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“Those soldiers aren’t born mute, idiot.” Kenzi’s eyes darkened, lips turning up in a sneer. “Their tongues are cut out when they’re recruited.”
“By choice?” Maksim balked, licking his lower lip.
Kenzi bobbed her head. “Some of them,” she conceded. “Others are forced into recruitment depending on their skills evaluation.”
“But why cut out their tongues?”
“When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who confided it,” Kenzi recited.
Dante smiled down at his daughter. “Jean de LaBruyère.”
“I am so confused right now,” Vas admitted.
“It means that whoever employed them ensured they wouldn’t be able to spill their secrets,” Dante explained. “That must be why Mark heard the beeping sound over the comm frequency. It’s how they communicate.”
“I’m not sure what it is, but Mark was right when he said it wasn’t Morse code.”
Matthias shrugged. “Morse code can be easily changed to meet someone else’s needs as long as the people who are receiving it know it as well.”
“Great,” Maksim grumbled. “Now we have to worry about someone powerful enough to send deadly mute assassins after us. Just what we need.”
“What you all need right now is to shower.” My father shook his head. “We can discuss everything later. These bodies need to get taken down to the funeral home to be burned, and I need to get boards up over the windows in the front before the homeless decide to invade.”
“Come, Ava.” Matthias took my hand and pulled me along beside him toward the door that led to the kitchens.
“Jaysus,” my father hollered. “Can’t you take the back stairs and not track blood through my bar?”
“Bill me for it, old man,” Matthias hollered back, but I didn’t miss how he veered off to the left toward the back stairwell.
It was a short trip up to the residential floor and into our suite. I was nearly running to keep up with my husband with his long, hurried strides.
Matthias pulled us into the bathroom, and all I did was stand and watch him as he opened the faucets. Steam filled the large space within minutes. I stood there waiting for him, not moving to remove my clothes until he was ready. I’d heard the way he had called my name through the bar. It had been suffused with panic and raw fear. He needed to be in control right now. To ensure I wasn’t hurt.
Reaching out, he pulled my sweater off me. He kept going until I was stark naked, and then he stripped off his own clothes, which were covered in dirt and blood. I breathed a sigh of relief when I noticed none of it appeared to be his.
I licked my lips as I watched him reveal his body inch by inch, my pussy already pulsing at the thought of what he could do to me with it. He was a machine. A powerhouse. Every inch of him solid perfection crafted from hours of hard, torturous work.
He tilted his head toward the shower, smirking when I shook my head to clear out the daze his statue of a body created. He stepped in behind me, closing the door, and yanked my body to his. I melted against him; his arms wrapped tightly around me. He ran his hands along both of my arms, categorizing each bruise and scrape. There weren’t that many since Marianne had gone for my hair, and my clothes had taken the brunt of the force when I hit the concrete.
A few scraped knees and elbows were far better than my previous encounter with either of them.
He growled when I winced at his hands in my hair. He’d lathered them up with shampoo and had managed to hit the large knot on the side of my head where I had headbutted Marianne’s gun. Not my smartest idea, but it had worked.
“I’m going to kill her when I find her,” he snarled, gently avoiding the injured area.
“Not if I get to her first,” I grumbled. “Or my mom.”
Matthias let out a low laugh as he tipped my head back under the warm spray to rinse my hair out. “That would be a sight to see, my little psycho.”
I hummed delightfully as I poured a good amount of bodywash into my open palm. “I love it when you call me that,” I admitted. Lathering up my hands, I glided them along his body, remapping every hard inch of him like I had so many times before.
We’d grown closer since his miraculous return from the dead, but we were still working every day to make things work between us. He was still a controlling asshole most of the time, but I wasn’t going back to being that meek, quiet girl he had forced to marry him.
Not that he seemed to mind that I had changed. If anything, he encouraged it. Except in the bedroom. That was when he made sure to be fully in control. I sure as fuck didn’t mind that at all.
Matthias groaned when I took his hot, hard length in my soapy hand, rubbing him with long, sweeping motions. I brushed my thumb over his tip each time I passed it, applying just enough pressure to see his knees shaking slightly. And they say women don’t have any power over men. Holding him now, hard as stone in my hand, I held all the power, and we both knew it.
“Fuck, Red,” he breathed, leaning his head back against the tile with a dull thud. “Your hand feels like heaven.” Urged on by his strained moans, I quickened my pace when he bucked into my hand, seeking more.
