Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
“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 handed the 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.
“Thanks for that,” I say.
And I slit his throat.
He gurgles in shock. Blood wells up thick and dark. I back off, stepping over the bed as his hands scrabble at his neck. He jerks sideways and falls down onto the floor, more blood leaking from his pumping artery.
I watch him die. His wife watches too. She’s sobbing and shaking into her pillow.
Gentle and fast. More than he deserved.
I planned on making him suffer for what he did to my wife. But maybe I’m going soft. Just like I was soft with Dasha. My arms wrapped around my wife’s body. Her satisfied sighs and mewls as she drifted off to sleep.
Donnie lets out one last rattle and goes still.
Pathetic fucking bastard broke so easily.
I use their bedspread to wipe his blood from my knife.
Snot rolls down his wife’s face as she curls into a ball. She’s a wretched, pathetic little thing. “Please, please,” she begs, “please let me call an ambulance. Please don’t hurt my baby.”
I shove my knife back into my belt. She needs a morgue, not a goddamn paramedic.
“Next time, don’t marry a fucking scumbag,” I tell her, which is really good advice. I hope she’ll follow it.
I leave the woman alone. I hear her screaming as I descend the stairs, thinking about Dasha all the way out the back door again and into the rain.
Should I have killed the wife too? She saw my face. There’s a small chance that could blow back on me if this ever gets touched by the BPD.
Would I have spared the woman if I hadn’t slept in my wife’s bed last night?
The thought troubles me as I hurry down the block. There’s a car waiting around the corner. I slip into the back and sigh once the door’s slammed shut.
“Job done, boss?” My new driver’s an established and respected member of the Brotherhood named Alexan, a clever and technically gifted hacker. He’s ambitious and ruthless, both things I look for in a soldier. He’s also in his early thirties and not some fresh-faced kid. His age and experience make him a worthwhile addition to my personal team.
“All finished. You can turn the lights back on.”
He does something on a small laptop in the seat next to him, then the street lamps flicker back to life.
“Where to now?” he asks.
“Home.” I lean back and close my eyes. “Send a secure message to Arsen. Tell him we’re looking for Ciaran and Oisin McGrath next.”
Alexan’s eyes widen slightly. “The Murder Twins?”
I flinch and wave that fucking stupid nickname away. “Just send the message.”
Alexan types away, and I turn to the night, brooding on what happened back in that room. Dasha’s smiling face keeps ghosting through my mind. Her sweaty, satisfied body limp in my arms. My seed spent between her legs.