Desperate Victory, page 4
It irked me that this happened in Bodhi’s space. His home that he’d opened to all of us. I shifted my attention to Ezra. He leaned against a chair, his posture betraying more than his pained expression.
Karagiani had kicked him in the chest.
“I’m alright, Kotyonok,” he murmured as he caught my gaze. He flattened his hand as if to tell me to stay where I was. “Really. It hurt, knocked the air out of me, that’s all.”
I glared at Karagiani. So many questions burned on my tongue.
So. Many. Questions.
Pretty Boy swept me from head to toe with a look then he glanced past me to Em. He wanted to go to his sister. Wanted to comfort her. But he wouldn’t leave Karagiani unattended.
All we had to do now was wait. First Tally. Now this. As aggravating as this discovery was, I was glad to know it before Karagiani learned anything else about us. He worked for her uncle. No one decent could work for that man.
No one.
That wasn’t just guilt by association, that was evil by choice. I rather doubted we would have long to wait, but I was going to have a coffee and maybe something a little stronger.
Interestingly, Karagiani still said nothing at all as I collected my purse. “Did he have a phone?”
Pretty Boy nodded to where the weapons had been laid out on the coffee table. Yes, there was a phone. I picked it up and studied it then waited for it to ask for facial ID. It didn’t. Just wanted a passcode.
Disappointing.
We’d figure it out later.
“Em, you want another coffee?”
She was staring at Karagiani again, but Ezra actually moved into her line of sight and broke it. I threw him a smile. There was more stiffness to his motion than I cared for, but I would get a good look at his chest later.
Blowing out a breath, Emersyn glanced at me, then shook her head. “Not really sure I could drink it.”
“Come with me while I make mine?”
She gave me just a small reproachful look but I didn’t back off on the offer. In my opinion, Em was one of the strongest people I’d ever known. She’d had to be, to survive everything her family had put her through.
Thankfully, she offered no argument and followed me into the kitchen. The silence from the other room was more telling than anything. Karagiani had a broken arm and he wasn’t making a sound. Pretty Boy was ready to gut him, but he wanted answers for Em.
Ezra? I’d never seen him so angry. He could barely take his gaze off Karagiani. Then again, he’d been the one to hire him to look after me.
I tilted my head back and closed my eyes.
“Hey,” Em said as she slipped an arm around my waist. I leaned into her, accepting the offer of support. “We’re okay.”
Yes. We were. We stood like that for a long moment. “We are okay,” I repeated. “We’re going to keep being okay.”
“Of course we are,” she said. “Because who would dare argue with us?”
It was my turn to chuckle. “Every single man we’re involved with and we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“You have a point.” Still, we didn’t pull away from each other. I needed the comfort as much as I needed to offer it.
“I talked to Tally today,” I told her. She knew what Tally had done, and who she was involved with. It had been Em who said she didn’t believe Tally could know who King really was or how it would affect us.
She was right, but I just couldn’t find it in me to forgive it. Gross oversight or no, Tally’s choices had hurt people I loved. I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive them or her.
“I’m sorry,” Em murmured. “That had to be hard.”
I nodded. Tally and Emersyn were my oldest friends. Emersyn had been my secret best friend and Tally had been my public one. Neither ever begrudged the other. Even now, I suspected I could call Tally for help and she would drop everything.
It didn’t change anything and that was the part that left regret souring in my stomach. I was still turning that over in my head when Em started making the coffee.
“I was going to do that,” I told her and she gave me a small smile.
“I know. But we take care of each other. It’s what we do.”
Yes, it was. “I’m sorry you found him here.” This piece of her past that brought her uncle to mind.
“I’m sorry he’s anywhere near you.” The fierce declaration made me smile.
“You know,” I told her. “It occurs to me that he’s made a grave mistake.” She didn’t ask me what it was and I didn’t have to explain. After the coffee was ready, I took a sip and we stayed in the kitchen long enough for Em to pull herself together again.
