Fine.I’d tortured lots of men over the years. I’d never found one I couldn’t break.
I slammed my fist into his jaw, knocking him sideways, then knocked him back the other way. I worked on him for a full minute while the rage spun faster and faster in my chest, and when it wastime to stop, it took me another few punches before I managed to hit the brakes and step back.
I’ve always been able to control the anger. Recently, it felt like it was controlling me.
I stood there panting and scowling, looking down at the blood that misted my chest. “Where is Viktor Grushin?” I asked again.
He panted and spat blood, but he wouldn’t answer.
Okay.
I went at him again, letting the anger flood through my veins. I kept imagining her lying there asleep in bed as he crept through her apartment…
This time, when I managed to rein myself in, he was wheezing on the floor, his ribs broken. “Where is Viktor Grushin?!”I roared.
He stared up at me, terrified. But there was a deeper fear in his eyes, a fear of something worse. A slow realization rolled through me: he wasn’t going to talk.Ever.
I growled and punched him a final time, knocking him out. Then I dug through his pockets, found his phone, and pressed his finger to the sensor to unlock it.
I turned to the door...then looked back at the man on the floor, unsettled. Mikhail’s words came back to me.Don’t underestimate Grushin.
Grushin had this guy so scared, he’d rather die than talk.A former spy, aBratva-hunter.
What if we were out of our depth here?
40
ALISON
The door opened,and Gennadiy walked out, stripped to the waist. Valentin grabbed a bar towel and threw it to him, and Gennadiy nodded gratefully and wiped the blood from his hands. I peeked past Gennadiy, and my hand went to my mouth when I saw the assassin: he was a broken, bloodied mess. “Did he...talk?” I managed.
“No,” said Gennadiy, pulling his shirt on. “But I got what I needed.” And he pulled out his gun and pointed it at the assassin.
“WAIT!”I grabbed his arm. “Jesus, you don’t have to kill him!”
Gennadiy shook me off. I could feel the anger throbbing through every tight muscle. “You don’t understand how our world works,” he told me. And he leveled his gun again.
I jumped between him and the assassin. “You can’t—Look at him, he’s defenseless!”
“Alison,” said Gennadiy tightly, “Move.”
“No!” My heart was hammering in my chest. This wasmurder,and I was still an FBI agent at heart.
Gennadiy scowled at me for several seconds while the others watched in tense silence. Then he sighed. “Fine,” he said tightly, and holstered his gun. Then he nodded towards the exit. “Come on.”
I let out a long sigh of relief and walked over to him. We started towards the exit?—
Gennadiy turned around, pulled out his gun, and emptied it into the unconscious assassin. Then he grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the bar.
On the street outside, I pulled free of his hand and stood there gaping at him. “What—What—Why?!”
Gennadiy turned away from me, his hulking body taut with anger. I could see his shoulders rising and falling as he took big, shuddering breaths, trying to calm himself.
When he finally turned back to me, the raw emotion in his eyes made my heart forget to beat. A deep, protective need, so strong it overwhelmed him. “Because the way I feel about you,” he snapped, “I’m not interested in subtlety or second chances. I want the whole city to know and be afraid. I’m sending a message: if someone tries to hurt you, I don’t put them on the floor, I put them in the ground!”
The first shock was what he’d said. The second was that there was a tiny, secret part of me that went warm at the idea of him slaying anyone who touched me. I swallowed and nodded. Gennadiy cursed under his breath, then wrapped me up in his arms and pulled me tight against him.
The other Aristovs must have been giving us a minute, watching from the doorway, because as soon as we went quiet, they trooped out and joined us. We formed a tight huddle on the sidewalk. “The assassin was too scared to talk,” Gennadiy told us. “But I got his phone.” He showed us the call log. “He called someone before and after he tried to kill you. I’m guessing that’s Grushin’s number. If we can get a hacker on it, maybe we can find out who else Grushin’s been calling, and find out what he’s been doing.”
