“I guess you’ll have to toss him into the tiger enclosure,” I said.
Nestore turned to me with a curious look.
I shrugged. “He tried to butcher me with a meat tenderizer.”
Nestore’s eyes flickered with bloodlust, and his answering smile scared even me a little. “I need to get a few answers out of him before the tiger enjoys him. He tends to kill them before I can question them.”
“He said the Bratva told him to kill me.”
Nestore nodded. “I want more names, and I want to make him pay for what he’s done.” He cupped my cheek. “Go, dove. I don’t want you to watch. You’ve seen too much blood in your life.”
“I can handle blood,” I reminded him.
“I know. Nobody knows it better than me.”
I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his lips. “I’ll be waiting for you. Come back to me soon.”
“Trust me, I need your closeness more than you can fathom.”
He kissed me again, then stepped back. I turned around and left the enclosure. Rodolfo, pressing a hand against his shoulder wound, and two other guards joined me as I walked up the path toward the house. I glanced at Rodolfo. “Shouldn’t you get this treated? You’re bleeding a lot.” The entire left side of his shirt was covered in blood.
He grimaced. “Your safety is my top priority, or my life is forfeit.”
A sudden fear struck me. “Did someone alert Flavia’s bodyguards? The Bratva could target them as well.”
“They were notified,” Rodolfo said in a tight voice. I still made a mental note to call her as soon as I got my phone. On my way to the primary bedroom, I grabbed the vase with the bouquet. I needed something to lighten my mood. I put it down on the small side table beside the sofa, then grabbed my phone from the nightstand and sank onto the sofa. I called Flavia, but as Rodolfo had said, she was safe and had additional security for the time being.
I moved into the bathroom to shower away the memories of what had happened. A glance at my face revealed the skin right beneath my lower lip was still tinged red from biting Lev.
Maybe I wasn’t so different from Nestore. The time in the basement had shaped us both, but I could hide the effects better.
I dragged a limp Lev by the meat hook wedged into his shoulder toward the tiger enclosure. He was whimpering but otherwise not moving. The last hour in my hands, he’d learned the true meaning of agony, and I made his withdrawal symptoms seem like a walk in the fucking park. I couldn’t believe this worthless piece of shit had dared to attack Amelia.
I shouldn’t have left her this long. I had been filled with the need to destroy, to overcome this feeling of powerlessness I had had since Achille’s death, but I should have returned to her sooner. She was my wife. She was my everything. If something had happened to her…
I jerked at the hook, and Lev’s eyes jerked open, then rolled back again. He was a wimp. The tiger watched me from its resting place on a boulder. He’d enjoy this extensive meal. Iunlocked the door in the fence, then ripped the hook out of Lev’s shoulder before I shoved him inside and locked him in.
He landed on his knees, gasping in pain as he grabbed his broken ribs. Three of his fingers were missing. I took them out of my pants pocket and tossed them into the enclosure as a treat. Lev’s expression twisted, and he threw up. He had already done so twice, and only foam tinged red with blood came out. The tiger stretched leisurely, then hopped off the boulder.
Lev crawled toward the fence. “Please! Please! I’ll do anything to make you forgive me. Just tell me what to do.”
“Die,” I said.
The tiger began running, then, with a jump, it sank its teeth into Lev’s bleeding calf and dragged him backward. Lev’s fingers flailed over the grass. I watched for the next fifteen minutes as the tiger enjoyed its treat and Lev wished for death. When his neck snapped, I turned and left.
I needed to make sure the Bratva regretted the day they decided to kill Amelia. Sure, I had killed ten of their men brutally, but attacking my wife? That went beyond simple retribution.
I loathed the idea of leaving Amelia even for a second, but I needed to make sure she was safe, and that meant I had to erase any thought of Amelia from my enemies’ minds. They needed to dread her name. Once I was done with the mediocre Pakhan in Los Angeles, even the Bratva would know that Amelia was on a pedestal.
Amelia sat on the sofa in our bedroom when I entered. She was dressed in a soft-looking white knit dress and barefoot. I wanted nothing more than to kiss her and pull her into my arms, but covered in blood as I was, it was out of the question.
“He’s dead,” I said. She gave a small nod. In her lap,The Tale of Peter Rabbitwas open. It had become her comfort read, like it was mine. I moved into the bathroom and took a quick showerbefore I returned to the bedroom. I held out my hand, and Amelia allowed me to pull her to her feet. I wrapped my arms around her and buried my nose in her hair. The residual anger I’d still felt toward her because she’d killed her father was gone. The moment I’d heard of the danger she’d been in, my worry and fear had trumped everything else.
“Are you still mad?” she whispered against my bare chest.
“No. I’m not. I’m mad at your father because I never managed to get even with him.”
“You wouldn’t have ever felt like you did, no matter how long you tortured him.”
