“Now, now. That isn’t judgment I hear from the man who drugged a woman at this bar and followed her into a quiet room, is it? People in glass houses shouldn’t throw bricks, old friend.”
“I’m nothing like you,” Kap spat, showing more nerve than I’d expected. Then again, there was a fine line between brave and fucking stupid.
“That’s right. You aren’t. You drug women and take them back to your stinking adult frat house of a place and fuck them when they’re too out of their minds to consent, but you’ve never killed a man, have you? You still think some lines are worse than others, don’t you?” I asked him quietly. I’d heard all about how the son of Holmes Corporation got tail. His struggle stopped immediately as the severity of his situation became apparent. He shook his head. “So, you’ve never watched the life drain from someone’s eyes or flayed open their chest to see the exact moment the heart stops.”
Kap was shaking now, and Ivan laughed, still holding him.
“Two pissers in a week? What’s the world coming to?” Ivan chuckled.
I didn’t have a chance to respond as a scraping noise from the floor signaled that Mallory had joined us again. She pushed to her feet, swaying wildly. She stumbled and sucked in a breath.Her eyes turned to Kap with a look of confusion and loathing. She held out an arm and pointed to him.
“You motherfucker,” she slurred and stepped forward.
She stumbled again, and I couldn’t stop myself from stepping forward to catch her. Her weight fell against me, and her scent filled my nose. Everything else fell away. The smell of the dank room, the vomit in the bucket, and the acrid smell of a man pissing himself in fear. There was only Molly and the perfume of her skin.
“He’s a motherfucker,” she grunted, her eyes struggling to focus on me.
I saw the moment they connected. Her dark green eyes widened, and her pupils dilated. She tried to speak but seemed incapable of it at that moment.
“Shh, Princess. I know, don’t worry.”
I guided Mallory against the wall, and she slid down without moving her eyes from mine. Kap took advantage of my distraction and tried to shove Ivan away. At my signal, Ivan let him go. Kap tried to get past me like he’d be able to escape a room full of my loyal bratva. I caught him by the throat and slammed him into the ground. He landed with a loud thud. I moved my foot to stand on his chest, pressing down until something inside cracked. He squealed like a pig in pain.
“Class isn’t over yet, Kaplan. Don’t be rude,” I barked at him, pressing harder and cracking another three ribs.
He curled up in pain, and I returned my attention to Mallory. She was crouched in a little ball, her forest-green gaze locked on me with an intensity only she could manage, drugs or not.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Mallory.” I approached on silent feet and crouched, blocking her from view and keeping her for my eyes only.
She stared up at me, her head tilting to the side.“Kirill? You’re here? I started to think I’d imagined you the other day.”
I shook my head and reached out, failing to contain my need to touch her. I rubbed my thumb over the apple of her cheek. The velvet plush of her skin felt like the most expensive material, luxurious and rare.
“Do you want to know a secret? I’m not your Kirill. Not anymore,” I said quietly.
I didn’t know why I felt the need to warn her. She was defenseless and wouldn’t remember anything in the morning. I felt safe enough to let her see beneath my mask for a moment. She was still my greatest weakness.
“You’re not?”
To my utter shock, a tear formed in the corner of her eye and splashed down on my hand. It felt like acid. It burned.I shook my head. “He died, and I’m what was left.”
Confusion furrowed her brow as she tried to make sense of my words. Her head rolled as the effects of the drugs took hold. She blinked her heavy eyelids.“I thought you were him,” she muttered and waved her hand toward Kap. “But I should have known you weren’t. He’d never savage someone like this.”
“Savage them? Sweetheart, I’ve only just started. When I’m done with this man, his own mother won’t be able to ID his body,” I said in an intimate whisper.
Kap was snuffling on the floor. I didn’t particularly feel like shooting Mallory’s co-workers if they came looking for her, so I had to get moving. I needed her friends for later, as leverage.
As I rose, a soft hand tugged on mine, and I stilled immediately. Mallory had taken my hand in hers. Her eyes beseeched me, and if I’d had a working heart, it would have hurt at that moment.
“Kirill . . . don’t leave me again,” she muttered.
“Princess, we both know who. Don’t try to rewrite the past,” I murmured.
She knew. She had to know it was she who had left me broken and alone. Her eyes started to drift close. My presence wasn’t enough to fight the drug.
Her grasp on my hand failed, and her arm slumped to her lap.“Kirill . . . what happened to you?”
Her small, plaintive voice sent ice across my nerves. I leaned in, letting my mouth move over the skin of her ear as I spoke. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? Don’t you like what you made?”