Page 63 of The Way You Hurt Me

"I feel like we should hear theMission: Impossibletheme."

"The villain theme, maybe," he retorts, as the door opens in front of half a dozen dazed, wide-eyed men and women in lab coats.

"Sir, we weren't told you were coming," a man says, flustered. "If you need progress reports…"

"You can send that to Mishka, my friend," Dimitri says politely, but in a tone inviting no further discourse. "I'm only here for our visitor, yes?"

"Yes. Of course. Your men brought him to the—well, he's at the back."

"I know my way around the lab, thank you."

His arm around my shoulders, Dimitri takes us away from them as they bow, low.

I decide there is exactly no question I need to answer to right now.

We reach a room, two armed men inside. One opens it, and I find my old boss's boss on the floor, his face bloodied, holding his knee as he sobs.

"Please." He sounds oh so desperate.

My heart's beating, fast. So fast the sound blinds me.

I watch in silence.

"I have money. Savings. You can have it all."

The men inside laugh. Andrei, the bodyguard who saved me last Friday. I don't recognize the other; Marc or Quintin, I assume.

Dimitri says, "Do I look like someone who needs your savings, my good friend?"

His hand slides across my arm and squeezes it, before he steps away from me, towards Lloyd, bending down to be close to eye level. "What I needed from you was for you to keep your eyes, and hands, and mouth in check. But you couldn't, could you?"

He circles him slowly. "I'm assuming you got a message about Willow when she started. Something along the lines of,this is a person of interest, don't fuck with her, yes?"

Lloyd sobs harder.

"But you just couldn't help yourself. I mean, you got away with blackmailing and abusing so many former employees, why not this one?"

"Please. I didn't know. She's just?—"

Dimitri's foot flies in a circle with the speed and agility of an artist; it's precise, instant, violently clashing against Lloyd's head. He falls face first into the dirt.

"How dumb can a person get?" he muses out loud, grimacing.

Andrei grabs Lloyd by the hair and forces him back up on his knees.

"You wanted to be here for this, petal," he tells me, those green eyes looking at nothing else. "What's your pleasure? A simple bullet? A knife? There are many places one can cut." He tilts his head. "Unless you'd like him to get a taste of his own medicine. Should we get him to suck Andrei's cock, Willow?"

I don't know what it says about me, but I get wet. Drenched, in fact. I know it's ten shades of wrong, but the despair coming from the man who wanted to hurt me is a balm, and an aphrodisiac. For all that, though, I'll pass on the last option. "I doubt Andrei wants his cock sucked by that piece of shit."

My bodyguard winces. "You got that right."

"Oh well." Dimitri shrugs. "He can suck my cock, then. I think I'd quite like to see him choke on it."

I have to think. I don't mind that option at all, as Dimitri's willing. Then I shake my head. "If I'm watching you get your beautiful cock sucked, I'd rather it be by a pretty girl—or boy."

He smiles. "She has good taste."

His men nod in agreement.

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