The scars were there. The places where the knitted together tissue of her life pulled taut. She’d survived so much brutality and betrayal. More, she’d begun to thrive and I hated that anything threw a wrench at her, much less something like this.
At the same time, I marveled at the way she gathered her composure. When we walked back out to the living room, she seemed far more like her. Karagiani, however, was bleeding from more wounds.
Ezra’s knuckles were bruised and bloody. Funnily enough, Pretty Boy looked neither annoyed nor moved. Karagiani listed hard to the right, but defiance was still etched into his face.
Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait for answers much longer. The door opened to let Bodhi and Adam in, along with Liam and Rome. I was surprised the others weren’t here yet, but I didn’t doubt if they were on their way.
Rome paused to stare at the man on his knees, as did Bodhi. Adam swept me from head to toe, then Ezra. His eyes narrowed at the bloodied knuckles, but Ezra’s stare was so bland, I almost laughed.
Liam though, he came straight to Em and I loved that for her. “Hellspawn?” Then he wrapped her into a hug and I drifted closer to Ezra and Adam, rubbing a hand down Ezra’s arm to offer him comfort. He snaked that arm around me and pulled me to him.
Letting them take care of me was how I took care of them. Like Emersyn, Ezra shook a little. His trembling wasn’t fear.
It was rage.
Rage that he pointed wholly at the man on his knees.
“How do we want to do this?” I asked because I really didn’t want any more blood in Bodhi’s place. I rather doubted he would mind, but…
“Soundproof room.” Bodhi seized Karagiani by one arm and Pretty Boy took the other. They hauled him through the apartment with all of us following. Instead of the research room he’d opened from his office, the soundproof room was located on the other side of the downstairs guest room.
It was small, plain and utterly unremarkable save for the plastic sheeting on the floor, and the large eyelet screwed into the ceiling. Well, those and the entire shelf full of sharp and rather menacing looking devices.
“You know,” Ezra said. “I’m really starting to like you, Bodhi.”
“I grow on people,” Bodhi answered as they secured Karagiani to the eyelet. It meant loosening his restraints, but he wasn’t going anywhere. A grunt of pain escaped the man as they pulled his arms higher.
No sympathy existed within me.
“PPG?” Bodhi said and I shook my head. That nickname was amusing, if it bothered Em, Trouble would never have used it. But the tense air around her lightened and the source of the nickname gave her room to breathe.
I would never find fault with that.
“He worked for my uncle,” Em explained and she had the attention of everyone in the room. “The day I was taken back… he was there. He stopped the one guard who sliced my wrists, but he wasn’t my friend. He made that very clear.”
Every word came out stronger than the last.
“Did he hurt you, Ivy?” Pretty Boy’s question belied the intensity in his glare.
“Not directly.”
Well, that was one point in his favor.
Not that it was going to sway much.
“So, you didn’t hurt her directly,” I said, meeting Karagiani’s gaze and holding it. “But you were ready to assault me the minute she recognized you.” The temperature in the room plummeted. “I want to know why.”
Chapter
Four
EZRA
Dolion Karagiani worked for Bradley fucking Sharpe. The bastard uncle who tortured Emersyn for most of her life. Karagiani was there when the guy tried to kill her by cutting up her arms. He was there when Sharpe held her prisoner at his home.
Frankly, I didn’t give a fuck if he’d actually struck her not. Complicit with the torture made him guilty in my book. My knuckles burned where I’d punched him and the bones in my hand ached. My chest took the worst of it though. I was pretty sure was gonna bruise, where he’d slammed his foot into my breastbone.
As much as I wanted to rub at the spot, I didn’t. Awareness of Adam’s observation swarmed over me and he wasn’t the only one watching me. Lainey hadn’t moved far from me since she’d wrapped her arms around me in the living room.
With Karagiani strung up to the ceiling, she leaned against my side. The weight of her a comfort I barely understood that I needed. The rage inside me seethed like a stormy tide crashing against the rocks.
