Page 10 of Beauty & Corruption

“Feisty morning, kitten. Meow.” Mordy winked at her. I should rip his damned eyelids off, and I considered it. The only thing that kept me from doing it was knowing we had to be at the clubhouse in thirty minutes. I didn’t have time for his shit.

Bird hushed him while she glared in his direction.

“I get it. I fucking get it. I fucked up big time.”

“Monumentally,” Bird added.

“Eiffel tower-sized fuck,” Mordy added, all three of us knowing exactly why he said what he did.

“Mordicus, for once in your fucking life, keep your damned mouth shut, brother. I know you get off when you hurt others, but I already know I messed up in the way I went about things. I don’t need to be constantly reminded that I handed her over to you on a silver platter.”

“I’m not a fucking turkey or a Christmas ham. I went of my own free will, if I remember correctly. You didn’t put a gun to my head. Oh wait, you did,” Bird clarified, fuming.

“I didn’t hurt you. What part of I didn’t pull the fucking trigger do you not remember? Mordy actually drove the tip of Bloodlust into your shoulder, and somehow, he got a peace treaty.”

“Fecking right! My girl gotcha right here.” Mordy’s finger traced the faint scar on Bird’s shoulder with pride. Her attention was on his fingertip, and then her eyes flickered from his face to mine.

“See! That is who you forgave. He’s not sorry he cut you.”

“Maybe he’s not, but at least he is man enough to own his shit, Graham! What you fail to remember is that you hurt me more than Mordy did with Bloodlust. Mordy made me bleed, but even to this day, you don’t see him denying what he did. You, on the other hand, fucking wrecked me. You gave me hope and love that made my heart remember it had the ability to live, and then, with your bare hands, you ripped it right out of my body while it was still beating. We had a pulse, Graham. But you took that away, too. Your words hurt me more than any weapon or torture Mordy would ever come up with in his wet dreams.”

“I’m sorry, Bird,” I faintly admitted in a small voice as tears formed in her eyes. She looked away from me, and I had neverbeen on the receiving end of her true hate until now. I had finally crossed the line that I didn’t know had been drawn. I wanted to scream at her and get on my knees to beg her to take me back. Instead, I apologized. It was a start nowhere near what she deserved, but it was a start regardless.

She nodded curtly in response, refusing to look at me.

“Kirill wants her,”Dumble reported, flipping a quarter through his fingers to keep his hands busy and flicking it toward Sticks.

“Too fecking bad. Finders’ keepers,” Mordy argued a beat before I could.

“What does he want with her?” I questioned, trying to keep a level head. I agreed with Mordy, though. I had absolutely no intention of handing her over without a fight. We might not be in the best place right now, but I refused to hand her over to anyone…else. They would have to pry her out of my cold, dead hands, and now that Mordy was close to her, they’d have to go through him, too.

“Wouldn’t say. Maybe a family reunion.”

“Really?” My eyebrow arched.

“How the fuck should I know? It isn’t like he came straight out and gave me all of the details, but there’s been a shift with the Angeloffs.”

“They’re refusing to supply our next shipment of guns unless we hand her over. I don’t know about you, but I fucking like keeping the peace. We need those guns. They already havea buyer. Mikahlov wants to meet. If we don’t come through with our deal, there will be hell to pay. That’s what that shit Andrei said right before I told him if his carrier pigeon ass ever threatened me or my brothers again, it’d be the last words he ever spoke. I don’t give a shit about Andrei’s threats, but I do care about keeping our suppliers happy as long as it benefits us. ‘Course, if it comes down to war, so be it. It won’t be my first or last, but if it’s avoidable, that’s the route we’ll take.” Was he really suggesting what I thought he was? Viking was the one who said Bird was safe, and now it sounded a whole hell like he was agreeing to hand her over to Kirill without a fight. If that was what he was saying, he might as well slap a big silver bow over her tits before he sends her to her death sentence. I didn’t trust that his intentions for her were pure.

“Where are the Falbos? Were we able to track them down?” Viking turned toward Sticks.

