AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The older one! Bitch never should have come back.”
Ginevra? They wanted to scare my Ginevra?Rage overtook my good sense, and I backhanded him, sending his head snapping to the side. “Why?” I growled, leaning close.
“I don’t know! But the order came from Yuri!” he sobbed. The number two Bratva was ordering hits on Ginevra? That didn’t make a damn bit of sense.
“Think harder. Why would Yuri want to scare a Russo who’s been gone for ten years?”
The Russian shook his head. “I don’t know,” he cried.
I grabbed a knife off the table beside me and stabbed it into his thigh, careful to avoid his artery. Despite the red clouding my vision, I hung onto just enough sanity to know I needed him alive for a few more minutes.
“I need more than that.”
“She was here before she left! She was born a fucking Russo, and she was raised a fucking Russo, and she did fucking Russo shit to the Russians.”
Well, fuck. Our little lamb had unplumbed depths. I exchanged a look with Cormac. Before Lorenzo could stop me, I lunged toward the Russian, cut through his belly, then reached in and pulled. He screamed as his intestines spilled out between his legs and onto the floor. After a few moments, I sliced across his neck, sending blood spattering across the room.
“What the fuck!” Lorenzo shouted, looking at the mess I’d made with horror. “You fucking killed him!”
Cormac caught my eye, murder written all over his face. We advanced on Lorenzo together. The Italian-American man stood his ground.
“Do you trust Alexi?” I asked him, my voice soft and sharp.
“I trust him to keep Antonio safe,” Lorenzo answered, his face giving nothing away.
“And the girls?”
Lorenzo twisted his mouth in distaste. “You saw what happened today, didn’t you?”
His honesty was refreshing. “Something rotten in the kingdom of Denmark?”
But Lorenzo just smiled and said, “My loyalty is to the Russos, all of them.”
That would have to be enough. Cormac and I backed off. I grabbed the bloody equipment and walked it over to the sink to rinse it off.
“The cleaners will be by in about an hour,” Lorenzo said, laying a hand on my arm. “Go check on your girl. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”
The growlthat escaped me as I exited the damp stairwell into the sunny kitchen startled Ginevra. She looked over her shoulder toward me, her warm brown eyes wide and tremulous as a handsome young man taped gauze to her wound.
“Are these scratches new?” he asked, looking at the cuts I’d left on her back two nights before. They were already healing. The medic needed to keep his damn hands to his damn self.
Cormac lay a calming hand on my shoulder as I slowly released the rage pumping through my veins.
Our woman blushed, somehow looking sweet and pretty despite her embarrassment. “The scratches are fine. How do I take care of this?” She gestured to the bandage on her side, changing the subject back to her immediate care.
“Keep it covered and dry for the next day or so, then keep it clean. You’ll want to apply anti-bacterial cream and bandage it every time you wash it. Take painkillers as you need them.” He handed her an orange bottle with a dozen pills inside.
Ginevra nodded sharply at the medic, then hopped down from the kitchen island where she’d been sitting. When she turned around to face me, her eyes took in my blood splattered clothes and the grim line of my mouth.
“What did he have to say?” she asked me, not bothering with any sort of preamble.
Damn, our woman was cold. I bet if I put a knife in her hand she’d be fucking brutal at interrogations.Now wasn’t that a thought to keep me warm at night?
“Not much. The Russians are trying to scare you.”
She frowned. “Scare me? Do they know about our contract?”
Rian took her hand in his and tugged her out of the kitchen, gently, as if she would shatter at any moment. He hadn’t yet realized the immensity of her inner strength. She yanked her hand out of his and strode to her father’s study without stopping to see if the rest of us would follow.
