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I don’t plan to ever repeat it.
I just keep silently berating myself for letting her go in alone. I should be in there with her. I should be by her side.
But then Curt’s words come into my head. If I let the frustration, the fear, take over, I’ll lose. I have to remain focused and steady. For her sake and that of everyone here.
We’re a team, and we have a fucking job to do.
As soon as Curt and I walk around the house’s left corner, we come face-to-face with two armed men dressed in black.
We silently neutralize them and keep walking, leaving the bodies where they fell.
How did we not see them from the front? Were they hiding?
What the hell is happening here?
We slip around the corner to the back yard in time to see Carmine and Nadia kill two men. Curt and I take care of two more headed their way.
“Six?” I ask.
“Eight,” Carmine replies.
“Twelve,” Rocco says as he jumps down from above.
“Jesus,” I whisper and immediately move to the back door.
“There are men inside,” Carmine says grimly. “I counted two in the kitchen. I saw three people in the living room, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more.”
“There’s no one upstairs,” Rocco adds. “It’s clear.”
We kill two more in the kitchen.
Fourteen men.
I motion for the others to stop and be silent, and I quickly look around the corner where I hear a man speaking rapidly in a foreign language.
There is no one else in the house that I can see. Just Ivie, her father, and the other man yelling at them.
“Bulgarian,” Nadia whispers in my ear.
I turn to look at the others and point to myself.
I go in first.
They nod once.
But when I turn back around, all hell has already broken loose.
Chapter 19
~Ivie~
Once across the street from Shane and the others, I snap my spine straight and clear my throat.
No hesitation. No nerves.
This is a long time coming, and I’m going to take advantage of it. It’s an opportunity I never thought to get. Just hours ago, I was thinking that I’d never have my mama with me to fluff my dress and giggle with my friends before I got married.
And it’s his fault.
I get to make him pay.
But before I do, I have a lot to say to the man I thought was dead. I won’t waste the moment.
I climb the small house’s rickety steps. He lives in a beautiful neighborhood, but his home is starting to crumble. It doesn’t surprise me. I wonder if the neighbors are pissed that he’s bringing their property values down.
Without knocking, I turn the doorknob, surprised to find it unlocked. I walk right in.
The space smells of him—tobacco and stale onions. I would never forget that smell. The air carries a light haze from cigarettes. There’s a TV on upstairs.
The furniture is old and has holes in the cushions. A photo of my mother on the wall has me seeing red.
How dare he?
“Hello?”
The man who sired me walks into the living room and stops cold, staring at me with surprised eyes.
“Have a seat,” I tell him with a hard voice.
“Laryssa.”
“Does not exist,” I reply calmly. “Sit the fuck down, Pavlov.”
His face turns red, and his eyes narrow. “You will not speak to me like that.”
“Oh, I’m gonna speak to you any way I see fit, you piece of trash. If you don’t want to sit, that’s fine. You can hear me just fine while standing.”
“How did you find me?”
“It doesn’t matter. I am going to do the talking, and I want the damn truth. Why did you kill my mother?”
He glances toward the photo on the wall.
“No, don’t you dare look at her. Why did you kill her? Cut her throat?”
“Because I was given an order to,” he says simply.
I stare at him, unblinking. This man that scared me so badly as a child, who hurt me on a whim, looks so old and frail now. I’m as tall as he is. His face is wrinkled, his eyes dull. He’s lost most of his dark hair.
He’s a shell of the man he once was.
“You were supposed to die,” he continues. His voice still carries the thick Bulgarian accent from my youth. “I spared you.”
“So I could do your dirty work.” I shake my head and prop my hands on my hips. “So I could steal and deliver shit that you didn’t want to be caught with. You spared me so gross, old men could ogle me—a child—and give you what you wanted.”
“And it worked. We were a good team, you and me, Laryssa.”
“I said Laryssa doesn’t fucking exist. I killed her and created someone new. Someone who doesn’t carry your name, who has nothing at all to do with you. And I’ve done a damn good job of making a nice life for myself.”