I wanted to gut the man with fish hooks and spread out his entrails so he could stare at them while he died. The bloody image was so visceral, I curled my hand into a fist.
Milo and Bodhi were the two closest to him, along with Liam’s twin. I was surprised Liam wasn’t up there but he’d planted himself at Em’s side. Or rather, at her back. He wrapped around her, a dark and dangerous cloak of violence ready to strike with prejudice.
Honestly, I’d never understood Liam more. Karagiani had done literal harm to his wife. Had I known he was guilty of that, I’d have sent his head to her as a present instead of hiring the dick to shadow Lainey.
Fuck…
Fresh anger poured through me like a gushing wound, the gash too deep to stitch.
“Just kill me,” Karagiani said, finally. His dead-eyed gaze fixed on Lainey. Blood dripped from a cut on his lip. There was another that had sliced across his right eyebrow.
I wasn’t sure which of us did it, but the blood on my hands suggested it was me. I was more than okay with that.
“The lady told you what she wanted to know,” Bodhi answered. “If you want to die, I suggest you cooperate.”
“Why?” Karagiani dragged his gaze off her and that settled me some. A hand came to rest on my shoulder. The grip was a lot stronger than Lainey’s and the weight a lot steadier.
Adam had my left while Lainey leaned into my right. They were holding me up when I should be cloaking her. The anger spread like a fire through me, eating away at everything in its path.
I’d put this man in her life.
More than once.
Fuck, in the months right after he’d stood witness to the depravity of Emersyn’s uncle, I put him right into Lainey’s orbit.
So many goddamn mistakes.
“Because dying is inevitable,” Bodhi told him, so comfortable with what was to come it should actually terrify me. Cavendish had always seemed more than a little unhinged.
Right now, I liked unhinged.
I was beginning to feel more than a little unhinged myself.
“It’s only how you die that’s on the table,” Milo said. “Fast. Slow. Easy or hard. Death comes for everyone but if you don’t cooperate—we can make it take forever.”
“Then let you heal up and do it again,” Bodhi offered up almost cheerfully, like the idea actually delighted him. “Tell the lady what she wants to know.”
“No.”
One word.
All defiance.
“PPG,” Bodhi said over his shoulder. “This is going to get messy.”
“I’m okay,” she answered in a voice that didn’t quiver. “But thank you for the warning.”
Bodhi twisted to look over his shoulder and he grinned. “You’re welcome.”
I saw the move even as Milo and Rome did, Karagiani tried to lash out with a foot to kick Bodhi. He took no one by surprise. All he got was his leg trapped in Bodhi’s grip followed by a distinctive pop.
A vein throbbed in Karagiani’s forehead but he didn’t give in to a yell. Not this time. The man was still hanging by a broken arm. What was a dislocated knee?
Head canted, Bodhi seemed to be studying Lainey, not that I could tell what the hell was going on behind his eyes. Then again, maybe I could. Karagiani had tried to hurt her.
He was also choosing a bloody and brutal death.
“How badly do you want to know?” Bodhi asked and Lainey let out a slow sigh.
“Badly,” I answered for her. “But she’ll give it up and move on if we let her.”
That earned me a stink eye as she twisted to glare up at me. “I am not that obvious.”
“No, Kotyonok, you are not remotely obvious to anyone. But I have watched you sacrifice time and again. It’s why I wanted you to have a bodyguard—I just wish I’d never hired him.”
“You didn’t know,” she said in a tone that brooked no arguments. “You would have killed him yourself if you had.” No doubt seemed to exist within her. As much as I’d let her down, she still had faith in me.
“Yes,” I promised. “I would have.”
“Then we get the answers you want. It might take a while, but we get to be creative.” Bodhi let go of his leg and glanced at Milo. “You want the first crack or should we give it to the twins?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “No, the twins can have him after. We need answers first. Acceptable, O’Connell?”
