It wassoonpurpose.
“Well, as long as you didn’t mean to,” Ryder snorts.
“You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?” Broadway reaches for the tarp to wrap the body, then tosses it aside and lights another cigarette. “Are you going to kill everyone who mentions her name? I can get Arthur in if you can’t handle your shit.”
“I seem to recall the time you choked a guy with his own dick. On purpose.”
He drags a palm down his face, then straightens, eyeing me warily. “Did Leilani tell you what Anton did to her?”
Observant as always. He knows I’m a patient man; I don’t slit throats on a whim. Well, not unless we’ve got all the information we need from whoever’s in the chair.
My fist flexes around the knife hilt, then unclenches only to flex again. Too long a pause, and they both notice.
“Koby,” Ryder prompts, sliding off the table. “What’s worse than rape?”
I reach for a water bottle from the crate, and twist the cap to busy my hands so I don’t take a whole lot more frustration out on Phill’s corpse.
After the lateststory time, Leilani said she knows Carter will want details about her time with Anton... and she askedmetorelay what she went through.
“You heard how he talks to her,” I say. “You saw what she looked like during that FaceTime.”
“Like a child,” Ryder mutters.
“Like a doll,” I correct. “He stripped away everything that made her who she was. He bathed her, brushed her teeth, dressed her, read her children’s books, fed her like a toddler in his lap. She wasn’t allowed to do anything by herself. No cursing, no opinions, no talking unless asked a question.”
I start pacing, but there’s no shaking the feeling that my skin’s peeling off layer by layer.
“If she did something he didn’t like, he locked her in the closet or told her she was having a tantrum and put her down fora nap. If he left the house, he watched her on a nanny cam.” I run my hand through my hair, tugging hard. “She was there for three years. Forgot her own fucking name at some point.”
Silence follows my words. No snide remarks, no banter, just three men in a room that reeks of sweat, iron, and death.
“Fuck, that’s... heavy,” Broadway says. “I would’ve never guessed from the way she kicks ass.”
A smirk twists my mouth, bitter at the edges. “It’s a defense mechanism. He still has a hold over her. She flipped back into his doll within seconds during that FaceTime. She’s getting better, but the damage is done and now she overcompensates, doing the opposite of what Anton wanted. She’s loud, bossy, mouthy.”
“Feisty,” Ryder adds with a chuckle. “It’s good that she’s consciously flipping the narrative. She’s healing.”
“Yeah, but there are things rooted so deep she doesn’t even notice. Chocolate for one. Anton only allowed her a piece a handful of times. There’s always a mountain of sweets on my coffee table, but she never touches it. Deep down she doesn’t think she deserves it. You know how much chocolate I bought to try and undo that shit? Half the fucking store. And she still rations it, only takes one when she feels she earned it.”
I stare down at my hands, at the blood drying around my knuckles, the tremor in my fingers.
“She’ll be okay,” Broadway says firmly. He knows a thing or two about traumatized women, so I don’t scoff. “It’ll take time, but she has you to help her along.”
She does. And if I’m lucky, she’ll always let me.
18
Koby
It’s just past seven in the evening when I kick my apartment door shut.
Since operationKill Octavius (and Anton) Greybegan I’ve been coming home later and later. I shouldn’t be here for at least another two hours, but it’s my birthday, and Carter cut our working day short after a quick ten-hour shift. Instead of five minutes to shower and change, I have ninety.
He’s such a sweetheart sometimes.
I roll my shoulders, loosening the tension I carried all day, when a door clicks. I turn, watching it swing open down the hall and I nearly fucking swallow my tongue.
Leilani exits the bathroom...naked. Skin flushed pink, long legs glistening with lotion. The berry scent of it targets my nose instantly. Her hair is plastered to her shoulders, a single rivulet of water carving a path between her full, gorgeous breasts, pink nipples in hard peaks.
