Page 66 of Craving Dahlia

“I can’t tell you?—”

I slice the knife down, cutting half his ear off as it falls into the straw, blood spattering over the surface. The man lets out another yowl of pain, and I press the point into the bleeding wound.

“Were you there for what they did to me?” I demand, snarling down into his face. Spit flies onto the side of his cheek, and he lets out a pained moan. “Were you a face I didn’t see, while they carved off pieces of me? While they made cut after cut to see how long I could suffer before I passed out?”

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man pants. “I—he just sent me?—”

“Forwhat? Speak,svoloch, before I cut off the other ear.” I reach with my other hand, shifting the pitchfork where it’s still trapping his thigh, and he cries out.

“Gregoriy—knows you’re here. I don’t know how…” The man pants, his breathing more labored now. “He wanted the woman. But I couldn’t get to her. The house is too well guarded. So he said to watch. Maybe she would come out to the stable. Or maybe I would get lucky, and?—”

“And get me?” I’m almost disappointed that he’s started spilling so much now. The more he talks, the less excuse I have to bloody him. “How lucky do you feel now,svoloch?” I press the point of the knife to the corner of his eye, and he lets out a panicked sob.

“Just let me go. Let me go,” he babbles, and I stare down at him, a bitter near-laugh escaping my lips.

“Gregoriy is targeting my wife? Is that what I’m hearing?”

“He offered her a lot of money to bring you in herself. She refused him. Now he’s angry.” The man looks up at me with wet, bloodshot eyes, gleaming sickly in the dim light. “He said if she won’t help him, he’ll use her. I won’t be the last one they send.”

I wrap one hand in the front of his shirt, yanking him up to eye-level with me. He lets out another cry of pain as his body shifts, the pitchfork tilting in his thigh, and I press the tip of the knife more firmly against the corner of his eye.

“I’m letting you live for only one reason,” I growl. “And that’s so you can go back to Gregoriy and tell him that if he wants me, the woman is the wrong path to go down. I don’t care about her. Do you understand me? If he takes her, I don’t give a shit. I won’t come for her. He can try to catch me, if he can. But I won’t spend an ounce of energy on trying to rescue thatsuka.”

Acid burns in my throat at the lies, the Russian epithet crawling past my lips with effort. There was a time, when I believed Dahlia was lying to me, when I would have called her a bitch myself. But now, it feels painful to say it aloud.

“Do you hear me?” I drag the edge of the knife down his cheek, and the man lets out a pained moan as the blood drips down the thin slice. “Tell him to leave her alone. I won’t do shit for her.”’

“I understand,” he pants, slumping in my grip. “I’ll…tell…him.”

“Good.” I shove him back to the straw, standing up so that I’m staring down at him. “Don’t forget to tell Gregoriy that when I see him again, I plan to do this over his dead body.”

I yank down my zipper, grinning down at the bleeding man as I piss on the front of his shirt. The acrid scent fills the space, as the man spits and curses at me, his anger renewed with that fresh humiliation. He tries to lunge up at me, but I slam my boot down on his wrist, grinding it into the fine bones until I’m finished soaking his clothes.

I step back, a twisted smile still on my lips as I grab the handle of the pitchfork, jerking it free of the man’s thigh. He howls like a scalded cat, and I step back, his knife still gripped in my fist.

“You have thirty seconds to get out of my sight,” I hiss. “Or we’ll start all over again. This time, I won’t have any questions. Only?—”

The man is already scrambling to his feet despite his injury, scrabbling in the blood and piss-soaked hay as he rushes for the stall door. He nearly falls, scrambles up again, and makes it out of the barn just as I reachthirty.

It’s not until he’s gone that I realize that this is the first time I’ve truly smiled in years. The grin is still on my lips, twisted and nearly hurting my cheeks, and it falls away immediately at the realization.

It’s not real happiness. It doesn’t feelgood, not as good as I thought it would. There was the rush of pleasure, of satisfaction while I was in the moment, but now, I feel a sick knot in my stomach at the realization that the first rush of joy I’ve felt in five years came from cutting a man up in my brother’s stables.

This isn’t what I wanted my life to be. WhoIwant to be.Before, violence was a necessary means to an end. A rush, yes, a feeling of adrenaline and power, and I can’t say I didn’t revel in it at times. But not like this.

That sick feeling stays in my stomach as I clean up the mess in the stall, taking both the straw and the pitchfork and knife and throwing them on a pile of old wood and other scraps further out on the property waiting to be burned. I make sure the floor in the stall is clean, scrubbed of the blood, and throw fresh hay down to cover up any remaining traces of what happened here. And all the while, that sick feeling mingles with burning anger at the knowledge that they’re coming after Dahlia.

I don’t know if my lies about not giving a shit about Dahlia will convince Gregoriy. It convinced the asshole he sent after me, but Gregoriy is smarter than that. And he’s seen a woman bring me low once before. It worked for him once, so why not again?

I’m not sure he’ll believe I’ve learned my lesson, or that I’m so hardened that I’d leave any woman—even one I wasn’t falling in love with—to his not-so-tender mercies. I’m not sure?—

I stop short, dropping the last handful of straw as that last thought runs through my head again.Even one I wasn’t falling in love with.

I can’t fall for Dahlia. There’s no capacity in me for it any longer, and even if there was, it’s a dead end for us both. She won’t want me if she knows how truly broken I am, and I can’t subject her to a real marriage with all that would entail for her. All the things she’d have to endure—from both me, and the threats that don’t seem to want to leave me alone.

I don’t love her. I’ll never love anyone again.

And yet, that pain hasn’t left my chest since I walked out of her room.

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