“Acceptable,” Liam said in an easy tone. “Rome…”
His twin didn’t move. “I’m just watching until after.”
Despite the pain twisting his expression, Karagiani actually cut a look toward the silent twin who was just “watching” him. He actually paled the longer he stared.
So, pain didn’t bother him, but Rome did?
I kind of wondered what he saw in his eyes. Then I decided maybe I didn’t want to know. I snapped back to the conversation in the room. Milo was moving, he had a knife and slash it along the achilles tendon of the man’s uninjured leg.
His teeth clamped together, the clack of them audible. But he didn’t scream. His pain tolerance would be impressive if it weren’t annoying.
“You good?” Adam asked, his voice low and close to my ear. A warmth seemed to spread out, a wall against the fire still burning inside of me. Lainey still leaned into me, her arm around me and I recognized what she was doing.
She was comforting me. It was why Adam was still here.
“Get a pound of flesh for me, too?” It was a simple request but when I met Adam’s gaze, there was no mistaking the retribution shining in his damn near purple eyes.
The violet in them always seemed subtle until he was really angry. The violence brought out the darkness in them or maybe it was the darkness in him that brought out the violence.
It was really fucking attractive. If we were anywhere else, I’d kiss that sensuous mouth of his. Raincheck, I promised myself.
“Just a pound?” Adam asked, flicking a look to Lainey for a moment. Long enough that I could admire the possessive heat in his stare and marvel at the fact he was including me in his display.
“Trying not to be greedy,” I told him and the weight of his stare landed on me again.
“Be greedy,” he said. “I’ll let you know when it’s too much.”
Fuck.
Me.
Desire geysered upwards, splashing lava on all the burnt embers left by my temper. That raincheck was more than guaranteed.
I’d never been so damn hungry for him.
Did he have any idea of what he did to me?
I was about to make myself stop staring at him so heatedly before I just threw all caution to the wind. Karagiani absolutely needed to die and we could make out over his corpse—or not.
Then Adam winked at me before he strode forward.
He winked.
A huff of laughter escaped me…
“Your father knows,” Karagiani said through gritted teeth, blood flecking each syllable he spoke. “You know that, right?”
I stared at him. “Not what the lady wanted to know.” Yes, I was aware of my father’s knowledge.
The next blow Karagiani took was to his kidney. Fists were effective. So were knives. I had no doubt that he was going to suffer a thousand cuts.
A dark laugh escaped him that turned to a grunt as Adam struck Karagiani again. The blows were calculated, didn’t follow a natural rhythm. It just happened when he felt like it.
Not letting the betrayer brace for any of the strikes.
The man hissed as Milo sliced down his side. The shirt was going to be shredded. The shallow cuts were probably the worst. They would sting and bleed. Each injury chipping away at him.
“He hates that you can’t even be a real ma—,” Karagiani spit as Adam landed an even harder blow. “Ha… he hates you.”
I waved a hand, almost bored with this attempt to incite me. “Not telling me anything I didn’t know.” Right now? I found it hard to care. The two most important people in the world loved me. Graham Wallace could go fuck himself.
Bodhi dislocated the other knee as something in Karagiani’s shoulder popped and this time, he did scream.
“Everyone breaks,” Bodhi said into tense silence. “Everyone.”
“I killed them,” Karagiani admitted, but he wasn’t looking at them. He was still staring at me. My gut soured. “Killed them and made sure it hurt. His instructions were specific. He wanted you to know exactly what would happen.”
The men my father had killed. Genevieve. The warnings of what he would do to Lainey and to Adam…
“That’s why you were going to attack me?” Lainey said into the tension brewing around all of us. “Because Graham Wallace is a cowardly prick who gets off on terrorizing his son?”
She sounded…offended.
Karagiani spat out blood. His pallor was growing more ashen. He was losing blood. But we didn’t want him to die too quickly.
“Did you work for my father the whole time?” It wasn’t what Lainey asked but it was close enough.
