Page 31 of The Brutal Arrangement

Sometimes, men saw all the power and wealth we represented and they’d get cocky enough to try to take it for themselves. That was simply how greed worked.

But these guys hinted at something more.

I spent all day and into the evening trying to ferret out the truth from them.

In the end, they wouldn’t fucking cave. They wouldn’t give me a solid answer as to whether or not another crime family had set them up to this crime. No matter what I threatened or how much I hurt them, they hedged and refused to confess whether one of our enemies had paid them or manipulated them to attack us from within our organization.

“I think someone was behind this,” I told Maxim when he visited the basement to inform me that my bride had arrived.

“I agree.” He scowled at the remains of the now chopped-up bodies that I’d let the other men down here clean up and burn. “I watched parts of the recording.”

I accepted the rag from him and started wiping the blood from my face. “It’s got to be the same motherfuckers who took Nik and poisoned Father.”

Maxim shook his head. “No. I’ll never make the mistake of assuming all our troubles are coming from one source.”

I shrugged. “All I noticed was that two of them referenced Dominic Romano. No mention of Anton.”

“I noticed that as well,” he replied. “No mention of any Kozlov.”

“But maybe that was intentional, to throw us off.” At his suggestion, I followed him away from the torture chamber. Usually, after a good long session of torturing a rat, I felt calmer, more at ease for expending some of this innate darkness and need to kill that spawned within me.

Because those three men didn’t tell me anything useful, I felt unhinged and still on the warpath to inflict pain until a reward was in sight. If not knowledge, then the reminder that I was more powerful. This sick and twisted need to harm wasn’t right, but I’d never bothered to dissect what made me the monster I was.

“Maybe. And that’s why I wanted to speak with you before you go up there and deal with this wedding bullshit.”

I raised my brows, trying halfheartedly to erase some of this sticky blood off me. “What about it?”

He furrowed his brow, looking more pensive and calculating than he was when he’d come down here. We stood together in the elevator, and he studied me. “You missed some.” He pointed at his own face to indicate where a streak of red had to be clinging to my cheek.

“What about it?” I prompted again. I was annoyed that I’d have to marry at all. Right after an unsatisfying time of torturing those men for no real answers, I was irritated to even have to speak to a woman.

We got into the elevator as it arrived, and Maxim hit the button for the main floor.

“I’ve been rethinking what we discussed this morning, when Grandmother was talking about heirs. When I said this was nothing more than a contract marriage.”

I shrugged. “What about it? I’ve already asked the staff to clear out the guest room in my apartment where she can stay locked up.”

He nodded, frowning. “But have you given any thought to how you’d try to get information out of her?”

I stared him down, not liking what he could be suggesting. “I didn’t plan to bring her down here,” I said dryly as the elevator lifted us from the lowest level where I reigned as “Demon” instead of Damon.

“No.” He shook his head. “That would be excessive.”

“Fuck, I don’t know. I was going to sign the fucking papers tonight and show her that guest room where she could stay for a while. I’d keep her isolated until she’d be bored and then I’d demand some answers from her.”

This was Katerina we were talking about. Not some stranger. While I didn’t know her that well, I knewofher. Many, many years ago, when her father was alive, she almost could have counted as a friend of the family.

“Are you suggesting I take a harder stance to get answers out of her?”

“I’m not sure.” He huffed a weak laugh as the elevator stopped. I followed him out, not thinking twice when he approached the bar and poured us drinks.

I went for a double, tossing the shot back while he seemed to search for words.

“Maybe you should be hard with her.” He arched one brow, but he didn’t have to wait for me to understand.

“You want me to fuck some answers out of her?” Just saying it bothered me. I’d tortured many—men and women—and there were no extremes I wouldn’t consider. I’d fucked women for intel before. But Katerina?

He didn’t flinch, looking me dead in the eye. “Do whatever is necessary.”

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