17. Chapter Seventeen
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
M y poor wife was lost in her mind, and it was heartbreaking to watch. The Venezuelans had attempted to grab her, and I couldn’t get those shots out of my mind. They were so close to her, almost taking her from me for good. I couldn’t take the pain of losing her.
So, I threw myself into my work, tirelessly hunting the rat who was feeding our information to the cartel. I would find them. Makari had narrowed it down to five phones. We were almost there.
He had barely slept since I tasked him with the job of finding the traitor weeks ago.
I’d walked away from my wife because I couldn’t help her. I wasn’t sure how her mind trapping her worked. I didn’t know how to break it. I’d tried sometimes, but I didn’t have the energy to do that now.
I would find out later what sparked this reaction.
For now, my focus was on the threat to us.
My office door was open, and Makari was grinning at his computer.
“What is it?” I swept into the room, hoping for an update .
“I’ve narrowed it down to two phones, and I think we can confront these men before they give anything else away.”
My mind whirled. “I have a better idea. We torture as much information as we can out of him, and then keep the Yakuza girl.”
Makari’s eyes gleamed. “Yes. Let’s give her to one of the men. Once her virtue is gone, she’ll be ruined, and her father won’t have leverage any longer.”
“Play stupid fucking games,” I growled.
“Win stupid fucking prizes,” Makari declared. “I’ll pick the man who will deflower her. That way you have one less thing on your plate.”
“Thank you. I can admit, I want to steal Isadora away from here.”
He nodded in understanding, a recluse himself. “In due time. You won’t have much longer to wait.”
I knew he was trying to help me, but his response frustrated me more than anything else. Isadora was my wife. Must we suffer in this vast mansion? My home was perfect for the two of us. With a few extra bedrooms in case we had visitors.
They could also be converted to a child’s room.
“Let’s get them.” Makari picked up his phone and we headed out.
I wouldn’t bother the Pakhan with this. He asked me to take care of the rat problem, and that was all I needed to do. He didn’t need an hourly update. We would get the answers he sought and tell him afterward.
I sent out a message to the men to fall back into the compound. I wanted them all lined up outside on the front lawn. It was time to catch a rat.
Not too long after, all the men were lined up in single rows all over the front lawn. Makari and I walked down the line until we were in front of our two suspects.
“Show us your phones, gentlemen,” I commanded.
One sweated, while the other held his phone out to us, readily blubbering about how he would never betray the Brotherhood. I didn’t need to see any more. I nodded to two of the guards, and had them arrest the sweaty rat before me.
We marched him to the outer warehouse on the outskirts of the property. Viktor had this built for our dirty work. It kept the mayhem away from his wife. Tiffany would join in, not run away screaming, and that was what bothered him.
Sometimes it seemed as if Viktor’s wife was more unhinged than he was.
The men strung the rat up, and I walked to the wall of tools. I grabbed the pliers and a wrench, with a grin at the whimpering man.
“Let us begin.”
I walked toward him and dropped into a squat. I placed the wrench on the ground next to me as I ripped off one nail at a time with the pliers. The sound of his screams was a satisfying symphony. I picked up the wrench, pausing to chuck him under the chin, and force him to look at me as I asked.
“Why did your boss send you?” I hit him in the face with the wrench, holding back a cackle from the crunch of bone.
“Fuck you,” the man spat, before he started speaking in another language. Surprised, I swore loudly.
“Fucker isn’t Russian, he’s a Jap.” I wished I knew what he was saying, but we didn’t have a translator on hand.
The man blubbered with a smile, babbling in his language, which I ignored, irritated we didn’t see it before. Fucking ninjas always trying to infiltrate our ranks.
Cursing, I ripped off another nail. “Why did he send you?”
He babbled in his language, no longer even attempting English. On and on it went, with me asking the same question. When the man was a bloody mess in front of me, I let out a long sigh.
“He’s a strong one, that’s for sure,” I muttered.
Makari leaned against a far wall. “Maybe you should give him something to get him squealing.” He nodded to the wall.
I saw his eyes looking at the hammer. Old school busted kneecaps it was. I walked over and exchanged my weapons.
“Why the fuck did your boss send you?” I asked again, once I walked back over to him.
He babbled nonsensically, and I swung the hammer. I brought it down on his knee and saw one guard wince at the loud bone-crushing sound. A keening wail fell from the rat’s mouth, as he tried to get out of his bonds.
I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Bored with his torture, I ended his miserable life. I brought the hammer down on his head, over and over. Blood splattered across my cheek, as I savagely beat him to death, until his corpse stopped twitching.
“There,” I brushed some of my hair out of my eyes. “Take care of the girl,” I said to Makari on the way out.
He was already searching for which of the girls was Yakuza. We had so many files, and the men were still poring over many of them. The girls weren’t forthcoming about who they were.
They stayed holed up in the East Wing, never leaving and not communicating anything, other than to Valentina or Isadora. This mistrust was misplaced. I was planning on selling them back to their families. Not hurting them.
I guess, after living through The Academy, they couldn’t trust it. I headed back to my room to clean up. I hadn’t thought that Isadora was back, but there she was, sleeping on top of the covers.
I tried to be as quiet as I could, as I slipped into the bathroom and tossed my bloody clothes off. There was a new garbage bag hanging on the door, my people swapped them out multiple times a day. The maid would know where to dispose of the evidence.
They were trained for this.
I stood under the spray, until it stopped running red, before grabbing my soap. I took care of my body, cleaning myself up. I didn’t want Isadora to have another flashback seeing me. I wanted her to sleep, since she needed it.
Had she been sleeping more? I know she was sick for a short while, but was she hiding more than illness? I was going to test her piss. It was the only way to be certain my seed had taken root.
She wouldn’t tell me. That was for sure. She’d been keeping herself away from me for days, and that wouldn’t do. I finished washing my body and stepped out of the shower, after turning off the spray. I grabbed my towel and dried my body.
On autopilot, I walked out of the bathroom and slid onto the sheets naked. She moaned and rolled right into my arms, snuggling against me. I felt a sense of contentment, something I never thought I would have with a partner.
Hell, I never thought I would have one of those either.
I was in love with this woman. It was early and fast, but this obsession festered deep into my soul, and I was coming to grips with the fact that I could never dig her out. I don’t think I wanted to either.
Her soft breaths blew against my cheek as I watched her sleep.
I wished I could keep her just like this. Safe and warm in my arms. Protected. But there were actual threats against us. Even though I caught the rat, it didn’t stop the Venezuelan cartel from having intel on us. They were working together against us and that couldn’t stand. We needed to eradicate them before something awful happened. Before people got ideas.
There could be others.
I couldn’t burn through the ranks like Viktor had done. The men were still traumatized from what he’d done. I pulled my wife closer, taking in her sweet scent, and my cock twitched.
I peeked at her face.
So peaceful.
One more time, just to make sure, couldn’t hurt. I reasoned with myself and rubbed my cock against her slick cunt. She rocked against me, moaning in her sleep, as I slid my cock deep inside of her.
It was a little snug since she wasn’t prepared, but I didn’t move. I throbbed inside of her, jerking off the rest of my cock. Even without us moving, it felt like the greatest sex I’d ever had in my life.
I came inside of her with a gasp. It was strong and unexpected. I left my cock inside of her, and drifted off into a dreamless sleep. Or at least I thought it was, but when I woke up in the morning, I could’ve sworn I heard a baby wailing all night long in my sleep.
The sound haunted me to my core.