“No.” Milo shakes his head, his messy hair bouncing as he speaks. “But they were mean.” His mouth twists into a pout. “And they had guns.”
Swallowing the thickness building in my throat, I slide my hands slowly down their backs, trying to soothe them. God knows what sort of damage this will do to them.
“I’m so sorry.” I drag them both against me until their bodies press into my arms. “But we’re going to keep you safe, I promise.”
My eyes drift to Kirill, and I don’t know if I just told them the truth. We couldn’t keep them safe this time. Who says it won’t happen again?
Kirill comes to sit next to us, his arm sliding around my shoulders as he pulls me into his side. I lean into him, resting my head against his chest while the boys stay tucked against me.
For the first time since everything happened, I start to calm. The boys are here. Safe. Kirill’s alive. That should be enough.
But the fear doesn’t fully go away. A life with Kirill will never be safe. There will always be people who want what he has, who want to hurt him. Hurtus. Tonight proved that.
Still, when I gaze up at him and catch the way he’s looking at the boys, something softer in his expression, I know one thing for certain.
He would burn the world down for us.
And somehow…that’s enough.
Eventually, Milo starts to droop against my arm, the adrenaline finally fading, and Lev leans heavier into my shoulder as the exhaustion catches up to both of them.
Kirill’s fingers caress my arm before he leans in, his words quiet against my ear. “I need to go take care of Eli.”
There isn’t a part of me that thinks he deserves anything less than what’s coming to him. Not after what he did to our boys. I want him in agony.
Kirill bends forward and kisses the top of Milo’s head, then leaves one on top of Lev’s. “I’ll be back in a little while.”
Milo nods around a yawn while Lev tenses beside me, already hating the idea of him leaving.
Kirill catches it and runs a hand through his hair. “Papa will be back very soon, okay? Ya tebya lyublyu.”
Lev holds on to me as he watches his father leave, and immediately, the space beside me is colder without him.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
KIRILL
My knuckles dripwith his blood, his body sliced in so many places a medical examiner would have a field day trying to catalog them all.
But despite looking at what I’ve already done to him, I know this is still generous compared to what I have planned next. Even Konstantin’s pigs eating him alive would be kinder than the death waiting for him in this room.
Eventually.
My basement smells like iron and sweat, most of it his.
Eli hangs in the center of the room where we chained him hours ago, his arms stretched above his head so his weight pulls painfully at his shoulders every time his body spasms. His shirt has long since been cut away, leaving his torso open to every slice of the blade and every burn of the torch.
Blood runs down his sides in thin rivers that dribble onto the concrete floor beneath him, pooling in the places where his legs used to end. Both feet are gone. Sawed off clean hours ago while he screamed until his voice shredded itself raw, the stumps wrapped tightly now with thick cloth and plastic to slow the bleeding.
I even pumped him with antibiotics. The last thing I want is for him to die too soon. Death would be an escape, and I’m nowhere near finished with him yet.
Three hours. And I’m not even tired.
Eli, on the other hand, barely resembles a man anymore. His head hangs forward, hair matted with sweat and crimson, chest heaving in shallow, desperate breaths as he tries to stay conscious, and every time his eyes start to close, I remind him why that isn’t allowed.
He whimpers the second I slap him awake.
“Please…” His words crack apart, barely more than a rasp now. “Just stop…”
