I didn’t want to leave Mallory, but I trusted Max to handle her as we’d discussed. I had pressing business to resolve with Henry Madison and wanted to get it over. I got in one car, and Max and Mallory left in another.
As we movedthrough the darkened city streets, I felt like the last man standing on a battlefield. The ultimate victor. Henry Madison had a lot to answer for. Not only was he the cause of the rift that had ripped Mallory and me apart seven years ago, but he owed a debt he had earned over the course of knowing Molly in high school. Every time she’d come in with a black eye, poorly hidden by make-up or sunglasses, or she’d winced because her ribs hurt, I’d planned to inflict the same damage on him one day. In my powerless, teenage heart, I’d raged and plotted his demise, and finally, that day had come.
Now I was the man I’d always been destined to be, I understood the dark urges I’d felt back then. If I could have killed Henry and gotten away with it back then, with no harm or suspicion falling on his daughter, I’d have done it in an instant. I wouldn’t have hesitated.
Traffic was light, and we got to the warehouse quickly. Anticipation bubbled in my veins.
“See, Henry? I told you he wouldn’t keep you long,” Ivan said, grinning as I strode into the warehouse room we used for particular dirty work. It had all sorts of interesting toys to fill the hours with a captive.
Ivan jerked Henry’s head up to look at me as I shook off my overcoat and rolled my black shirt sleeves up.
Henry’s eyes were dazed but quickly focused on me. Confusion creased his brow.“You – you were Molly’s boyfriend. The punk from the south side.”
“So, you remember me? I have to say, I didn’t expect that, Henry. I really didn’t.”
Henry spat a mouthful of blood on the floor. It looked like Ivan had gotten handsy before delivering the package to me. “Are you kidding? Do I remember you? Like my idiot daughter would let me forget.”
Those words sank through me like stones. “Henry, I didn’t know you cared about your offspring enough to make up some pretty little fairytales for her.” I crouched before him, my shoes settling in the patchwork of blood staining the tile. “But I should tell you, it won’t help.”
He lifted his head and stared at me with pained eyes. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, you can’t save her from me, Henry. It’s too late. I won’t give her up at any cost.”
“Save her? This is all her fault. If she hadn’t dragged her mother to New York and fucking insisted on trying to find you again and again, I wouldn’t be here. The stupid bitch ran away five times to find you. She never could take a hint.”
“If you hated having her around, why drag her back?” I asked out of mere curiosity.
“Who was going to look after Mara?” Henry challenged.
I didn’t ask him why he felt compelled to continue to take care of a woman who hadn’t been capable of interacting with him in years. There wasn’t any point.Nothing Henry did made sense.
“Do you know who I am these days?” I asked, changing the subject before Henry’s words left puncture holes in my chest.
“These days? Someone who works for Viktor Chernov.”
“Works for? In a way. I’m his son.”
Henry’s face paled. I pulled my favorite knife from its sheath and brought it to his hand.
“I was going to save you, Henry. I became this person to save you, Molly, and Mara, and you didn’t even say thank you.” My conversational tone lulled Henry into a false sense of security. “As the father of Mallory Chernov, mafia queen, you could’ve had all the money you wanted for gambling. But here we are.”
Henry licked his lips, and his eyes darted to my hand, where I was still playing with my knife. I dropped them toward his hands. “Thanks to you and Molly, I was reunited with my dear old dad, who taught me how to be great at my work. For example, nails are interesting, such a small area, with so many nerves. But you already know that, don’t you, Henry?”
I set to work on his hand, and Henry screamed. I enjoyed his screams much more than hearing him talk about his version of the past.
An hour later, with some of the hatred curdling my blood finally sated, I sat back and wiped my hands on a rag Ivan had provided. My forearms were stained red, and my clothes would need to be destroyed. Henry was barely conscious, moving in and out of sweet oblivion. For the last half an hour, I had kept him teetering on the precipice, never allowing him to fall.
“All the time and effort you put into running and Mallory is the reason it ends. Figures,” Henry muttered, his head swaying like a stalk in the wind. “She never gave up on you, stupid girl. But now I see you, I get it. You died that night, didn’t you? The boy she loved. Some nobody track star she planned to run off and marry and squander her inheritance on. I knew all her plans, you know? She thought she was so smart, trying to hide her intentions. She never did know how to stop loving someone, even when it hurt her.” Henry swayed again, his eyes fluttering.
“Just like you,” I pointed out. “She never stopped loving you, even though all you did was hurt her.”
Henry grinned, and it was a macabre sight on his blood-soaked face. “Then it looks like we have more in common than you think, Kirill Chernov.”
* * *
A black cloudof anger and bloodlust swirled through my head as I made my way to the penthouse. Henry’s words dug their claws into my chest and wouldn’t let go. I already knew they were going to fucking haunt me.
Inside, Max was sitting in the kitchen. “How did it go?”