I run my fingers through my hair and grip tightly. With everything going on with Saxon, I haven’t had the ability to get back to causing Vlad’s painful demise. My men have been taking care of him in shifts, forcing water down his throat, but there isn’t much they can do about food. He’ll intentionally choke if he thinks it means dying less miserably.
I’m left with no other option. “I’ll call Antonio and have him meet you there.”
“I’ll have Tomasso keep an eye out for him,” he replies.
Hanging up with him, I make a quick phone call to Antonio, telling him to meet me here and I’ll give them the location of where I need him. With everything Dmitri has done, I can’t chance him finding out where Vlad is being held.
“Give me a couple hours and I’ll be there,” he tells me.
Having heard all I need to, I end the call and slip it in my pocket. I type up a few emails, making sure my business is still running smoothly. Thankfully, my CFO is someone I met at a conference one year, an Asian man named Elison who would like nothing more than for me to hand the company completely over to him. And as long as he keeps it afloat, I just might.
When I stepped out back to answer the call from Roman, Saxon was sitting on the couch. Now, however, as I come back in, she’s nowhere to be found. My pulse quickens as I glance around the room, until the familiar sound of pain meets my ears. I quickly head in the direction of the noise, being led directly to my office.
I exhale in relief as I see Saxon sitting at my desk, but when I realize what she’s watching, the dread returns.
For both training purposes and to taunt our enemies, we will sometimes record the violent torture we inflict on others. It’s usually a small camera in the corner of the room, and the videos are edited to make sure our faces aren’t visible—but the sufferer is fully visible.
Saxon keeps her eyes locked on the screen, watching in amazement. As I make my way over to her, I watch as her hand twitches every time the sound of the knife being stabbed into flesh flows from the speakers. A part of me wants to rip her away from the screen, to tell her that this isn’t the life she wants, and that there are other ways to heal. But doing that could push her even further away from me, and I’m just starting to get her back.
"S,” I say, getting her attention. “Come have a glass of wine with me.”
She nods and gets up from the chair, and I make a mental note to change the password on my computer.
I’ve been doing everything I can to keep her from becoming a monster like me, but I’m failing miserably. She keeps coming back to it, like a magnet to metal. And I’m not sure how much longer I can shelter her from the violent life of torture and killing.
NEVER IN A MILLION years did I think I would be taking measures to keep Vladimir Mikulov alive, and yet, here we are. The picture that Ro just sent me shows Vlad with his arms and legs tied to a chair. There’s an IV in his arm and a feeding tube inserted through his nose.
That’ll teach the motherfucker that I will do anything it takes to make sure he dies at my hands and not a moment before I’m ready.
My brain is tired from working all day. I’ve been spending every free second I have finding everything I can on Dmitri Petrov. Every place he’s lived. Every person he has met. Every fucking minute he spends in this city, I want to know about.
It’s no surprise that learning what he did to my mother was a shock to my system. I’d always held Dmitri responsible for the devastation in my childhood, but I never knew just how responsible he truly was. And now? I will stop at nothing until I make him suffer through just as much pain as I have.
Getting up from my desk, I stretch my arms over my head and hear as my back cracks in multiple places. I glance out into the living room, having not heard Saxon and Viola in at least a couple of hours, but they’re not there. My curiosity gets the better of me, and I venture out to find where they went.
The bedroom is empty, the covers on the bed pulled tight. The jacuzzi on the patio is covered. Even the guest rooms show no sign of them.
I walk into the kitchen, about to call for Beni and send out a search party for them, when I hear the sound of Saxon’s giggle coming from downstairs. Relief floods through me only long enough for me to realize there is only one place down there that they would be.
And I locked said place to keep her from drinking herself into liver failure.
Slowly moving down the stairs, I listen as the sound of them gets louder. I turn the corner to see the wine cellar door wide open, and my keys still hanging out of the lock. One of them must have grabbed them from inside my dresser drawer.
It isn’t until I make it further inside that my blood pressure starts to rise. There are four empty wine bottles littered across the floor, and the sound of their laughter tells me they’re completely wasted. But nothing could prepare me for what I see when I walk around the table.
Everything freezes and time feels like it stands still as I watch Saxon, smiling broadly as she waves a gun around like it’s not a deadly fucking weapon.
“Okay, okay.” She hiccups. “Ready?”
My heart feels like it stops completely as she puts the gun to her head, and no matter how fast I lunge for her, I can’t stop her before she pulls the trigger. The sound of the table being shoved out of the way fills the room and I crash to the floor in front of her.
Every fear I’ve had over the last month feels like it’s playing out in front of me as I scramble to my knees, fully believing I’m going to find her lying dead on the ground, but instead, she’s perfectly fine.
Piercing blue eyes stare back at me, blinking as if she can’t seem to understand why I practically tackled her. I grab her face and turn her head to inspect for any damage but there is none.
The gun didn’t fire.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I bark, finally snapping. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?
Her breath hitches, and she doesn’t answer. Instead, she tries to look away from me but I’m not having it. I grab her hand, the gun still firmly in her grip, and press the barrel to my chest—straight over my heart.
“Shoot me,” I tell her. “If you can kill yourself, you can kill me. It’s the same thing. So go ahead. Shoot me.”
Her glossy eyes tell me she’s intoxicated, but her trembling lip shows that she knows exactly what is happening. She releases the gun, and it falls to the floor between us. I pull her into my arms and suck in air, the first full breath I’ve taken since I saw her with the gun pressed to her temple. Her head rests against my chest, but it’s her lack of emotion that really scares me. With the exception of the one small tear that has escaped from her eye, there’s no sign of her feeling anything at all.
“Listen to me,” I tell her, pulling her away and forcing her to look at me. “We don’t do this. Do you understand me? We don’t give in, and we sure as fuck don’t give up. We get revenge on our enemies and make them feel the pain of their sins.”
Her gaze stays locked with mine as Beni rushes down the stairs, having heard the commotion.
“Everything all right, Boss?”
I don’t look away from Sax as I answer. “Yeah. Take Saxon upstairs. I’ll be there in a minute.”
He comes down and his eyes widen when he sees the empty wine bottles on the floor and the gun in front of me. “Come on, Sax.”