52. Santo
Chapter 52
Santo
D rugging my wife is not something I ever thought I would have to do, but it’s a necessary evil. She needs to rest, and I need to keep Scythe far away from her.
Finding her on the ground, bleeding and bruised, almost made me kill Jude Olsen right there, but I couldn’t . I had to focus on her. I had to take her home, hold her in my arms. I had to make sure she was calm, safe— clean .
Clean from that motherfucker’s hands on her.
I thought about what I’d do to him—each step, every excruciating moment—while I held my wife in the tub and washed her. Her scent was the only thing keeping me from completely losing control.
I didn’t lie to her when I said we had work to do. I met up with Angelo and Maksim—Jude’s story is that Miroslav sent him to get Vasilisa, to bring her to him, to “keep her safe.” I didn’t believe that shit for a second.
I had the syringe that fucker dropped in the bathroom tested. When Luca came to give me the results, I could tell from the fury in his eyes that it wasn’t just a sedative.
Potassium fucking chloride.
That bastard was going to kill my wife.
The taste of rage is venom in my mouth. I nearly crushed the report in Luca’s hands when I snatched it from him.
Jude Olsen dies tonight.
Miroslav has a meeting with the Armenians at the dock the day after tomorrow, and we’ll be there. Wesley figured out that a code word ‘Kingdom’ will be used that night. The second that word is sent, we rush them.
We take them all down.
Maksim is setting up his snipers. I’ve called our Capo in Chicago—he’s coming up with a small army. Everything is handled.
No one comes for my family and gets away with it.
After finalizing our plans, I had Romeo and Luca bring me Jude. They strapped him to the bolted chair in the basement, in the space, my brother likes to call the “Guy’s Night” room.
Scythe hasn’t killed in that room for a long time.
But I want the man who dared to touch my wife dead—on my turf, by my hands.
Luca cauterized the gunshot wound Romeo gave Jude at La Serenata. I stride in, shutting the door and flooding the room with fluorescent light.
Luca stands by the instrument table, a variety of my tools laid out in front of him. Romeo stands beside Jude, whose mouth is taped shut, his eyes narrowed on me as I enter.
I rip the tape from his lips. He spits, glares.
“Let me fucking go!” he shouts.
I chuckle darkly and punch him in the mouth. His teeth slam against my knuckles, pain shooting up my hand—but the sight of his split lip makes it worth it.
“Unbind him,” I command.
Luca and Romeo exchange a look.
“Santo—” Luca starts, but I cut him off with a glance.
They do as they’re told. Jude’s eyes flick to me, relieved for half a second.
I grab the seven-inch buck knife from the table. Jude watches me carefully as he stands, his gaze darting toward the door behind me.
I shake my head, a cruel smile curling my lips. “That door won’t open from the inside. Not without this.” I extend my thumb toward the scanner.
His eyes flicker. “Here,” I say, flipping the knife in my grip before holding it out to him. “Take it.”
Confusion flickers across his face. “What?”
“We’re gonna spar.” I cock my head. “To make it fair , you get the knife.”
Jude shakes his head. “Just let me go. I won’t say anything.”
I laugh. “You think I’m afraid of you talking ?”
I take a step closer.
“You touched my wife. Spilled her blood. Tried to kill her.” My jaw clenches. My fist itches to end this now, to skip the fight altogether.
“You hurt someone smaller than you. Defenseless. Mine. ”
I thrust the knife into his hands.
“Fight.”
I step back, taking my position in the middle of the room.
Romeo and Luca grab Jude by each arm and drag him forward. They drop him at my feet.
His knuckles turn white around the handle of the knife.
“I-I don’t want to,” he stammers.
I shake my head. “Die like a man. Or die like a coward. Either way, you’re dying tonight. Stand up.”
Jude’s hands tremble, but his eyes burn with fury. He rolls his injured shoulder, setting his stance.
“You’re so upset,” he says as we begin to circle each other. “You think she’s yours. But she was mine first.”
His eyes stay locked on my hands. Smart. Watching for movement. Trying to lure me in.
I shake my head. “She was never yours.”
He smirks. “Two years together. That’s history she can’t forget.”
My teeth grind together, heat rising in my chest. “You were in Seattle for most of it. Now shut the fuck up and fight.”
Jude shrugs, smirks. “One year I had her to myself. Did she tell you that? Every. Single. Day. What do you think we did?”
I know he’s trying to get to me. And I refuse to give him the satisfaction.
I chuckle knowingly. “You did nothing.”
Jude’s jaw ticks. Anger. Frustration.
“Just because you got her to bleed on your sheets,” he sneers, “doesn’t mean we didn’t do everything but.”
He lunges.
I see the knife coming too late. Steel slices through my arm, tearing fabric, spilling blood.
Jude grins, backing up a step, his blade streaked with red.
