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“She’s not my girlfriend.”

My tone is like ice.

“She’s my fucking wife.”

Kodra stills when I growl out the last word.

“Your son died because he was a predator. A fucking monster. And he died because of me. I set that fire. Bella had nothing to do with any of that or his death. She was only there because of me.”

For a few long, drawn-out moments, nothing happens.

“Don’t. Move,” Kodra finally growls at me, tapping the shears against the table. “Not one inch.”

He pulls the folder toward him with a huge hand and flips it open.

I watch his face as he glances over the first page. Then the next.

The photos are after that. I remember from when I was putting the folder together while trying not to look at the horrific evidence I was stuffing into it.

Kodra, though, is looking. And the longer he does, the more his face turns ashen.

Then livid.

Then he slams the folder shut so hard that the wine on his table sloshes out of his glass and mixes with the blood from the severed finger.

Slowly, his eyes lift to mine. And what I see in them is pain mixed with abject horror and pure, undiluted rage.

“What is this man’s name,” he says hollowly. “The man you say runs this organization.”

“Kasper Sorel.”

He nods. Then he sets down the shears.

“You may go.”

I pull my hands off the edge of the table, but I stay right where I am.

“Not yet. A man followed my wife in Hawthorne Hollow and jumped her in an alley. He had an injector pen full of VX-9 neurotoxin on him when he died.”

My eyes narrow.

“That man worked for you.”

Kodra's dark eyes remain locked with mine as he sits back in his chair.

My voice drops. “I’ve just assured you that Bella had nothing to do with Gaz. If you still want revenge after what you saw in the folder, or the even worse things you’ll find on that flash drive…” I shrug. “You know where to find me.”

My teeth flash as I set my fists down on the table and lean over it, getting right in his face.

“But let me be abundantly clear. If I catch so much as a whiff of any of your people coming near her again, or talking about her, or even fucking thinking about her, there are no lengths I won’t take to dismantle everything you’ve ever built, piece by fucking piece. And then I’ll take you apart the same way.” My eyes drill into him. “I need you to hear that. If you come near my fucking wife ever again, there is no hole deep enough where you can hide. No amount of armed men that will stop me.”

I smile coldly, and channel my psycho wife when I flash him an unhinged grin.

“Mr. Kodra, you have no idea what I do in my free time or what I am capable of. And you have no fucking idea how good I am at it.”

For a moment, the air between us stills. Then Kodra takes a slow breath.

“I respect a man who would walk in here and potentially die for his wife.”