After that, she was mine for the night.
And I made damn good use of that time, hand-feeding her while she sat on my lap and then taking her upstairs to fuck her into oblivion. Something in our connection resonated within her the same way it did me, with the knowledge that we’d both been hurt and abused making the touch of the other not only tolerable, but the greatest high I’d ever known.
I’d live inside her if it wouldn’t make dinners with Matteo and Ivory awkward. Don already glared at me when I sat Irina on my lap, gesturing to Luna like I could corrupt her.
Irina opened sleepy eyes, rolling over to glance at the screen with a groan. I chuckled, knowing damn well that I’d left her sore the night before. I’d made myself sore with the way I’d fucked her into the mattress, her face buried in the pillows with my hand on the back of her head and her ass raised into the air for me to spread so nothing blocked my view of my cock in her tight heat.
“Hello?” she asked, the sleepy rasp of her voice accentuated by the soreness in her throat.
I’d fucked that too, shoving myself so far down her throat I’d have sworn I tickled her lungs if I didn’t known better.
Irina froze at my side, the sudden tension in her body sending me rolling toward her. I grabbed the phone from her hand, hitting the speaker button as she swallowed down her anxiety and allowed me to wrap her up in my arms.
“Hello?” she said again, her voice higher and more afraid.
Heavy breathing filled the silence on the other end of the line. The rhythmic sound grated against my ears, driving me to demand an answer that I already knew I would find.
But the longer the call lasted, the easier it would be for me to trace it.
“I have a problem, my sweet pet,” a man’s voice finally said through the speaker. The nickname left little doubt to who he was, but the tension in Irina’s body would have confirmed it anyway.
That was the voice that haunted her nightmares. That had nearly cost me my entire world.
“Why does nobody feel like you? God knows I’ve tried. Gone through an entire buffet of women.” He paused, and I watched as Irina squeezed her eyes closed. “I’ve heard things. You’ve been a bad girl letting that pox touch what’s feckin’ mine,” he said, his voice shifting from that creepy, wondering tone to one filled with accusation.
Irina shuddered, her lips trembling as she pressed them together.
“Has he been inside you? Do I need to break you open again to make you new for me when you come back?”
“I hope you know I’m going to shove that knife so far up your ass that I pull your intestines out with it,” I growled, touching my mouth to Irina’s cheek to soothe her.
Silence came as my answer, the breathing from the other end making my blood boil. “You’ve been a very naughty pet indeed, entertaining another man at this hour. Hello, Scar.”
“Dog,” I said back, reducing him to his behavior. He wanted to act like an untrained, rabid dog when it came to my woman? I’d collar him and lock him in a dog kennel with his ass torn open for anyone who wanted to give it a good prod.
“I’ll see you soon, Irina,” he said, ending the call.
I dropped the phone back onto the nightstand and turned my attention to Irina. “Butterfly,” I said, indecision warring inside me. She needed me, needed my comfort, but Darragh needed to be stopped if she was ever going to be free.
“Go,” she said, meeting my stare with steel in her eyes. The broken woman melted away, drawing back deep breaths.
I texted the emergency chat, notifying them of what had happened and that Irina needed someone to come and be with her in my absence as I opened my software and started the process of finding which phone carrier Darragh used and getting a location for the call.
It was a long shot, but one that I had to take.
Empty.
He’d left the phone on the kitchen counter at his most recent hideaway. The woman’s body was discarded on the floor as if she was the garbage that had slipped out of the trash can.
He’d left a knife on the counter, the blade coated in the blood of his latest victim. “She was the owner of the house,” Ryker confirmed, typing away on his phone as I drove back to the Bellandi Estate.
He held the knife in his hand, studying it intently. Darragh had used the tip of the blade to scrawl a note on a pad of paper next to it.
For my little liar.
“How long was she missing?” I asked, thinking back to the finger and chunk of hair Darragh had sent Irina. The unfortunate reality that this victim had all ten of her fingers threatened to steal my resolve.
Irina couldn’t know.
Irina would give herself up before she’d allow other women to be hurt because of her. She’d already done it once, but I knew with growing dread that she wouldn’t survive the second time. My butterfly would kill herself before she ever allowed him to touch her again.
Sometimes, there was triumph even in death.
“Not a word,” I said, my eyes connecting with Ryker’s. He nodded, understanding immediately as I parked the car at the front of the mansion.
The women met us at the door the moment we stepped inside, Irina’s eyes shuttered and not daring to hope. I hated that I couldn’t lift the veils from her eyes and show her the truth.
I shook my head when our gazes connected, watching as Ryker held up the knife for her to look at.
She turned her head away, confirming my worst fears. It was the knife he’d used on her. The one he’d used to cut into her and violate her.
There was a reason he wanted her to have it, I just didn’t understand what it was. But until we had a better grasp on it, I needed an outlet for the rage bubbling up inside of me threatening to explode.
I needed a fucking fight.
58
IRINA
Sadie practically bounced in her seat at my side, the excitement pulsing through her something that I could never relate to.
Watching Scar disappear into the changing rooms before his big fight had been absolute agony, witnessing the way the women he passed eyed him like he was a piece of meat on a platter for them to devour.
That was my fucking piece of meat, and I would be damned if I’d ever tolerate another woman touching him.
The violence that surged in my veins at the thought shocked me. I’d never been possessive, never cared enough about a man to be bothered when he eventually went his own way with something more flashy and interesting.
Maybe it was the music thrumming through the Underground fighting ring, or maybe it was the tension and anticipation that pulsed through Sadie and the guys.
Maybe it was the two men beating one another to a pulp in the ring and the knowledge that soon enough the man I loved would take that place and force me to watch him act as a human punching bag.
Whatever it was, I knew I’d fucking throttle any woman who touched what was mine tonight.
One of the men in the ring dropped to the floor finally, his body still while Sadie cheered. She wasn’t normal, but something animalistic throbbed inside me, too, as the crowd went crazy.
Men cleared the unconscious man from the ring, lifting him from under his arms and feet to carry him toward the back hallway that curved and disappeared under the stands. The Bellandi booth wasn’t close enough to the ring to really get a good feel for what was going on, meant more for safety and observation than participation, so Sadie had insisted we sit in her favorite spot. A few rows up from the ring, I had a bullseye view of the announcer as he bounced on his heels excitedly.