furtive expressions, like a pack of naughty schoolboys caught somewhere they shouldn’t be.
“It was Luke’s idea to bring him here.” Paddy backs away from me, holding his hands up in open surrender.
The other men nod emphatically in agreement.
I stare at them each in turn, then glance dismissively at the man chained to the wall, who is watching me through resentful, defiant eyes.
“Luke.” The discipline of long practice keeps my voice cool and detached. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”
“Fuck you.” The man spits blood on the floor.
“You don’t speak to her,” Luke snarls, his arm hard across the man’s throat.
“Not unless I tell you to.” He pulls the captive forward, then slams him back against the wall.
“This piece of shit used to be SAS instructor Major Ian Welch. He was respected by every man in this room, right up until he tried to hire one of them to put a bullet through me—so he could get to you.” He puts his face close to the other man’s.
“Sandman,” he addresses his captive in a voice thick with derision, “meet Zinaida Melikov, the woman you spent months fucking failing to kill.”
Adrenaline, raw and fierce, surges through me.
I cross the concrete floor to stand beside Luke’s tense figure.
His white T-shirt is blood spattered and has pulled loose from his bike leathers, exposing the rippling muscles of his abdomen.
His arm is like a tree trunk across his captor’s throat, his face hard and grim as hewn rock.
Going by the prisoner’s battered appearance, they’ve clearly been at this for some time.
“Ian,” I say lightly. I stretch a hand out to caress the man’s jaw, and he flinches at my touch.
I trail my fingers through the blood on his face, then turn them slowly under the hard light, allowing the blood to slide down my hand.
I turn polite eyes to Luke. “I take it there’s a reason this piece of shit is still alive? ”
From behind me come a few coughs of muted laughter.
“We have questions.” Luke shakes the man again, his eyes never leaving his face. “Which our friend here has been reluctant to answer so far, despite quite extensive persuasion from the entire team.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” I say lightly.
“Ian here thinks that because he taught classes in torture, he knows all the ways a man can be broken, and can withstand them.” Luke glances sideways at me. “I was just explaining to him that there are a few he has yet to encounter.”
Is he serious?
Surely Luke doesn’t want to see me flick the psychopath switch on one of his own men?
The major’s mouth curls in contempt. “You think that bitch can break me? Not all of us are as pussy whipped as you, Macarthur.”
Luke laughs softly. “Oh, I don’t think she can break you, Welch.
I fucking know she can. She’s killed far harder men than you’ll ever be.
” He drops his eyes pointedly to the man’s crotch.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the stories,” he says softly, his face close to Welch’s.
“Trust me when I say they don’t come close to describing the reality.
You’d be begging for death long before she gave it to you. ”
Ian Welch laughs. “Do your fucking worst, Macarthur. You and I both know I’m not leaving here alive. Whether my corpse is cockless or not is unlikely to bother me.”
Luke’s mouth curls dangerously. “Is that right,” he murmurs. His eyes flicker to me, hard and cold as I’ve ever seen them.
Is he daring me to do something?
And I suddenly realize what’s going on.
Luke no longer cares what I do.
He knows this is coming to an end. And he knows I’m going to make him leave.
This is nothing more than a job to him now. One he needs my help to bring to a close.
The realization crashes through my body in a shattering instant, but I don’t let the faintest trace of it show on my face. Instead I just glance at Luke, answering him in the silent communication we’ve shared for months now.
Shaking the prisoner one final time, he steps back to allow me space.
You want the psychopath, Luke?
Fine.
You’ve got her.
I tug Ian’s shirt from his trousers, then run my nails lightly along the band of skin just above the waistband of his jeans.
“I don’t know what they told you,” I say lightly, “but I have no intention of allowing you to leave here as a corpse. The cockless part, however?” I tilt my head speculatively to the side. “Now that’s a different thing.”
Ian’s eyes narrow slightly.
I turn to Luke. “Did you bring a knife?” I ask politely. “Or should I ask Paddy to fetch mine?”
“Ah, no need, now.” Paddy steps forward, grinning, a long blade gleaming in his hand. “Here’s one I prepared earlier.”
“You’re such a boy scout, Paddy.” I turn the blade in my hand, weighing its balance. “Is that Toledo steel?”
He winks at me. “You know your metal.” He tilts his head at Luke. “She’s quite something, your lady.”
“Your lady, is it?” Ian Welch sneers at Luke. “No wonder you’re so familiar with her torture techniques. Clearly, she’s already taken your cock.”
Oh, I think, with a sudden surge of mingled melancholy and longing, you have no idea.