The man sneers, but he isn’t going to answer. I learned long ago not to waste my time questioning and torturing when I already know the answer anyway.
He’s not as garishly dressed as Hinto, but Hinto isn’t stupid enough to let his cronies walk around Savannah so conspicuously.
“I’m sorry about this, Jak.” My tone is flat enough that I’m sure the owner of The Foundry knows that I’m notreallysorry. My words are simply a formality.
My wrist comes up, the other hand cradling the barrel and grip, and the next round sounds out like a whip. Nika stepped tothe side; the bullet punches through the man’s head and into the old floorboards.
He drops like a puppet with its strings cut. His body hits the floor with a sound that does not belong in a place meant for pleasure.
The politician passed out; Jak’s girls are slipping into back rooms trying to disappear. People sprint to the exits like blood from a wound, thick and frantic. Men who spend their days acting like predators are now the prey, escaping out into the street.
Jak’s breath is slow and ragged. His mind is probably racing at what just happened here tonight. When I glance up, I see Aly’s bare knees, and a flash of Devin’s red hair. “Go to them,” I tell Nika, and he does.
My eyes are locked on Alyona. Her skin is pale, and she’s standing there, shaking. Her chest is heaving, and her mouth is parted as if she’s forgotten how to breathe. She is wearing almost nothing. She’s too exposed, too visible, and too damn vulnerable in this room that suddenly feels like a slaughterhouse.
Rage coils tight and lethal in my chest.
I move toward her, every step deliberate. Glass crunches under my boots. When wisps of hair fall in front of my eyes, I push them back angrily, feeling my blood simmer in my veins.
Devin is beside her, gripping Aly’s arm hard enough to leave marks. Her face is ashen, and her eyes are wide. She looks at me like I am both savior and executioner.
“Take her to my car,” I tell Devin in a flat, cold voice. It’s so controlled, it’s on the edge of breaking. “Now.”
Devin swallows, nods, and obeys without a word, pulling Aly with her on shaking legs. Aly doesn’t resist or speak; she just stumbles along with Devin. Nika’s jacket is shrugged around her shoulders, and the heavy fabric swallows her frame. She looksback once, her eyes meeting mine, and something in my chest fractures at the raw fear I see there.
Good,a darker part of me thinks. Fear will keep her alive.
Jak is at a table downing what’s left of a whisky neat. He has the wary stillness of a man who knows he has survived something he shouldn’t have. He straightens when I gesture to him, moving toward me without protest. His hands are visible, and his expression is tight.
We stand amid the wreckage of his club, surveying the damage.With the lights on, it looks sadder than ever in here.
“You want to tell me why this happened on my territory,” I say quietly.
Jak’s jaw flexes. “I’ve been trying to keep things under control. I thought she understood not to come in?—”
“That wasn’t control.”
“No,” he agrees, voice low. “It wasn’t.”
I study him; the lines on his face are deeper than they were a month ago. Worry is etched by something that has been gnawing at him in the dark. Jak has always been careful, always knows where the lines are drawn. He knows that what crossed the floor tonight did not belong to him.
When I came to him after Alyona’s first week at The Foundry, before she ever understood that she was mine, he had no ties to any group. But now the Bratva owns him.Iown him.
“There’s someone else,” he says finally. “New guy. He’s been moving product through the upper tiers, selling to people who don’t know better, cutting corners, pushing harder stuff. The overdoses started after that.”
“Hinto,” I say.
Jak glances at me. “Is that his name? Whoever he is, he’s testing you.”
“He’s testing me,” I agree, and feel something cold settle into the place that sits behind my ribs.
I look toward the door and see my men locking the place down and scrubbing the night clean. “You should have told me.”
“I didn’t want trouble. I was hoping law enforcement would shut it down quickly, but…”
I turn back to him, my gaze sharpening. “This is trouble.”
Jak’s eyes look past me toward the exit Alyona disappeared through, and his voice drops. “She shouldn’t have been here.”
