Chapter Twenty-Six #2
Nestore’s eyes flickered with bloodlust, and his answering smile scared even me a little. “I need to get a few answers out of him before the tiger enjoys him. He tends to kill them before I can question them.”
“He said the Bratva told him to kill me.”
Nestore nodded. “I want more names, and I want to make him pay for what he’s done.” He cupped my cheek. “Go, dove. I don’t want you to watch. You’ve seen too much blood in your life.”
“I can handle blood,” I reminded him.
“I know. Nobody knows it better than me.”
I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his lips. “I’ll be waiting for you. Come back to me soon.”
“Trust me, I need your closeness more than you can fathom.”
He kissed me again, then stepped back. I turned around and left the enclosure.
Rodolfo, pressing a hand against his shoulder wound, and two other guards joined me as I walked up the path toward the house.
I glanced at Rodolfo. “Shouldn’t you get this treated?
You’re bleeding a lot.” The entire left side of his shirt was covered in blood.
He grimaced. “Your safety is my top priority, or my life is forfeit.”
A sudden fear struck me. “Did someone alert Flavia’s bodyguards? The Bratva could target them as well.”
“They were notified,” Rodolfo said in a tight voice.
I still made a mental note to call her as soon as I got my phone.
On my way to the primary bedroom, I grabbed the vase with the bouquet.
I needed something to lighten my mood. I put it down on the small side table beside the sofa, then grabbed my phone from the nightstand and sank onto the sofa.
I called Flavia, but as Rodolfo had said, she was safe and had additional security for the time being.
I moved into the bathroom to shower away the memories of what had happened. A glance at my face revealed the skin right beneath my lower lip was still tinged red from biting Lev.
Maybe I wasn’t so different from Nestore. The time in the basement had shaped us both, but I could hide the effects better.
I dragged a limp Lev by the meat hook wedged into his shoulder toward the tiger enclosure.
He was whimpering but otherwise not moving.
The last hour in my hands, he’d learned the true meaning of agony, and I made his withdrawal symptoms seem like a walk in the fucking park.
I couldn’t believe this worthless piece of shit had dared to attack Amelia.
I shouldn’t have left her this long. I had been filled with the need to destroy, to overcome this feeling of powerlessness I had had since Achille’s death, but I should have returned to her sooner. She was my wife. She was my everything. If something had happened to her…
I jerked at the hook, and Lev’s eyes jerked open, then rolled back again.
He was a wimp. The tiger watched me from its resting place on a boulder.
He’d enjoy this extensive meal. I unlocked the door in the fence, then ripped the hook out of Lev’s shoulder before I shoved him inside and locked him in.
He landed on his knees, gasping in pain as he grabbed his broken ribs.
Three of his fingers were missing. I took them out of my pants pocket and tossed them into the enclosure as a treat.
Lev’s expression twisted, and he threw up.
He had already done so twice, and only foam tinged red with blood came out.
The tiger stretched leisurely, then hopped off the boulder.
Lev crawled toward the fence. “Please! Please! I’ll do anything to make you forgive me. Just tell me what to do.”
“Die,” I said.
The tiger began running, then, with a jump, it sank its teeth into Lev’s bleeding calf and dragged him backward. Lev’s fingers flailed over the grass. I watched for the next fifteen minutes as the tiger enjoyed its treat and Lev wished for death. When his neck snapped, I turned and left.
I needed to make sure the Bratva regretted the day they decided to kill Amelia. Sure, I had killed ten of their men brutally, but attacking my wife? That went beyond simple retribution.
I loathed the idea of leaving Amelia even for a second, but I needed to make sure she was safe, and that meant I had to erase any thought of Amelia from my enemies’ minds.
They needed to dread her name. Once I was done with the mediocre Pakhan in Los Angeles, even the Bratva would know that Amelia was on a pedestal.
Amelia sat on the sofa in our bedroom when I entered. She was dressed in a soft-looking white knit dress and barefoot. I wanted nothing more than to kiss her and pull her into my arms, but covered in blood as I was, it was out of the question.
“He’s dead,” I said. She gave a small nod.
In her lap, The Tale of Peter Rabbit was open.
It had become her comfort read, like it was mine.
I moved into the bathroom and took a quick shower before I returned to the bedroom.
I held out my hand, and Amelia allowed me to pull her to her feet.
I wrapped my arms around her and buried my nose in her hair.
The residual anger I’d still felt toward her because she’d killed her father was gone.
