Page 44 of Beautiful Scar

“Move and I cut your husband’s throat,” I tell the wife.

Donnie is fully with me now. Fear is etched on his face, and his body is completely stiff. I can smell his breath. It stinks like he forgot to brush his teeth.

“Listen to him, Jenny,” Donnie says to his wife. His voice shakes with terror. “Just stay calm.”

“Who—what—how—” She’s stuttering, panicking, shoving herself back against the headboard and curling into a tight little ball like a prey animal playing dead.

“I’m here for one thing,” I say, leaning down into Donnie’s face, ignoring the wife. “Who planted the bomb?”

Donnie’s lips twitch. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I press the edge of the knife tighter and cut a neat little line under his chin. He groans as blood trickles. It’s not deep enough to kill, but he understands now.

I’m not here to play games.

Jenny’s breathing fast, a pillow held to her face like she’s trying to wake herself up.

Or trying to smother herself.

“Try again,” I tell poor fucking Donnie. “You’re Seamus McGrath’s top lieutenant. He’s the second most important man in the whole goddamn McGrath clan. There’s no way in hell you don’t know who planted a bomb in my car. Tell me who did it.”

Donnie’s jaw works. He knows how fucked he is right now. If he didn’t recognize me at first, he knows who I am now.

Tigran Sarkissian. Killer and butcher. Brother of thepatron.

Cutthroat gunman with no moral compass and no compassion.

I know all the rumors swirling in his head. Mostly because half are true and the other half I started.

“Please, don’t touch my wife,” he whispers, begging now. “We’ve got a baby.”

“Give me a reason why I shouldn’t when you tried so hard to kill mine.”

His face twitches. Jenny’s silently crying. She’s sobbing into her pillow to keep from screaming.

“You don’t care about her. It’s just business; you know that. If your family and the Zeitsevs consummate this alliance?—”

I jerk my hand and smack him across the face with the butt of the knife. Before he can react, I’ve got the blade back on his throat.

Who the fuck does he think he is, telling me how I feel?

The rat fuck. Rage explodes in my brain. I want to beat him until he’s bloody mush.

“I don’t want excuses,” I snarl in his face. “Tell me who planted the bomb.”

“Promise you won’t hurt my wife.”

I think about Dasha pinned underneath me, writhing and moaning. Her virgin blood on my dick. Her back arched and breasts pressing to my chest.

“Talk and I might spare her. I’m not like you. I don’t kill women if I don’t have to. But if you keep silent, then I’ll hang you both upside down and drain your fucking blood into your bathtub. After you’ve been mutilated, I’ll make sure your precious little daughter rots in foster care for the rest of her miserable life.”

That breaks him. The thought of his girl coming up in the system. It’s not a pretty idea, not here in Baltimore at least.

And because I’m Tigran Sarkissian, he knows I’ll fucking do it.

“It was Liam’s plan from the start. We can’t let your alliance happen. You have to know that. It means we’re totally fucked. So he tasked Seamus with taking the girl out, and Seamus handedthe operation over to Ciaran and Oisin. That’s all I know, all right? I wasn’t a part of it.”

I know all those names. Liam is the leader of the McGrath family. Ciaran and Oisin are two vicious motherfuckers, these two psychopathic ginger twins who do a lot of the Irish dirty work in the city. I’ve come across them both more than once, but I haven’t had the pleasure of taking their lives yet.

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