Adam’s normally stoic expression softened. “I know this is difficult for you, but we must wait for our orders—”
“You don’t know shit, Adam,” she interrupted.
He sighed. “I know that if you rush into a situation you put yourself and others at risk—including the man you love.”
“And he’s not at risk now?” she snapped.
“And Jack would have you risk your life saving him?” Adam countered mildly.
Pissed that he was right but still not willing to just sit around and wait for the others to arrive, she turned to Finn, hoping to elicit his support. “Finn? What can we do right now? You’re a freaking genius—come up with something. Now.”
His wide grin instantly assuaged her panic. “I’m already on it.”
* * *
Jack’s chest was heaving, each breath bringing on a fresh wave of agony. Feliks blandly carried his portable battery and jumper cables back to his worktable, shrugging at Kozlov as he passed.
Kozlov nodded in appreciation before slapping Jack on the back, making Jack flinch involuntarily at the contact. “I am impressed. You have—what is the expression?—balls of steel.”
“You can suck myballs of steel,” Jack ground out through clenched teeth.
Kozlov chuckled, something darker than usual creeping into his laughter. “I will leave that to my little friends.”
Jack lifted his head, wishing his could see better out of the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut, but his sweat-soaked hair was matted to his face, obscuring his vision. He glanced around the room, wondering what the hell Kozlov was talking about.
As if sensing the question in his expression, Kozlov gestured toward the shadows. A man whom Jack vaguely remembered from the car ride came forward, carrying a small wire cage. Inside were several rats. And from the way they clawed at the cage, clambering to get out, screeching and bruxing their incisors, they were pissed-off rats.
“Although,” Kozlov continued, “I imagine they will start with that open wound. This was a favorite method for interrogation and torture during medieval times—but I’m sure you know that. You were always a good student of history. You knew all aboutourhistory before you infiltrated our family, before you forced yourself on my cousin—”
“What?” Jack interrupted, outraged at the accusation. “What the hell are you talking about, you sick bastard! Natasha and I cared for each other. Ineverforced myself on her or any other woman. Who the hell told you that?”
Kozlov’s expression hardened. “You used her, seduced her. It is no different in the eyes of our family. Would she have been lured to your bed had she known the truth?”
Jack glared at him. “And yet if she was a victim as you claim, why kill her? Why kill my unborn child?”
Kozlov rushed forward with an enraged cry, clutching Jack’s throat and bringing his face close to his. “It was notyourchild in her belly, you bastard. But her father thought it was. And he killed her for it.”
Jack studied Kozlov for a moment, the truth dawning on him. “The baby was yours.”
Kozlov shoved him away with another roar of anger—and sorrow. Jack’s chair teetered on its legs but didn’t tip, so he was able to see Kozlov’s brief, furious pacing before the man charged Feliks, barking at him in Russian with such fury, the man instantly exited the room, followed by the asshole who’d carried in the rats.
“My mother was a distant cousin of the family,” Kozlov said, still pacing, each movement agitated. “Natasha was not even really a relative, but her father saw it that way. He refused to let me marry her. We tried to stay apart, but we couldn’t. She even had affairs with other men.” He sent a murderous look Jack’s way. “But when you left so suddenly . . . She always returned to me.”
Jack didn’t even know what to say. The guy was still mourning the woman he’d loved all these years later. Jack could see the anguish behind his anger. If their situations had been reversed and Maddie had been murdered, taken from him so cruelly and senselessly, Jack couldn’t have said he’d be any less vengeful. Hell, he’d taken out the Russian mob’s leader when someone he’d had a short affair with had been murdered—he hated to think what he’d do if he lost Maddie.
“Sounds like I did you a favor taking her father out,” Jack finally said. “Saved you the trouble.”
Kozlov grunted. “Perhaps. That is why I have not come for you sooner.”
“So then, why now?” Jack asked.
Kozlov sent a brief glance his way. “My assistance was requested in intercepting the data Antonovich sold to the American politician.”
Jacob. I should’ve known that asshole was behind this.
“What’s in it for you?” Jack pressed. “Money? Let me go and the Alliance will triple whatever Stone has offered.”
At this Kozlov stopped his pacing and turned a maniacal look on him. “Money? Yes. Of course money. But Stone has offered more than that. He offered a place of power at his side when he ascends as the One True Master.”
