Page 63 of Lethal Saint

“Vasilisa,”I snapped, then forced my rage back down, only allowing cold, calculation, and control free, “is my wife. Yoursister. I’ll spare you your pathetic attempt to weasel your way free; I’ve seen the mess your father made of her body.”

And I’d only seen scars. What had the original injuries been, to scar so deeply, so extensively?

Jonathan sucked in a sharp breath. Mark yelped when my friend jerked his arm up, neatly dislocating his shoulder.

“You have a responsibility to her as a brother,” I went on, contemplating the knife in my hand, debating where to begin. “And instead of protecting someone so sweet and pure, you allowed her to be harmed. Repeatedly.”

Mark shook his head, his breaths coming in pathetic gasps. One good thing had come of this; he’d confirmed our marriage wasn’t public knowledge. Finch would know, and was likely planning his revenge against me, but like I hesitated with him, he’d do the same with me. And apparently he wanted no one else to know, or else Boris would know, and have told Mark here. Finch’s pride must be badly wounded.

Good. For what that pig threatened to do to my girl, fuckinggood.I hope his bruised pride killed him.

I didn’t wait any longer. I slashed open Mark’s cotton shirt and began a series of shallow, bloody incisions. They were precise, placed with delicate intention. Every place my wife was scarred, he was cut. The more cuts I made, the deeper they grew, my rage growing vast enough to swallow the world.

He screamed. Begged. Cursed me. Sobbed. And in the end, he didn’t know where to find Artur, but that was okay. Because he knew where Boris was hiding.

I drove the knife through his throat in a messy, hacking slice, all my precision discarded in a moment of blunt, brutal rage. I watched the light leave his eyes, my teeth bared in a grin, and left him there for Finch to find.

One down, three to go.

Boris. Artur. Finch.

I wouldn’t stop until every threat to Vasilisa’s life was removed, until they were wiped off the face of the fucking Earth.

CHAPTER 22

DAMIEN

When I got home, my blood boiled in my veins and my heart thrashed at a breakneck speed. I needed to see her, just a glimpse, before I showered the blood off me. I needed to lay eyes on my wife, needed to calm the feral beast that swallowed all my calm.

Boris had not died easily, had fought until his last breath. He spewed so much hatred and abuse that it stained me. Every word he’d used to describe my wife, every disgusting insult he’d delivered followed me home as I unlocked the door, relieved to have crossed no neighbours in the soft hours of morning. Their deaths would have been necessary but distasteful. If anyone was dying, it was the bastard in the penthouse above us. Every day I chafed that I couldn’t give Vasilisa the best. She deserved more than this second-rate fucking apartment.

“Everything okay, Damien?” Lionel asked from his position beside our front door.

“It is now,” I replied, throwing open the door to my home.

I locked it and stalked down the hallway, but the bedroom door flew open before I could reach it and Vasilisa flung herself out of the room in a sheer black lace thing that made me groan.

“You’re back,” she gasped with obvious relief. That gasp drove a knife through my ribs and up into my heart, carving me open. I’d worried her.

Her relief shattered in the next moment when she got a good look at me. My white shirt was now crimson with blood, and I knew it covered my neck and face too. Horror filled her beautiful chocolate eyes and my stomach twisted. Of course she’d be repulsed by me. She’d been too stunned in the ballroom to really appreciate the scope of my violence. Now she saw me in my true glory.

“Oh god,” she said, choking on a breath as she stumbled towards me in a rush. “Okay, you’re okay. Where are you bleeding?”

I blinked. She was horrified at the thought ofmebleeding, not drawing blood. With Boris’s words grating my nerves, making me furious and upset all at once, I could have cried right then.

My voice was hoarse when I said, “It’s not mine.”

Vasilisa’s shoulders slumped and she rushed the last bit of distance, throwing her arms around me. She squeezed me so tight that I felt the hug in my soul and rested her head on my chest. Right over my heart, her cheek to the blood-drenched shirt.

Robotic and slow, I raised my arms and wrapped them around her warm body, blood still roaring in my ears, rage a permanent resident of my heart.

“I need—” I began, but cut the words off. Selfish. I shouldn’t be selfish right now.

“What?” she pressed gently, reaching up to stroke my blood-spattered cheek with her thumb.

My stomach caved in. I dropped my head, pressing my forehead to hers.

I needed to be inside her, needed the reassurance of having her as close as physically possible, needed to be wrapped in her embrace, her warmth, needed to feel her pussy clasp my cock as I brought her crashing over the edge. But I was conscious of every tender bruise and pale scar on her body, and her father’s words were too loud, too sharp in my head.

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