The moment I’d heard of the danger she’d been in, my worry and fear had trumped everything else.
“Are you still mad?” she whispered against my bare chest.
“No. I’m not. I’m mad at your father because I never managed to get even with him.”
“You wouldn’t have ever felt like you did, no matter how long you tortured him.”
My heart clenched. “I know.”
She sighed, and I tightened my hold further. “I need to leave in the morning to deal with the Bratva, dove. I can’t allow them to think they can attack you without raising hell.”
“But you’re staying the night?” She sounded hopeful, but also scared.
“I’ll stay until the sunrise.” I kissed her gently.
We settled into the bed together. Amelia motioned at a bouquet I hadn’t noticed before. It was white and yellow and light green. I didn’t recognize the flowers.
“I bound it. I miss working with flowers.”
“Then plant flowers in the garden. There’s enough space. You can decorate the house with the flowers you grow.”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d be okay with me changing anything.” She pursed her lips.
“You can change everything but the maze.”
She smiled and pressed her face against my chest. “Do you want me to read you The Tale of Peter Rabbit?” I asked when I realized Amelia was still holding it.
“Yes, please,” she said quietly.
Before I began reading, I asked her, “Will you be all right?”
“I don’t feel sorry for him, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“You almost got killed,” I reminded her. Maybe she didn’t realize how close she’d gotten to dying. I certainly hadn’t forgotten the entire time I’d tortured her attacker.
“Maybe I’m simply used to being at risk of dying. The time in the basement messed with my mind, too.”
I kissed the top of her head. “Your mind is as beautiful as your body.”
“My mind can be a cruel, dark place, too. Not often, but there’s potential for it.”
I sighed. “I love even the darkness of your soul, even if I wish it had never been tainted.”
She swallowed thickly. “I love you too.”
My heart galloped in my chest. I focused on the pages of the book in front of me, not wanting to dwell on my softer emotions. I needed to focus on the rage deep inside me if I wanted to make tomorrow the darkest day in the LA Bratva’s history.
After ten minutes of my reading, Amelia’s breathing evened out.
I put the book on the nightstand and grabbed my phone to tell Niccolo about my plan.
He needed to get the ball rolling and call in our soldiers so we could ambush every Bratva establishment in the city.
I would seek out the Pakhan personally and make him wish he had never been born.
His skull would be the crowning piece in my trophy gallery.
The dark plumes of smoke rising from the Pakhan’s villa rose into the baby-blue sky.
I stuffed his skull into the gym bag I’d taken with me for that purpose.
I’d bring it to my preparator. He’d worked on all of my trophies and did marvelous work.
By now, he hardly blinked when I took human remains to him.
“Did you send Remo a copy of the video that we sent to every Pakhan in Camorra territory?”
Niccolo looked up from his phone, then glanced past the gates toward the street. Sirens were coming closer. “We should leave.”
Taking the gym bag, I got into Niccolo’s car, and he took his seat behind the steering wheel. The fire trucks and police cars arrived in the street when we turned the corner.
“I sent Remo everything. He hasn’t reacted so far.”
“Drop me off at home, and take the head to Freddy.”
Niccolo’s lips curled. “Not sure why you want the ugly face of the Russian in your home.”
“I skinned him. His face was eaten by the pit bulls he kept as pets.”
“You know what I mean.”
I ignored him. The skull would make a fabulous trophy, and my enemies would fear me even more for having it.
My phone rang. I didn’t have to look at the screen to know it was Remo.
“You sure know how to piss off the Russians,” Remo said by way of greeting.
“Mainly, I know how to make sure they never dare to set a toe out of line again.”
“Yakov certainly won’t, considering you cut them all off.”
“I also skinned, gutted, and decapitated him.”
“Indeed. I watched the entire video. Of course, I fast-forwarded the less interesting parts. I never understood why Nino favored skinning our enemies. I prefer less arduous ways to cause agony. You apparently have attention to detail like my brother.”
“I wanted to make a statement they understood.”
“I’m sure they did. It never gets boring with you. That’s for sure.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
Remo chuckled, then he hung up.
“Let me guess, he’s happy with your work?”
“I wouldn’t call any of Remo’s states of mind happy, but he appreciated my work.”
Niccolo scoffed and shook his head, shooting me a sideways glance. “You look like you went to hell and came back.”
“Not for the first time.”
“And probably not for the last time either,” Niccolo muttered.
He was right, but now all I wanted was to find solace in the arms of my personal paradise: Amelia.