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I had the doctor run a battery of tests on her. I wanted her in tiptop physical shape before we advanced our game. Molly had no idea that the opening moves had already been played. She needed to be strong and healthy to survive me and my vengeance. Later, once my vengeance was sated, she’d need to be strong for her life by my side as my wife and mother of my children. I wouldn’t live without her ever again.
She shifted in her sleep, her smooth brow creasing as she twisted and turned away from nightmares. I wished I could install a camera in her head and see what demons hunted her, even in her sleep. I didn’t care much for the competition.
Doctor Petrov had warned me she was depleted in sleep and vitamins. He had tutted a lot when examining her, with the kind of judgmental misogyny typical of a Russian ex-pat of his age. He was incapable of understanding that some young people were poor and that poverty took its toll on their bodies. Regardless, his dispassionate list of physical symptoms had tightened something in my belly. She’d chosen this life instead of waiting for me as she’d promised.
As I watched her sleep, the doctor returned.
“Ah, Kirill Viktorovich, I have the tests for her. Anemic, like I thought. She also has a contraceptive implant, but it’s old. It mustn’t have worked for a year now,” he said, looking up from his clipboard.
“Do you have what we discussed?”
Petrov tapped a slim case by his side. “It’s here.”
“Let’s get a move on before she wakes up.” I returned to the chair, continuing my vigil.
Petrov shuffled toward the bed. Alexei Petrov was a Chernov man and on call for me at any hour. I didn’t know or care who he’d had to pay to look the other way to tend Mallory in his hospital.
“The birth control implant—”
“That’s her responsibility,” I said in a tone that Petrov didn’t dare argue with.
“I could remove it since it’s no longer working,” he suggested.
“And why would I want that? Do what I ask and nothing more.” My artic tone could freeze a man at a hundred paces.
Petrov lowered his gaze and went about his work. He put an IV line straight into her pale, slender hand and unzipped the little case he’d brought in. He sterilized Mallory’s hand where the tracker would go and inserted it seamlessly under her skin.
I watched him work for a moment before pulling Mallory’s purse from the table and opening her wallet. I tucked her driver’s license into my wallet after taking a picture to send to Max. I sorted through the rest. She had one bank card and a library card, and that was it. There was something painful about how small her life was. She was a grown woman of twenty-five, yet her wallet didn’t look much different from when she was a teenager.
I called Max after I sent him the picture. “Where is Igor?”
Max was quiet for a moment before speaking. “I sent him to the hospital. He’s waiting outside.”
Anticipation curled through me like smoke—the monster scenting blood in the air.
I left Petrov to his work and slid open the door of the private suite where Mallory was recovering. Outside in the hall, five of my men stood on either side of the door. Viktor Chernov’s potential heir wasn’t without enemies, and constant security was one more nagging pain in my life. The man I was looking for was standing at the end. He had his chin raised and was putting on a good show.
I approached Igor slowly, letting his fear rise and wash over him, sending that obstinate chin down a few inches.
“Do you know what you did?” I asked him coldly, stopping in front of him.
He swallowed so loud it seemed to echo in the hallway.“I-I’m not sure.”
I leaned in as if I was about to whisper to him and brought a heavy hand down hard on the back of his neck. I used his forward momentum to swing him around and straight into the wall. His head hit off the expensive-looking marble with a smack and smeared red against the gray and white color scheme.
“You touched something of mine,” I growled in his ear before slamming his head into the wall again.
Igor didn’t fight back. He wouldn’t dare. Not that I couldn’t have taken him, regardless. Viktor’s kink was having his heirs battle it out with men in training, and I’d proven myself the king of the heap many times.
“I didn’t know she was yours,” Igor gritted and spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor.
I didn’t bother to dignify that with a response.Instead, I pulled his hand behind his back. “Which one was it?”
Igor paused a moment. “The left,” he said quietly. That pause gave away his lie.
Holding his right, dominant hand, I bent his pointer finger back first. The sound of the bone cracking echoed down the hall.
“Maybe next time, you’ll bear it in mind,” I said calmly as I broke every one of his fingers until he was quiet and pale, his hand swollen beyond recognition.
