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25
SCAR
That bastard had put the “greater needs” of the city over his own daughter’s safety. Judge Ryan had received Tiernan’s list of demands for Irina’s safe return and refused.
He had to put the law before his daughter. His integrity and justice were more important than protecting her from whatever Hell they’d put her through. He didn’t negotiate with criminals.
“Why haven’t you found her?!” I yelled. Over twenty-four hours had passed since Irina was taken. More than a day with her in the clutches of our enemies, with them doing God knows what to her and putting her through the kinds of suffering I’d only ever wanted to protect her from.
But I’d left her, when I should have stayed by her side and locked her up in a gilded cage, where nothing could ever hurt her. I’d left her, and now….
“They must have left the city with her before Ed Ryan informed us that she’d been taken,” Ryker explained. “A wider net means it takes me longer to find her, Scar. I’ve got all our guys on it.”
“It isn’t enough,” I snapped. “How would you feel if they took Calla and you couldn’t fucking find her? You wouldn’t be standing in the fucking kitchen and listening to me tell you that you had to wait. You’d be out looking!”
“I know,” he said, squeezing his eyes closed.
“Then tell them to let me leave. I am not going to be locked in this house like a fucking child while they hurt her,” I argued, storming away from the kitchen island where Ivory baked furiously to try to relieve her own anxiety. The living room greeted me as I moved through the house, four of Matteo’s guys closing in on the door as I neared it.
For twenty-four hours, they’d kept me locked away.
For twenty-four hours, they’d kept me from hunting down each and every one of Murphy’s contacts and slaughtering them all until someone told me what I needed to know. Ryker was working on it, but the situation required care and finesse that they said I wasn’t capable of at the moment.
My desperation to find her would only endanger her more if I pissed Murphy off. And if they didn’t already know that she was more than just the daughter of Ed Ryan—didn’t know that she was Bellandi property—I would only tip them off to another way they could use her.
I knew it. Down to my bones, I knew she was safer without me going on a killing spree. But Ryker was a professional stalker, the legendary torturer of Chicago.
Why the fuck couldn’t he find my butterfly?
I spun back to face Ivory and Ryker, running a hand through my hair with all my pent up frustration. All the rage that threatened to pour out of me. “If they’ve touched her…”
“I know, honey,” Ivory said, dropping her spatula to the counter and closing the distance between us. She wrapped her arms around my waist, the numbness in my body leaving me completely unbothered by anyone who wanted to touch me.
Ivory could typically manage on most days anyway, but in the aftermath of them taking Irina, I was fairly certain a stranger could use my body and I wouldn’t feel anything.
Nothing else mattered but her safety, and I would gladly trade places with her if it meant she’d come home safe. I’d sacrifice myself to the life I hated, to the life I swore I’d never allow myself to live again.
And I’d do it all for her.
“I should have protected her,” I murmured, leaning my head against the top of Ivory’s. “It should have been me at her apartment with her.”
“The security footage showed four men entering her apartment. If you’d been there, you’d be dead, Scar,” Ryker said, reminding me of the cameras I’d installed inside, of the fact that I could see for myself what they’d done and everything she and Bryan had endured. One day, I’d be able to handle that, but for now all I’d be able to think was that I could have protected her. Giving Ryker access to the footage to look for clues to where they might have gone was all I’d been able to manage.
“Anything is better than this,” I said.
“Irina will need you when they get her back. It’s better that you’re here for her,” Ivory interjected.
“And don’t underestimate her. I went to the apartment with Matteo and Enzo. She’s strong, man. From what I saw there and on the footage you gave us, she can survive anything they put her through,” Ryker added, a little smirk appearing on his face as he shook his head.
“Tell me,” I barked. I hadn’t thought I wanted to know the details. Hadn’t considered that I would want to know anything about how afraid she might have been, but something in Ryker’s voice made me feel like I needed it.
“From what I could tell, Bryan took out one of them when they first entered. Bullet to the brain, and he was dead immediately. The others shot Bryan, ten times to be exact, while Irina made a run for the fire escape. At least two of them intercepted her in the bedroom. She hit one of them with the fire poker and shattered his skull,” he said, continuing to summarize what he and Enzo had pieced together from her apartment. “They underestimated her. Don’t make the same mistake.”
“She puts up a good front,” I said, shaking my head. I could absolutely see my butterfly tearing through men who wanted to hurt her, through the criminals of our city, when she wasn’t alone. When there was a reason to put on the mask of the warrior and act braver than she was.
But I’d seen the results of her struggle with her mental health for myself, seen the scars and the scabs on her thighs where she hurt herself when no one was watching.
Irina could survive killing a man. She could survive rape.
But there was no telling what ways her mind would twist those things against her in the dead of night, no predicting what she might do to try to cope with the trauma she suffered.
My butterfly may very well come back to me in one piece, but she might never fly again. They’d clip her wings if she let them see who she was. If they saw past the mask to the vulnerable woman inside who she tried to keep hidden.
Ivory said she’d need me when she came back, but all Irina really needed was to see herself the way the rest of the world did. To see beyond the broken girl who couldn’t sleep at night without medication.
That girl wouldn’t just break if Tiernan Murphy got a hold of her.
She’d fucking shatter.
