Page 102 of Marked By the Devil

I showed Mila to a bathroom near the patio’s entrance to the pool, but before Wren and I could leave her, Lev’s voice reached us as he arrived, looking for Mila.

“Maksim’s with Carina and Adrik and Elena,” he said, squeezing into the bathroom and checking Mila like she’d been hurt.

I backed Wren out of there with me, letting him have the peace of mind to see that his wife was okay. Perhaps shaken, but okay.

“She’s… she’s had a hard life, hasn’t she?” Wren asked quietly as I led her to another bathroom on the first floor. It was technically a guest suite but it was never used. I never had guests—except for her.

“She has,” I replied.

“She’s too calm. She had to have been traumatized before,” she stated neutrally.

“Yes, she has,” I answered, aware of how she’d been beaten as a slave in the Cartels. And at the camp where Yusef Antonov was training sadists and killers to do Gregori’s dirty work.

Wren shook her head as I led her to the shower. “I won’t pry.”

“She’ll tell you,” I said, knowing she was just talking for the sake of filling the silence.

“Yeah,” she whispered. She stood there while I turned the water on, then took off her shirt and then mine.

“I killed him, Viktor.” She peered up at me as I got us into the shower. I held her close, letting the water rush down over us and start rinsing Paul’s blood away.

“You did.”

“I’ve never killed someone before.”

Fuck.

I braced myself for her tears. For guilt. For the sorrow of taking a life.

“I wish I could do it again.” She set her hands on my chest, letting out a deep breath. “I wish he could come back to life so I could kill him all over again.”

I stroked my hand over her back and held her until we were calm enough in the quiet of the shower to wash off the blood. She explained again how it had all gone down, and I admired her more for keeping her head high and not falling into a hysterical fit like Elena had. She was softer than the others, and I was glad that Wren could be this strong and bold to accept that she wasn’t inherently bad for taking a life, and that it had been necessary.

A guard brought us a change of clothes, and by the time we were dressed and had exited, all traces of Smithson’s body were gone. Our cleanup crews were notorious for getting the job done well. And fast. But I didn’t miss how Wren glanced in the direction of the stairs when we met to join the others in the great room.

“He’s stable,” Adrik said. “I just got a call from Alexei.”

“Good,” Wren replied, holding a glass of water between her hands.

Carina and Maksim had taken Elena to the mansion already. Both women needed to get back to the babies that the nannies were watching over—something they didn’t often allow for long.

“Will Elena be okay?” Wren asked.

Adrik nodded. “She will. She’s not as… hardy as you two. Or Carina.” He stood there and looked between both Mila and Wren. “Are you handling it okay?”

Wren nodded, and Mila glanced at Wren before giving him the same gesture.

“I’m sorry I killed him⁠—”

“No, you’re fucking not,” I said for Wren, cutting her off sharply.

“—before anyone could question him about his ties to Gregori,” she finished saying slowly.

I sighed, keeping my arm around her.

“Safety matters first,” Adrik said plainly. “And I thank you for taking him out.”

A guard came to speak with us, explaining that Smithson had tased a guard at the back of the property and snuck in along the garden wall. Surveillance cameras showed that he had been watching where Paul was, tracking him so he could get past him and get into the house.