She needed to be here for this.
She needed to see her father downed.
The monster, as she’d called him the other night, put to bed.
Forever.
“They say Eagle Eyes was behind your hit.”
“That’s the chatter,” Vasov muttered.
“Wonder why he went for your knees and not a kill shot.”
Inessa tensed at that.
“My lucky day,” Vasov growled, anger filling his eyes at my insolence.
I reached down and placed my hands on the metal rail at the foot of the bed.
The position placed my fingers very close to his feet.
I saw him take note of that, saw him eye me, then Inessa, and he began to scowl.
“Where is my welcome?”
His command had her questioning, “Where’s Svetlana?”
“At the compound, I think.”
Inessa hummed under her breath. “Sounds about right.”
Though Vasov groused with annoyance, I stated, “You put your hands on my wife, Antoni.”
His eyes flared wide, but though anger filled him, and he glared at Inessa for a second, he didn’t for long.
I reached for his foot and pulled.
Not even that hard, but enough for his entire body to strain, for his face to turn white, and for his eyes to bulge. Everything about him tensed and pulled taut as he fought the instinctive scream that tried to fall from his lips.
A scream he couldn’t afford to release with the guards outside.
When he was merely panting through his pain, I smiled at him genially. “Now, I warned you in the church. ‘You do not touch her again.’ Those were the words I used, I think, Inessa?”
“Yes, Eoghan. You warned him.”
“But he didn’t heed my threat, did he?”
“No,” she replied unnecessarily. “He didn’t.”
I sensed her satisfaction, even as she’d recoiled at her father’s evident agony at my simple torture.
“I wonder if he’s learned his lesson now?”
Vasov’s eyes were back to bulging. “You did this?”
“Yes, and I gave you a nice little scapegoat—Eagle Eyes—to put the war where it needs to be.
“I’m not your enemy, Vasov, and no one in the fucking world would blame me for doing what I did when you mistreated my property that way.” I felt Inessa tense, but I ignored it. I no longer thought of her that way, two weeks of marriage making me dispel the notion and see her as an entity and not an object as she’d been up until my wedding day. Still, Vasov would understand my meaning only if I termed it that way.