Once again, Gorya’s eyes met Gedeon’s without flinching from the truth. “I reveled in learning. I wanted to be more of a monster than my uncle. I began to pit myself against him. In small ways at first. I would steal away his small treasures and plant them among his trusted captain’s things. I took great delight in the torture of his captain and his family. The woman was already dead and only hissons remained, men who enjoyed hunting humans and raping and murdering others. I always watched as Patva took his wrath out on his own loyal men, believing what his eyes saw when I had orchestrated the crime instead of listening to men who had served him for years. You have no idea the joy that brought me at such a young age, and it only increased as my acts of revenge became more complex.”
Again, Gedeon understood. How could he not? There was joy in defeating an enemy, especially when that enemy thought you had no power.
“I didn’t want Patva to die. I wanted him to live forever. It seemed too merciful for him to just die. I could torment him, strip him of everything that mattered to him little by little, and he would never know it was me. I knew I could best him. It was like a game of chess, and I found it exhilarating. I outthought him at every turn.”
“Weren’t there people in the lair suffering?” Meiling asked.
Gorya turned his frosty gray eyes on her. Gedeon knew what she was seeing. Emptiness. No soul. If his leopard looked back at her, that leopard had no real life in it either.
“I considered the entire lair corrupt, so therefore I was at war with everyone. If they suffered, that was good. It gave me opportunities to hone my skills. Patva took me with him on raids, and I practiced deceiving him into thinking I was squeamish and reluctant. His punishments were severe, but it was worth it to me. I learned to be an even better actor. He’d force his other men to take me with them, and that would allow me to wreak havoc without his knowledge.”
Gorya turned back to Gedeon. “Rogue and I hunted his best fighters, first stalking them for weeks just to hone our skills, entering their homes over and over, standing over them at night, but their leopards were never alerted unless we wanted them to know we were there.”
The hair on the back of Gedeon’s neck stood up. Slayer raked at him in alarm.
That’s what he did to us, Meiling, stalked us. He came into our home and Slayer didn’t alert. Neither did Whisper. He knew you were pregnant because he heard us talking.
Gedeon found it very disturbing that Gorya and his leopard had the skills to enter their home when Meiling and he were both elite. Was he fast enough to kill Gorya? Was Slayer? He’d never questioned himself or his leopard, but he’d be an arrogant ass if he didn’t consider the possibility that Gorya might be faster, stronger and even more ruthless.
All his life Gedeon had known he was superior to other shifters. He’d been careful not to take it for granted, but he’d known. He hid his gifts from others. Now he sat across from a man who was relaxed while knowing Meiling was in position to shoot him. Gedeon sat across from him within striking distance. Gorya hadn’t so much as flinched.
“To answer your question, Meiling, over the years, I developed the need to feed the brutality inside me. Whether it comes from the skills I got from my mother or the DNA I got from my father or the combination of both, it’s very strong in me. Far more so than my brothers. The beatings Rogue and I were subjected to so early and the way we had to survive by secretly plotting to kill only fed that side of me—of us. I can be very sadistic, and I don’t feel remorse. I know my cousins often thought of themselves as psychopaths, but they are not. They are good men. I am not.”
“If that’s the truth, how did you end up here in the States with your cousins?” Meiling asked.
There was a quality to Meiling’s voice that had always brought Gedeon peace. For the first time, he hoped it brought Gorya and his leopard peace as well. Heremembered the days of believing that he was a psychopath and there was no hope for survival. It was possible it was too late for Gorya, but clearly the man was determined to find a way to keep those around him safe by hiring Gedeon to kill him after he cleaned up the territory he’d been given. That didn’t strike Gedeon as a man who was completely unredeemable.
For the first time, Gorya hesitated. He wore his black hair slicked back, so it was impossible for Gedeon to tell how long it was on top, but it was thick, as all shifters’ hair was. The sides of his hair were kept shaved. He wore a short, trimmed beard and moustache. He looked young, with few lines in his face until you looked very close, then you could see the faint signs of burden and exhaustion from the life he’d led taking their toll.