“She’s a weak spot, huh?” He licks his lips. “Does she moan when you kiss her too?”
The thought of his hands on Vasilisa overrides everything—even the fact that she told me I was the first to ever touch her body.
His smug fucking face blurs. My control slips. I see nothing but red.
He can’t talk about my wife like that. Can’t mention the sounds she makes. Can’t compare the longevity of their relationship to the minuscule time she’s spent with me.
She’s mine . She’ll always be mine.
I don’t register that I’m on top of him. That my fists are breaking his face open. That the knife in his hand is swiping at me until it clatters to the ground—until hands are prying me off him.
When my vision returns, Romeo is strapping a bloodied, barely-conscious Jude to the chair. His eye is swollen shut, bruises blooming across both cheeks. His lip—split wide open—drips blood down his chin. His teeth are stained red when he smirks at me like an idiot.
Luca releases my arms. “He got you good. You’re bleeding.” Luca’s voice is sharp, urgent.
I look down. My shirt is in tatters, blood trailing from wounds down to my hands.
I take a breath, mentally assessing the damage. Nothing feels lethal.
I shrug him off. “I’m fine.” I step toward Jude. I ask him which hand he used to hit my wife.
Then I shatter both anyway.
The meat tenderizer slams down. The crack echoes through the room. The blood splatters onto his stupid, stunned face, and a surge of joy floods through me—sharper than I thought possible.
Jude shakes violently, his body convulsing from the pain.
“Please.” His voice is wrecked, choking on his own suffering. “I’m sorry,” he coughs, spitting blood onto the floor.
I stare down at him. No remorse. No pity. Just cold, consuming rage. “You will never touch her—or anyone —again.” I extend my hand. Luca places my next tool into my palm.
The metal bat.
Jude’s breath shudders.
“You won’t even think about her again.”
I swing.
The bat slams into his leg. His scream pierces the night, and I silently thank myself for giving my wife that sleeping pill.
I swing again.
A sickening crack.
Jude’s body jerks violently, his breath choking out between screams. I toss the bat to the ground. Romeo hands me the buck knife. I twirl it between my fingers.
Jude’s eyes widen in pure, primal terror.
Good.
“No,” he whines, “No, don’t kill me, please, my father—”
“Your father?” I echo, tilting my head. “Your father thinks you’re back home in Seattle. Like you told him you were.”
“I didn’t—” he starts, but Romeo holds up his cellphone tauntingly.
Jude whimpers in pain before screaming in rage.
“No!” he shouts. “You motherfuckers don’t get to do this. You don’t get to win!” He thrashes in his restraints, only aggravating his shattered bones.
I laugh cruelly. “I’ve already won.”
I drag the tip of the knife down the side of his face, splitting the skin open. Blood trails down his jaw, staining his clothes. He grits his teeth through it, then spits in my face.
I wipe it away with the back of my hand, smearing my own blood across my cheek. The metallic scent fuels Scythe within me, a rush of pure fury ripping through my veins.
I stab him in the abdomen.
Jude gasps, choking on the pain as I release the handle, leaving the blade lodged deep in his gut. I know I didn’t hit anything vital. And I won’t. Not yet.
I’ll him on the edge of begging for death before I grant it.
He coughs, breath ragged, before chuckling like the arrogant bastard he is.
“You find death funny?”
“No,” he wheezes through the pain. “I find it funny that he’s going to kill you.”
My grip tightens. “No one will kill me.”
Jude smirks, eyes half-lidded with amusement. “Sarkisian will.”
I raise a brow. “So you are working for him?”
“No,” Jude grins, “but I know he’s going to kill you—by breaking her. ”
Ice slides down my spine. “No one will ever get near her.”
Jude’s grin widens. “I did.”
I punch him in the face. Hard. His head snaps back, a deep groan ripping from his throat.
I grab the pliers.
“Sarkisian is going to fuck your little whore,” Jude sneers, “and pass her out to every single one of his men until she’s nothing more than a broken shell of—”
Romeo grabs the back of his head, yanking it back hard. Luca forces his jaw open.
Jude chokes on his own breath, his body jerking violently as I clamp the pliers around his lying, filth-ridden tongue. My mind is fire, pure fire, burning through my skull. His words, their disgusting, harrowing filth, about my wife, my Vasilisa. No one. No man. Will ever touch her.
A beep cuts through the air.
Jude goes still. His eyes lock onto something behind me.
A gasp.
I know that sound. It’s soft, breathless, but it cuts through me like a blade. I know it because I’ve spent months craving it, chasing it, memorizing every way she breathes, speaks, sighs.
I know it because it’s hers.
Dea.
My stomach drops. My pulse slams through my veins. I don’t want to turn around. But I do.
And there she is.
Her eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen them. Her chest rises and falls in panicked, uneven breaths. Her mouth parts, trembling. Her body shakes. The snack cake in her hand drops.
She turns and runs.