Page 55 of Dragonfly

Setting her on her feet, I turn all of my attention to the boy.

“You hit my wife?”

Ricky’s cupping himself, but over the noise, those two words make it through. “Your… your wife?”

“Listen to me, son. You didn’t answer me. I’ll ask you again. Did you have your hands on my wife?”

“Boss, I?—”

My voice could drip icicles, it’s that fucking cold. “Answer the question. Did you touch my wife?”

He can’t deny it. I wasn’t fast enough to stop the hit, though the evidence of it was clear. I had to lunge to grab Savannah before she lane on the floor. Even now her cheek bears the mark of his hand.

He can’t deny it, so he tries to place the blame on her. “She tried to knee me in the cock?—”

Dumb fuck.

“That’s only because I have her knife,” I tell Ricky, cutting off his excuses with my casual words. Dipping my hand under my jacket, I pull the stiletto out of its holster.

Twisting my wrist, showing him the knife, I give him a hard smile—and then my hand moves.

There’s no resistance. The sharp blade cuts right through his throat, so efficiently that Ricky doesn’t even know he’s died right away.

When it catches up to him, though, he clutches his throat. Blood dribbles down his palm skin, covering his fingers, bubbling up in the massive gap that’s stretching ear to ear.

He gasps. His knees fold.

I check the sheen of the blood on the knife as Ricky falls forward, landing on his belly, inches away from Savannah’s shoes.

I turn to my wife. “See that? That’s how you kill someone with this stiletto, my dear.”

The entire room goes silent. It probably was before, but after a moment, someone claps—probably my sister—and the chatter starts up again.

We’re Dragonflies. We expect murder and mayhem at our gatherings. It’s one the reasons we always host them at a property we either own or have a stake in. Because, despite my need to appear debonair and classy, we’re a bunch of violent criminals at our core.

And now my wife knows that.

Her lips are parted, mouth hanging open. Her gaze darts to the corpse clutching his throat on the floor. Ricky is dead, and since her stab wound didn’t end me, I’m beginning to think this might be the first time she’s ever been so close to one

This might be the first time she’s ever seen anyone die.

I feel this sudden urge to protect her from the reality of my Family. That’s what I’ve been doing for weeks now, keeping her locked-up in my home, but she’s here now. She’s a part of it. But maybe it’s too much. Maybe she needs a moment to process it all.

With the knife still in my hand, I grab Savannah by the wrist. Knowing there isn’t a single soul in this room that will stop me, I tug on her hand. I almost expect her to dig in her feels so that I can’t. She doesn’t. As though she’s a zombie behind me, she just stares ahead as I navigate our way through the crowd.

She was halfway to the hall when Ricky grabbed her. I continue that way. Once we leave the private room behind us, I see the mens’ room, the ladies’, and the employee’s only door.

I own this place. I’m the highest fucking level of employee, and if the manager needs her office? Well, she can wait.

Savannah purses her lips when she sees where I’ve brought her, though she doesn’t say anything as I open the door and shuffle her into the office.

Only when I’ve slammed shut the door behind her, locking it for good measure in case it all becomes too much and she decides to bolt, does she speak up.

“You killed that guy.”

“He hurt you,” I answer simply. Calmly.

I wait for her to get hysterical. That’s what women do, right? So unused to the brutality of the life, now that she’s got over being numb, she’ll start crying?—

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