“Was that the hand he used to jack off with, do you think?” Ivan asked, tossing me his towel as I dropped the hammer back on the little mobile torture cart someone had helpfully supplied. Carving information out of someone often took focus, and nothing was more irritating than stopping in your stride because the pliers you wanted were in another room.
“Oh, most definitely.” I snickered, wiping my hands as Gregor rasped out broken sobs. He’d lost his voice from screaming long ago, and it was difficult to say very much without any teeth.
My father and his most ruthless torturer, Andrey, had gotten the information needed to condemn Gregor embarrassingly quickly. Gregor was a sniveling coward, and he spilled his guts about his involvement in The Consortium and the plans Roark was making in the shadows before we had the opportunity toliterallyspill his guts. Indigo was right when she said she heard him talking with my bastard of an uncle, and by calling attention to Gregor when she did, she unintentionally warned us of a plot that could end the very legacy my father and I were trying to protect.
Gregor had only acted as he did, according toGregorat least, because he was confident in his father’s position as one of thepakhan’stop brigadiers, hisvory, to get him out of trouble. He’d miscalculated, wildly. His father, a weathered, old first-generation immigrant from Kazan named Dima Popov, was eternally loyal to the brotherhood. Popov was the pakhan of the California arm of our bratva. He was also on his third wife and had no shortage of heirs. When my father told Dima what we had discovered and proof of his son’s treachery, Dima told my father to punish his son as Mikhail saw fit. Gregor had begged his father to help him, but Dima had eyed his son with disgust and spat, “I have many sons, but only onepakhan. You are no Popov.”
After we’d pulled every scrap of useful information from Gregor and he’d begged his father for a salvation that would never come, the real fun began. I didn’t especially enjoy violence simply for violence’s sake, nor did I find sexual gratification in pain, but it’d be a lie if I didn’t feel a sense of grim satisfaction at every pathetic whimper and groan that weripped from Gregor. This sad excuse for a man had betrayed his family, his bratva, and contributed to the harm of my cousin and countless other innocent people. Haunted green eyes and indigo hair flashed through my mind, and I found myself contemplating what other horror we could put Gregor through before we allowed him to die.
The door to the interrogation room opened behind me, and my mother entered just as I told Ivan, “Go find me the fishhooks. The barbed ones.” Ivan grinned as he used his tongue to play with his snake bite piercings.
“I like the way you think,sobrat,” Ivan crowed and left to find the hooks.
“Be careful, boyo,” my mother said from the periphery of the plastic sheeting. I tilted my head her way and leaned against the wall, crossing my blood-streaked forearms.
“Careful of what, Ma?”
She looked about the space, her hazel eyes assessing the scene before her with a detached, clinical gaze before turning on me, where they softened. “The bloodlust, son. You inherited it from my side of the family, I fear, and I don’t want you to be corrupted by it.” Her words lit a fire in my gut, resentment bubbling there at her implied comparison.
“I’mnothinglike him,” I hissed. “I don’t hurt innocent people. I don’t get off on the pain and suffering of others, and I certainly would never sexually assault someone.”
My mother raised her hands, pushing away from herself. “Calm down. I know you’re not like Roark,ye ijit. I simply mean that it’s easy, when we’re righteously angry and feeling vengeful, to getlostin the violence. Gregor deserves to suffer for the sins we know of and all those he left buried, but don’t forget what differentiates you from men like my brother. If violence is necessary, it should serve a purpose or else you’ll become the very thing you seek to destroy. Someone who hurts people just because they can, because it makes them feel good. What purpose does this serve now?” she asked, gesturing to the quivering lump of broken man tied to a table.
I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw in irritation for a few moments before forcing my body to relax and my eyes to open. My mother was right. We’d stopped torturing Gregor for information days ago, and now I was taking my rage and frustration out on a convenient target. I rolledmy shoulders and popped my neck, and gave my mom a reluctant nod of understanding. We’d had our fun, now it was time to get back to work and find a way to rid the world of my uncle and the corruption of The Consortium.
Ivan came sauntering into the room just in time to hear the muffledpopof the silencer on my gun as a bullet blew the back of Gregor’s skull onto the wall behind him. Ivan’s jaw dropped. “Goddamnit, Riordan! I had to search two fucking shelves to find those hooks.” He chucked the bag at me in a snit. It bounced off my shoulder and landed in a pile of Gregor. My mother popped Ivan upside the back of his head, in that humbling way only mothers seem to possess.
“Ivan Antonovich Federov!” she snapped, causing me to turn away to hide my snide grin. “Such language, is that how you speak before the wife of yourpakhan?”