Gorya pushed his fingers through his hair and shook his head. He gave Gedeon that faint smile that was as cold as ice and as fake as a three-dollar bill. “I told myself I would answer your questions honestly. There’s always that one moment in life when you must make a choice. My choice, until then, had been to keep Patva alive and torment him by slowly stripping him of everything he had. He was bringing in women and young girls and selling them or giving them to his trusted men before selling them. He had one of his enforcers take me along with him to inspect a house where they were keeping some of the women.”
There was no expression on Gorya’s face, but he picked up the bullet again and looked at it for a long moment. “I sometimes wonder, if I had just killed him, would I have spared that child the things done to her? But then I would never have been sent to that house of horrors.” He looked up again and met Gedeon’s gaze.
Gedeon could barely look at him. For some unknown reason, he had the feeling Gorya knew about his past,about his mother in just such a house. About Gedeon in just such a house. No one other than Meiling knew about Gedeon’s past, so that would be impossible, but those frosty gray eyes seemed to see inside him, into the secrets of his dark past.
“The men openly raped and beat the women and children right there in front of one another as if they weren’t human beings. They laughed and egged each other on. One little girl wasn’t more than five or six. She had all this white-blond hair and blue-gray eyes. I could see she had a leopard, although I knew the men were too smug to see. She’d already been raped numerous times. There was no doubt she was gearing up to force them to beat her into submission again. I think she was going to make them kill her.”
Gorya shook his head as if back in that house of horrors. “I don’t think I’ll ever get the sight of those women and children or the sounds or smells out of my mind for as long as I live. I think I went a little berserk. I know Rogue did. One minute we were looking at that little child, and the next I was shifting and tearing them all apart.”
He sank back into his seat and regarded Gedeon, once again relaxed, accepting who he was. The change was slight, but Gedeon read it easily.
“Patva had sent a five-man team. There were two guards in the house. I had to kill all seven of them. Then I had to destroy the cameras. There couldn’t be any evidence that I had been the one to kill them and in such a violent way. I made it appear as if we’d been raided by outsiders so they could get the women and sell them themselves. I had less than an hour to get the women and children onto a freighter I knew was leaving the harbor. I had to make out the proper paperwork and sign Patva’s name to it, which I was very good at doing. It was the best I could do for them. I knew where there was money, and Igave what I could to them. Then I had to find a way to make it look like I’d been ripped apart and left for dead so Patva would believe I’d been attacked as well.”
“How was it that you didn’t kill Patva yourself when he attacked you and Timur? Even though you were so young, you must have been capable of killing him,” Gedeon said.
“When he first came in, he acted very nice to Ogfia, Timur’s mother. She always tried to go into another room to get away from him, even if he beat one of us. Timur never seemed to mind. He made excuses for her. When she started to leave, Patva leapt on her and began to beat her savagely. Timur immediately went to assist her, but instead of aiding him, Ogfia again tried to lock herself in another room.”
There wasn’t the slightest hint of disgust or loathing on Gorya’s face or in his voice, but Gedeon felt disgust heavy in the air. Gorya might not be able to tolerate seeing women or children raped, tortured or misused, but he didn’t have a high opinion of them.
“Patva turned on me with a knife hidden in his hand. Using a weapon was unusual, and I didn’t see or expect it. He stabbed me three times as he rushed past me to get to Ogfia. Rogue spun us away from him fast, so the blade missed my heart, but I went down. He shouted at Timur and me that we were cowards and traitors. Those loyal to thebratvadidn’t give their loyalty to women.”
Gorya touched his chest near his heart. “That taught me the lesson to always expect the unexpected. I was young and arrogant in those days. After Patva beat Ogfia to death, he turned his attention to Timur and me. I might have been able to take him, I don’t honestly know. I’d lost a lot of blood and was weak, but fortunately, Fyodor came in. He saved us, and I just fell back on what I did best. I became the deceiver even with those I loved most.”
What do you think, Meiling?
I’ve never met a man so lost, Gedeon.
Or so dangerous. The point is, what do we do?
