Page 41 of Merciless Queen

I hate to admit I’ve been by his side the entire time. My feet became heavy when I tried to go, and an invisible string yanked me back to him. Whatever the reason, and no matter how many times Anastasia suggested I leave Zeno’s temporary room, I couldn’t.

Silly really, which is why I’m eager for him to wake, so I can get my answers and end the mercenary’s life and everything will return to normal.

Well, as normal as bringing war down on the Cosa Nostra will be.

As though my thoughts pulled him from sleep, Zeno opens his eyes, looking past me to the white ceiling.

I smile.Here we go.

He blinks rapidly a few times before groaning and turning his head. First toward the door, on the opposite side of the bed where I am, and then to the side, where his wrist is linked to the frame with metal cuffs.

“Cazzo.”

I might not understand the translation but the general idea of it hits. A harsh curse word mumbled as he finds me beside the bed. His mossy green gaze instantly centres with a single emotion.

Hatred.

I flick my hair over my shoulder and lift my chin, matching his expression with my own. Because now that he’s awake, now that he’s okay and I’ve breathed—an action I won’t even pretend to understand—it’s time to end this. Endhimand show him precisely who he fucked with.

“You’re alive,” I state, like it wasn’t already obvious. “You had me worried for a moment.”

Zeno rolls his eyes before scanning his body. “I take it, this is the part where I’m supposed to thank you for patching me up?”

I pretend to consider that, folding my lips down in a fake frown. “Sure, since I made the call to our doctor after finding you passed out in my forest. Turns out, my bullet left a few stray pieces inside you, and you were on the verge of infection when I found you. He got the two shards out easily with no damage to your nerves.”

“Whatever.” He jerks on the cuffs, staring at me meaningfully, a question buried in the green. “I’m also supposed to thank you for these?”

“You know what you did to deserve those. Besides,” I grin, bending forward slightly so he can hear me through my lowered voice, “I’m aware how much you enjoy being bound.”

His face smooths until he’s expressionless and his eyes dart behind me, and then farther around the room. When he looks at me again, his brows are slightly dipped. “A lot of mercy being shown from the Merciless Queen. I’m surprised I’m not hogtied in a cage or bound to a chair or some shit.”

“That youcanthank the good doc for. He insisted you lie down to rest. You’re lucky I had no spare torture tables around to strap you to.”

I keep my face blank through my joke, even though I wish it wasn’t. Anastasia’s idea was to clear one off in the basement and lock him there since the doctor never specifiedwherehe should be lying down. Lev recommended using a different tactic than fear with him, given the unusual circumstance of how Zeno appeared in my life. He thinks playing nice will change his willingness or something. We’ll see. I’ll try Lev’s methods and when that doesn’t work, I’ll go with Anastasia’s.

“Besides,” I continue with a small shrug, “it would have been more merciful to let you die from blood loss. Saving you isn’t an act of kindness.”

Zeno licks his cracked lips, the dip in his brows deepening. “Why do it at all?”

“You’re no good to me dead.”

“Because you want answers you’re hoping I’ll hand over.”

“You won’t? That’s bold.”

Zeno lifts his head off the pillow, trying and failing to adjust his body into a better defensive position. After a few grunts of frustration, he gives up, half slumped against the bedframe and glares my way. “How’s it feel to never quite be the Pakhan your father was, to always be living in his shadow? I’ve studied you long enough to know you’ve been fighting to prove yourself.”

He’s trying to get beneath my skin but he wouldn’t be the first to pull comments like that, and he certainly won’t be the last, so they’re easily brushed aside with a smirk as I pace back a few steps, wandering to a nearby wall.

“It’s wonderful,” I tell him the truth, partly for my own amusement. “My fatherwasa great Pakhan, I’ll admit, but I’m not the man he was because he made some horrendous choices and that isn’t me.”

Surprise flickers in his gaze and for a moment, it seems like he stops breathing altogether when he asks, “What makes you say that?”

The harassment.

Boris being on top of me, afterpayingto be.

The marriage negotiations.

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