“Because Kholodov knows about the trust. Because Kyle Banner was such a fucking idiot that you’d have to hit him in the face with ashovel to shut him up.” Russo sighs irritably. “When Scarlett turns twenty-three, she gets fifty million dollars. Marlena, bless her soul, didn’t know about the trust when she ordered the hit.”
“It’s yours,” I cut her off.
“I’ll want it now, of course. I’m not going through all that estate paperwork.”
“It’s yours. How the feck do Iget to my wife?”
“Even I don’t know the full layout of the mansion,” she sounds regretful. “I’ll send you as many pictures of the interior as I can, and a diagram of the sensors and alarms outside. Let me be clear. If anything is triggered, Kholodov will kill her. He’s not the evil villain type who will wait so you can see him do it. He’ll cut her throat and disappear.”
There’s a quiet furor of activity around me, Alec gathering soldiers, Kai and Logan talking about dispersing the weapons. Cormac’s ordering transportation, everyone’s already in action.
“Send me the photos.”
“As soon as I see the down payment in my account,” Russo says. “Fifty percent, I’m sending you the deposit link.”
“God fecking damnit ye know you’ll get the money!” I roar.
“Fifty percent,” she says implacably. “I’m not theone in a hurry. Kholodov is on his way here.”
Uncle Dougal takes the phone from my nerveless fingers and pulls over my laptop. “You have twenty-five million in liquid assets in the MacTavish accounts,” he murmurs.
Russo hears him, of course. “I knew you would.”
“Transferring now,” he says coldly.
Five agonizing minutes go by until she says, “Excellent! There you are, all you pretty zeros!”
Half the room has emptied out, everyone racing for their designated task. Alec and Cormac stand on either side of me, watching the screen.
“You should be seeing the diagram and the first images now,” Russo says.
Chapter Forty
In which we learn that no matter how horrifying Xavier Kholodov seems to be, he’s actually much worse.
Scarlett…
I draw it out as long as I can, but eventually, my hair is piled on top of my head. I know why he picked this dress now. The thin straps tie at my neck, leaving my entire back bare. He’s seated himself in one of the white chairs, watching me.
“Turn around, face the wall.”
Turning, I think about Wallace, how I felt when he soothed my back. Our shared pain. How he made me feel beautiful.
There’s a deep breath from behind me and my fists clench.
“Ah, you are even lovelier than I imagined.” His rapt pleasure sends a surge of nausea through me. “The glass entered here, then…” I didn’t hear him get up, but his hand is on my skin and I shudder.
“The starburst pattern, almost elegant,” hemurmurs. “A larger piece of the car window must have hit your back hard enough to shatter it into another dozen pieces. Did you feel the impact? The glass, driving into your skin?”
“No,” I manage to talk between numb lips. “I was unconscious.”
“A pity.” His fingers trail over the scars radiating from my shoulder, each one throbs like he’s cutting them again. “The two long slashes at the base of your spine, they’re so graceful, almost intentional. How did you get these?”
“The seat split during the impact.” I stare at a tiny crack on the wall, a slight imperfection in the endless white. “The metal edge cut into me. That’s what the EMTs said.”
His fingers sink to my hip, squeezing cruelly when I try to pull away. “Stand here,” he says. “In the light.”
“Ritual scarification has a long, illustrious history, you know.” He strolls over to the camera, turning it on. “It operates with a motion sensor.” He waves his hand and the camera follows the movement, the blank, dark eye of the lens watching us.
