Page 22 of Ten

“Yeah?” He abandoned all thoughts of making Kiki hurt to focus on Nisha.

“What were you in prison for?”

Hearing her ask about his criminal history knocked the air right out of him. That question would lead to other questions, and he would have to lie to her. He never told anyone, not even his lawyer, what had really happened that night. It was his duty as a street soldier to protect thebratva, and he had without complaint.

Still, it twisted up his insides to not be able to tell Nisha the truth, but the secret wasn’t his to tell.

Holding her gaze, Ten admitted, “Manslaughter.”

Chapter Five

Manslaughter.

The word rattled around in my head even after Ten left with my neatly printed and organized list. It kept bouncing around my brain as Kostya hooked my phone up to a laptop and ran some sort of sketchy as fuck program that I was absolutely certain was illegal to possess or use.

Manslaughter.

Ten killed someone.

Obviously, I had known that he had committed a serious crime to end up in prison and not the county clink. I knew he was a felon. I had always assumed it was something like aggravated assault or robbery or some sort of weapons charge.

But now I knew.

And, strangely, it didn’t change anything.

Besides, who was I to stand here and make ugly judgments about Ten when I had basically asked him to torture Kiki before killing him? What kind of hypocrite would that make me?

“You’re not as chatty as I expected.” Kostya startled me with his remark. “We’ve never spent any time alone, but I see you with Holly when I stop by and you’re always talking.”

I frowned at him. “I am not.”

He glanced away from his laptop screen. “You are.”

“Well, maybe I am,” I said and plopped down onto an empty chair at Ten’s kitchen table. “I’m not feeling particularly talkative tonight.”

“Understandable.” He fiddled with something on the laptop, tapping a few keys and clicking the mousepad. “You shouldn’t worry too much. You’re probably the safest woman in the city tonight.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Law enforcement aside, there are dozens of bounty hunters out to find Kiki. You have me sitting with you, and Ten is like that tiger tattooed on his arm, ready to rip Kiki’s head off. There’s probably a few family members of victims who are out there looking for him, too.”

“Not that many.” I didn’t like thinking about the trial but there was no avoiding it now. “Only one victim had a family member present. The second girl he killed. Her grandmother came every single day.”

“Javier Ochoa,” Kostya said, surprising me that he knew the victim's name.

“She went by JoJo,” I corrected, hating that the poor girl never had the chance to change her name. “But, yes, that was her birth name.”

“I’m not judging.” He unplugged my phone from the USB connection and slid it across the table. “Everyone has the right to live the life they want.”

“Except JoJo didn’t get to live her life,” I muttered sadly. “She was only seventeen when he killed her.”

“Did you know?”

My head snapped up at Kostya’s blunt question. It wasn’t the first time someone had asked me if I was aware that my husband had been killing transgender prostitutes. It wouldn’t be the last either. Even so, my stomach churned with shame and guilt. “No, but I should have.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems like something I should have known. He was mean and violent and hurt me all the time.”

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