Ivan looked sheepish. “I apologize, Mrs. Petrova. I forgot you were standing there.”
“What every woman longs to hear,how forgettable she is,” my mother said sardonically. She made a gesture with her hand, waving Ivan’s comment aside. “There was a reason I came down here. Your father has been speaking with Duke Abbott, and it seems there’s been a development.”
“Let me grab a shower, and I’ll be right up,” I tell my mother, who nodded and left Ivan and me with what remained of Gregor.
Ivan called our cleanup crew to deal with the mess and fist-bumped me before he left to clean up. I stayed, gaze fixed on Gregor’s corpse, and wished that it was Roark’s instead.
For far too long, our alliance with the Irish mob had continued, the lack of proof of their involvement in Tatiana’s disappearance and mutually beneficial business keeping a bond afloat that I was fully prepared to sever. Out of respect, I’d give my cousin a turn with him first, but before Roark Callahan drew his last breath, I’d make sure he understood that fucking with the Petrov family was the worst mistake he ever made.
Chapter 18
Lennon
The first dead body I ever saw was my mama’s. I’d been eight when cancer had stolen her from us, and watching my lovely mother wilt and fade before our eyes was something I’d never forget. My parents should have grown old together. Instead, she was a memory, and Dad walked around with a piece of his heart on the wrong side of eternity. I’d tried to become a woman my mom would be proud of, but right now, all I felt was shame and frustration. As my father walked me back to my room at the clubhouse, I felt humiliation washing over me because I wasn’t able to defend myself today without help. If Indi hadn’t been there, I know those Raiders would have gotten me into their truck. Maybe I’d have died just like Ellis had, just as helpless against men who were determined to hurt and destroy.
I also felt my stomach churn at the thought that I’d helped kill a man today. Even if I was defending myself, and even if it wasn’t me who landed the fatal blow, I still felt like I had blood on my hands now. I ranmy thumbs across the pads of my fingers surreptitiously, searching for the feeling of blood coating them, wondering why it mattered to me anyway. Every man on this compound had hands dirtied for the sake of our club. Did I think less of them knowing they’d killed if they had to? Did I think less of Indigo for killing to survive when she was held captive by the Beast of Boston? The answer wasabsolutely not, so why wasn’t I giving myself the same compassion and understanding I offered the rest of my family?
I felt Bones’s eyes on me the entire way to the clubhouse, boring into the back of my head as my father’s arm held me close to his side. Dad dropped me at my door with a kiss on the forehead, and he was off to talk business with his brothers. I shut the door to my room and kicked my shoes off, heaving a deep sigh. I knew it would break my dad’s heart to move away completely, so last year he’d come around to me moving out…as long as I remained on the compound. I could tell he hated the idea of being alone, so I’d agreed and taken my first baby step out of the nest. Into a bigger nest.
At first, I’d been thrilled to move in, thinking if Bones and I lived in the same space, he’d finally stop holding himself back and we could be together. We’d almost been there once upon a time. I’d beenso closeto convincing him to give us a chance. Then Ellis had been murdered, and our whole lives had fallen apart for a while. By the time I’d resurfaced from my grief for my best friend, Bones wouldn’t even give me the time of day.
I’d tried for years to catch his eye, but eventually, I gave up and accepted that the kind of love I felt for him was completely one-sided. It wasn’t until Indigo came into our lives that I started to feel like maybe that wasn’t the case, but Bones was hot one minute and cold the next, and my poor heart couldn’t make sense of where I stood with him. My thoughts were drawn back to the last night Bones and I had crossed his imaginary line in the sand, the night the Iron Raiders beat and kidnapped the man I loved, and I wasn’t sure if the last words I’d ever said to him would be ones born of anger and pain.
Lennon, the night Bones & Indigo were taken
The fucking nerve of this culero, acting like he hadn’t completely ruined my chance at a date this weekend. Bones sat there across the bar from Indi and me, eating his sandwich as if everything was fine. He ran into David and me, the cute worker at the grocery store who I’d been flirting with off and on for a few weeks. When I noticed Bones shopping in the deli section, where David was trying to chat me up, I said bye to David and checked out. I didn’t want Bones to know I was into him because every time I tried to date a guy, Bones inevitably did something to scare him away.
I didn’t see Bones anywhere near David when I left, and Bones got back to the clubhouse from town shortly after I did, but he must have found enough time to threaten David behind my back because by the time I parked my car, I had a text from him canceling our date. I tried to text him back, asking what had happened, but the coward blocked my number! I let out an irritated snarl as I shoved my phone into my purse and stalked angrily from the parking lot and into the clubhouse.
