Page 53 of Enemy of the Heart

I didn’t think I’d get away with silence regarding my story for long, but I was hoping it would be something Lou and I could discuss privately. But the glare the behemoth beneath her shoots me tells me I’m not so lucky. Based on the various cuts and bruises on Lou’s exposed skin, I worry she lived a similar plotline.

“The United States Army,” I reply succinctly. I’ve never been as flowery as Lou.

“They have my toenails and some bits of my skin, too,” Lou chirps, kicking her feet out like I’ve developed X-ray vision in order to see her wiggling her toes inside her boots. If I didn’t loathe the idea of her having been hurt, I’d laugh.

“Where were you being held?” Digs asks, his thumb drawing lazy circles over my sister’s midsection. I’ve never seen anything like it. The Louhi I knew from just six months ago would’ve sawed through his wrist with a dull blade for touching her at all.

“I don’t entirely know. Somewhere in Kazakhstan.”

My attention leaves his thumb for long enough to find him eyeing me suspiciously. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“The gag I was forced to wear most of the time made chatter difficult,” I snap. Plus, I was a little preoccupied trying to survive. I absently rub my wrists where the iron shackles sliced into my flesh.

“How do you know you were in Kazakhstan, then?” Jace speaks up.

I settle back into the cushions, comforted by the feel of the knife handle against my thigh. My lungs ache as I drag in a shaky breath. It wouldn’t take a professional for me to know that I’ve got a myriad of issues—internally and externally. I’ve been beaten, bloodied, waterboarded, and had body parts removed. I’m shocked they didn’t try to harvest my organs and sell them. For all I know, that was on the docket. Especially since I refused to answer their questions about what I was going to do with the information I gathered on my target or who I was working for.

“That’s what the driver of the car I stole told me before he was…incapacitated”

“Is the army responsible for your other injuries, or just the ear?” Digs quizzes, his voice gruff.

“They’re responsible for everything.” The more accurate answer is that I suspect he’s the one pulling the strings, but I don’t say that. I don’t trust these men enough to divulge that. Maybe if Lou and I could get alone…

Now that I’m out, I need to take some time to try to heal these injuries, then kill the man I once thought was trustworthy. I was told to leave it alone; that he’s simply one piece of the much larger tapestry. After months of digging into that level of depravity, my conscience can’t stand to let that man live one more day on this earth. Not knowing what I do. What if he has my sister in his sights?

It’s why I expended every ounce of energy I had over the last week putting the information I had on my wall. I’m a visual person, so stretching everything out in front of me was going to give me my best shot at tracking down my sister’s whereabouts, then taking him down.

But now that Lou and I have been reunited, how do I tell her about the danger she’s in with one of her best friends?

“Did you escape, or did they let you go?” Jace asks, his face twisted into a dubious expression.

My eyes flick between him and the man holding my sister. Answering that question feels dangerous. Lou accurately reads the reason behind my reluctance, though, and gives me an encouraging nod.

“Escape,” I reply curtly. I’m omitting the part where I ran for my life, dodging the spray of gunfire and hiding out, nearly naked, behind a snowy embankment until I spotted a car. It wasn’t pretty…or clean. Thank fuck, I was within driving distance of Lou’s safe house.

I only had a few days left of the emergency food stash when my sister showed up, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about that.

“How’d you land yourself imprisoned in the first place?”

My jaw tics at Digs’s question, but it’s Lou whose gaze I hold. Her eyes are soft, but the guilt wells up inside me. I never should’ve asked Lou to take the fall for me, but regret is useless.

“Hazards of my job,” I state cryptically. It’s not a lie.

“What was your plan for Louhi?” Digs presses, his lip curled in contempt.

Nostrils flaring, my hands ball into fists. It’s all I can do not to hurl the knife at his head. “My plan was to come get her.”

My sister nuzzles against his chest. I swear that if I looked out the window, I’d find pigs flying through the bloody sky.

“So, you knew what she’d be subjected to?” the äpärä doubles down, and it’s a miracle I haven’t killed him. I’m injured, not incapable. I was trained to kill by the infamous Bratva enforcer, Anton Koskinen, so being injured does not make me incapable. The hearts in Louhi’s eyes are the only thing that’s stopped me.

I love my sister more than anyone else in this world, but I don’t know how much longer my patience will last.

Sean

Pain radiates through my jaw from clenching my teeth. My shoulders are tight, my posture stiff, and the only thing keeping me from launching myself at this man is the gorgeous woman in my lap.

My fingers are locked onto her hip tightly enough that I’ve surely bruised her. I want to crack the glass bottle of beer over Mercer Koskinen’s head and maybe take one of those shards and drive it into his eye. It would do nothing to calm the rage, though.