Page 122 of Little Blue

I don’t expect the way her face crumbles, and she begins to sob. Hard.

Standing from the chair, I move to sit on the side of the bed. Then I gather her in my arms and hold her while she breaks apart for a man I’d ended brutally. I’m suddenly thankful she’d been unconscious during the escape. As hard as it had been to carry her, worrying about a stray bullet hitting her. If she had seen him the way I’d left him on the floor…

“Why are you crying for him, Blue?” I ask after long moments. I can’t make sense of why she would cry like this. So hard for a man who brought her to harm. Who let another harm her.

“He was Boris.”

“He took you from me.”

“I know.” Her lips move against my neck as though to seek comfort or heat there. When she shivers, I decide it’s heat and pull the blanket up around her shoulders. “But he was still Boris. He was always so distant with me, but I tried so hard to make him like me. To make him be my friend.”

He liked you just fine, Little Blue. He liked you more than he should have.

I don’t tell her that, either. I simply say, “He’s gone now. No one will ever take you from me again.”

Her arms circle around my shoulders and she cries softly until she’s not crying anymore. It feels like forever that I sit there on the side of the bed, holding her.

Then, when she’s exhausted herself, I lay her down against the pillows and watch as she fights the pull of sleep and loses.

“We lost three men,” Luka tells me as I walk from the main house to the house where I’m keeping Ivan. I left Irelynn sleeping under Polina’s watch. She’d picked up one of the mafia romance books I’d bought for Irelynn, that she left on the nightstand, and settled back in the chair with the cat on her lap. She’d tried to crochet the blanket she was working on, but the cat had poked at her until she’d relented, lifting the book instead.

I let my eyes close. “Make sure their families are cared for. And that they are given an honorable funeral.”

“It’s been seen to.”

“I will pay the families a visit as soon as I’m sure I can leave Irelynn.”

“I can be here with her.” Luka’s jaw clenches. The guilt he feels for letting Boris take her shopping eats at him. He vows, “You can trust me to protect her.”

I stop walking, pinning him with a gaze that weighs heavy. “I know.” I clap a hand on his shoulder. “I know, Luka.”

My words don’t seem to do much to carve away the guilt in his eyes. For that, he needs time and, I think, Irelynn’s forgiveness.

With nothing left to say, I continue into the house. I say nothing to the men who sit at the round table, waiting for an attack on the property that isn’t likely to come, what with the security I have in place around this property and the soldiers that man it.

I take the stairs down into the basement, finding Ivan strung, naked from the rafters. Pavel hung him here while Misha was getting patched up from the bullet wound, he’d gotten during the battle.

Two soldiers sit at a table in the middle of a card game that is quickly forgotten as they stand for the show, they know is sure to come.

Ivan’s face is swollen from an obvious beating. The fucker clearly tried to put up a fight and was overpowered. That’s what happens when a boss becomes soft, letting his men fight his battles for him. He becomes weak. Easy to defeat.

His head is hanging into his chest, and as I study him, I realize he’s either asleep or he’s been knocked out.

There’s a bucket of ice water waiting on the table. I don’t think twice before I throw it at him, drenching him. The man sputters to consciousness, his eyes blinking rapidly, his little dick shriveling from the cold. As it is, his toes are the kind of purple that comes only from being too cold for too long.

“Cold?” I ask dryly.

“Fuck you.” He spits.

I charge, slamming him into the wood pillars that have been attached to the concrete wall behind him. Then I bark, “Hold him in place.”

My soldiers move to do as they’ve been told, knowing the routine well enough to know that I want the fuckers’ legs spread, so each is pinned to one of the blood-stained wood pillars. His ankles have already been cuffed, a short chain dangling from each.

Ivan thrashes, spittle and panic flying from his mouth as they fasten the chain to the hook in the plank, fastening his legs in place.

“Thank you, gentlemen.” My soldiers step back, wearing twin grins as Ivan screams.

I move to the table, spread out with all my toys. Making a show of consideration, I pluck a jagged blade from the surface. Ivan’s eyes are so wide, they very well might roll from his head before I’m ready to pluck them from the sockets. What a pity that would be.

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