Page 2 of Root

His hand comes down on my shoulder, and he hauls me up. I stumble across the cement floor towards a cloth sack.

“Look.”

I shake my head, bile burning up my throat. “Don’t wanna.”

Nikolai presses on my shoulder until my legs give out, and I sink to the floor. I squeeze my eyes shut and turn my head.

“I said fucking look, Rush.”

“I hate you,” I sneer.

“Don’t particularly give a shit. Look.” When I don’t listen, he sighs. “We can stay here all fucking day and night for all I care, Rush. Look.”

My eyes graze over it, but he catches my chin and brings my head down. “Look.”

Something big moves in me, big, hot, and spiky. I try and pull free, but he doesn’t let go.

“Nikolai! Ow!”

“Fuck.” He releases me and leans close. “My job, my only fucking job, apart from rebuilding the family, is to protect you, and it’s not all fucking sunshine.”

He picks up the gun between us, turns it in his hands, and my eyes blur.

“Some hard fucking truths, Rush. This, here, is death. It’s not fucking pretty; it smells and it’s permanent.”

I snort indignantly. “I’m not five.”

“No, but you need to own each life you take, Rush. This…” He shoves the muzzle into the side of the body—sack—and looks at me. “This is real. You took the gun, you pulled the trigger, and you managed to shoot him dead.”

The words are the only thing in the air.

Nikolai isn’t done.

“Ben. You killed Ben.”

Burning tears start to stream down my cheeks, and I wipe them with my sleeve, along with the snot running from my nose.

“I need to have some fucking rules in the house so you don’t grow up a fucking wild wolf.” Nikolai stands and holds out his hand, but I ignore it. “One rule is if you kill not only does it need to be life and death for you, but you have to own it.”

“Nikolai…”

That hand stays out.

He’s got some tattoos on his arms, and he’s not in the suit he wears for business meetings. He’s in jeans and a T-shirt with blood on it, and—

He scoffs when I hesitate. “Throw up, don’t throw up, I don’t care. You need to fucking own it, Rush.”

I tuck my hands away and he drops his, eyes uncaring. Demanding.

“So I killed Ben,” I say, half yelling. The words burn up my throat. “Are you going to kill me, too?”

He scoffs again, and somehow, it breaks the tension in the warehouse. “You’re fucking nine. Give it a year or two.”

I laugh and hiccup.

“Ben was my right-hand man,” Nikolai says. “Tony’s going to take that job, okay? You trust no one but me, Tony, and Mia.”

I look up in question. “Kara?”

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