When he cuts the last of my bonds, I collapse forward into his chest.
“I’m sorry,” I sob against his shirt, my voice broken and raw. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
11
ALARIC
Blood soaksthrough my shirt as I carry her through the front doors while the medical team scrambles to set up equipment in the east wing guest room. Her head lolls against my shoulder. Every step I take leaves dark spots on the marble floor.
“Clear the hallway!” Dr. Williams shouts, wheeling a hospital bed around the corner. Dr. Rodriguez follows with IV bags and monitoring equipment. Three nurses trail behind them.
I place Kasimira on the bed as gently as I can manage. A small cut above her left eyebrow bleeds steadily. Purple bruises bloom across her arms like ugly flowers. Dried blood rims her wrists where she was tied up.
“Sir, we need you to step back so we can assess her injuries,” Dr. Williams says, pulling on latex gloves.
I want to argue, want to stay and watch every move, but they’re right. I’m in the way. I step into the hallway and close the door behind me.
My shirt clings to my chest, wet with her blood. I walk to my bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror. Silver hair. Green eyes. And red stains across white fabric.
I turn on the faucet and scrub my hands until they’re raw. The water runs pink, then clear. But when I try to wash the stain on my shirt, nothing happens. I scrub harder, water soaking through the fabric.
The shirt tears when I finally rip it off my body. Buttons scatter across the marble floor. I ball up the ruined cloth and throw it in the trash, slamming the lid shut.
Twenty-four years in this business. I’ve ordered men tortured for information. Watched enemies bleed out on warehouse floors. Put bullets in the heads of people who crossed my family.
But seeing Kasi broken and bloody in that chair made me want to burn down half the city.
I splash cold water on my face and remember how I found her.
The surveillance footage had shown everything. Kasimira leaving her bedroom in the maid’s clothes. The impostor, Margaret O’Brian, who turned out to be Anya Petrov, leading her straight into the trap.
Three weeks I’d unknowingly housed a Bratva operative. When she disappeared with Kasimira, I put every resource I had into tracking them down.
The breakthrough came from one of our informants in Brighton Beach. The Petrovs had been bragging about their prize, mentioning a warehouse in Queens. By the time we stormed the place, she’d been there for hours.
Now I need to deal with the man who made it all possible.
The surveillance room stinks of stale coffee and cigarettes when I walk in twenty minutes later. Tommy Russo hunches over his monitors, going through footage he should have caught weeks ago. Sweat stains darken his shirt despite the air conditioning.
“Tommy.”
He jumps like I fired a gun. Coffee spills across his desk, pooling around scattered papers. “Mr. Moretti, sir. I was just reviewing the security protocols, trying to understand how I?—”
“How you let a Bratva operative work in my house for three weeks?”
His face goes white. “Sir, I had no way of knowing she was?—”
“That’s the problem.” I keep my voice level, controlled. “You had no way of knowing because you weren’t doing your job.”
“Please, Mr. Moretti, I swear I was following all procedures?—”
“Two years of steady pay. Health insurance for your family. A pension plan.” I walk around his desk. “And this is how you repay my generosity?”
“I have children, sir. Three kids. My wife is pregnant with our fourth?—”
“Get out.”
“Sir?”