“They’ve not returned to the Wright house. Still business as usual as far, as I can tell. They haven’t made a move; fuckers have to know we’re watching them. As long as we’ve dealt with them, they’ve never been known for their patience. I can’t explain this, but I have a feeling in my gut she’s more than Kirill’s daughter. There’s no way in hell that tiny of a person can cause two mob families to be on the brink of a massacre,” Sticks pointed out, drumming his fingers along the edge of the table as he thought to himself.

“Being an illegitimate bratva princess isn’t enough reason for you?” Wisenheimer asked him with an arch of his eyebrow.

“But why, after all these years, would he come after her? Kirill has endless resources; he is the Pahkan, not a minion doing the grunt work. If he wanted her, he could have come for her years ago when she was a kid. Why go through all the theatrics when they could have taken her any time they wanted? Why go through us? This doesn’t add up. That’s not how thebratva works. They typically do the exact opposite, just like we do. If you’re on everyone’s radar, that means the law gets involved. It doesn’t make sense,” I said with a groan, running my hand through my long hair. None of it had to be logical for it to be happening, though. I felt like there was a gigantic piece of the puzzle missing, and it was right under our noses, only we were too blind to see it. It was maddening. I was already stressed to the fucking brink from being the dumbass who singlehandedly ripped the last shreds of compassion Bird had left inside her. This shit with Mikahlov was the icing on the cake. It was problematic in the beginning, so being a mindfuck was nothing new, but I was going to go fucking insane trying to figure out how all the hypothetical pieces fit together.

“Maybe she didn’t have worth then. Maybe the Falbos found out about her and are using her as leverage,” our Prez fired the possibilities out one after another. The last made the most sense, though. Our club hadn’t dealt directly with Kirill much at all over the years, but we were in good standing with Damien Mikahlov, his second-in-command. I wouldn’t call him a friend, but the bratva had been good to us up until recently.

“So, we hear Mikahlov out. Then what? Hand Bird over like yesterday’s trash?” I eyed my brothers, silently pleading for them to understand this was a hard fucking pass for me. I prayed they would change their minds, but I wasn’t making a convincing case.

“That idea does not sit well with my feel goods at all. It is going to be a hell fecking no for me,deartháir. I refuse to give her up without a fight,” Mordy backed me up; his argument had me wondering if I truly loved Bird at all. Every time I said something to save her, Mordy had already said something that held more worth or, like right now, downright refused to let our club deal her a death sentence. Bird was right. I was a fucking moron. I hurt her in the way only someone you love could. I tookmy love for her and threw it away like it meant nothing to me when it was everything to me. It took Mordy, of all people, being chivalrous—as chivalrous as Mordy could be—for me to realize what a dumbass I had been. It was too late to fix what had been broken, but I had a solid plan to not make the same mistakes in the future. That was a fucking lie; I had no plan at all. I would always be who I was but vowed to do better by Bird. When I told her she could want us both, I did not think my statement through. Not fully. I saw what she refused to acknowledge and thought that if everything were out in the open, things would somehow be easier for everyone. I was wrong. Our situation was far more difficult now than before I opened my stupid mouth.

Mordy stood up from the table we were around, leaning his neck to the side, and his vertebrae popped. “Ah, fecking right,” he continued to stretch as he spoke. “Hell fecking no, Prez. I don’t care if I personally have to slit every last one of those mother feckers’ throats; I’m not okay with giving her to them. Slitting their throats, that I am more than fine with doing.” Mordy smiled in the sadistic way he did when he thought about torturing someone. He had been described as countless things over the years, but having patience had never been mentioned. He and I shared that trait. We were both irrational, but I was a little more predictable than he was. When he said he’d slit their throats, all of us brothers knew he wasn’t blowing smoke up our asses. He meant it.

Mordy would go at it alone and probably get a large number of kills under his belt before getting himself killed in the process if we let him. As much as I was irritated with him, I didn’t want to see my brother lose his life. Truthfully, I wasn’t even sure I was upset at him. I was unhappy with myself for being oblivious to the situation.

None of our troubles outweighed our problem with Kirill. We had to do something, and we all knew it involved the exactthing Mordy and I were refusing to do. We had to take the next step and take Bird to Kirill. Even Mordy understood that despite what he said.

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