Chapter 4

Chapter

Four

EZRA

D olion Karagiani worked for Bradley fucking Sharpe. The bastard uncle who tortured Emersyn for most of her life. Karagiani was there when the guy tried to kill her by cutting up her arms. He was there when Sharpe held her prisoner at his home.

Frankly, I didn't give a fuck if he'd actually struck her not. Complicit with the torture made him guilty in my book. My knuckles burned where I'd punched him and the bones in my hand ached. My chest took the worst of it though. I was pretty sure was gonna bruise, where he'd slammed his foot into my breastbone.

As much as I wanted to rub at the spot, I didn't. Awareness of Adam's observation swarmed over me and he wasn't the only one watching me. Lainey hadn't moved far from me since she'd wrapped her arms around me in the living room.

With Karagiani strung up to the ceiling, she leaned against my side. The weight of her a comfort I barely understood that I needed. The rage inside me seethed like a stormy tide crashing against the rocks.

I wanted to gut the man with fish hooks and spread out his entrails so he could stare at them while he died. The bloody image was so visceral, I curled my hand into a fist.

Milo and Bodhi were the two closest to him, along with Liam's twin. I was surprised Liam wasn't up there but he'd planted himself at Em's side. Or rather, at her back. He wrapped around her, a dark and dangerous cloak of violence ready to strike with prejudice.

Honestly, I'd never understood Liam more. Karagiani had done literal harm to his wife. Had I known he was guilty of that, I'd have sent his head to her as a present instead of hiring the dick to shadow Lainey.

Fuck…

Fresh anger poured through me like a gushing wound, the gash too deep to stitch.

"Just kill me," Karagiani said, finally. His dead-eyed gaze fixed on Lainey. Blood dripped from a cut on his lip. There was another that had sliced across his right eyebrow.

I wasn't sure which of us did it, but the blood on my hands suggested it was me. I was more than okay with that.

"The lady told you what she wanted to know," Bodhi answered. "If you want to die, I suggest you cooperate."

"Why?" Karagiani dragged his gaze off her and that settled me some. A hand came to rest on my shoulder. The grip was a lot stronger than Lainey's and the weight a lot steadier.

Adam had my left while Lainey leaned into my right. They were holding me up when I should be cloaking her. The anger spread like a fire through me, eating away at everything in its path.

I'd put this man in her life.

More than once.

Fuck, in the months right after he'd stood witness to the depravity of Emersyn's uncle, I put him right into Lainey's orbit.

So many goddamn mistakes.

"Because dying is inevitable," Bodhi told him, so comfortable with what was to come it should actually terrify me. Cavendish had always seemed more than a little unhinged.

Right now, I liked unhinged.

I was beginning to feel more than a little unhinged myself.

"It's only how you die that's on the table," Milo said. "Fast. Slow. Easy or hard. Death comes for everyone but if you don't cooperate—we can make it take forever."

"Then let you heal up and do it again," Bodhi offered up almost cheerfully, like the idea actually delighted him. "Tell the lady what she wants to know."

"No."

One word.

All defiance.

"PPG," Bodhi said over his shoulder. "This is going to get messy."

"I'm okay," she answered in a voice that didn't quiver. "But thank you for the warning."

Bodhi twisted to look over his shoulder and he grinned. "You're welcome."

I saw the move even as Milo and Rome did, Karagiani tried to lash out with a foot to kick Bodhi. He took no one by surprise. All he got was his leg trapped in Bodhi's grip followed by a distinctive pop.

A vein throbbed in Karagiani's forehead but he didn't give in to a yell. Not this time. The man was still hanging by a broken arm. What was a dislocated knee?

Head canted, Bodhi seemed to be studying Lainey, not that I could tell what the hell was going on behind his eyes. Then again, maybe I could. Karagiani had tried to hurt her.

He was also choosing a bloody and brutal death.

"How badly do you want to know?" Bodhi asked and Lainey let out a slow sigh.

"Badly," I answered for her. "But she'll give it up and move on if we let her."

That earned me a stink eye as she twisted to glare up at me. "I am not that obvious."

"No, Kotyonok, you are not remotely obvious to anyone. But I have watched you sacrifice time and again. It's why I wanted you to have a bodyguard—I just wish I'd never hired him ."

"You didn't know," she said in a tone that brooked no arguments. "You would have killed him yourself if you had." No doubt seemed to exist within her. As much as I'd let her down, she still had faith in me.

"Yes," I promised. "I would have."

"Then we get the answers you want. It might take a while, but we get to be creative." Bodhi let go of his leg and glanced at Milo. "You want the first crack or should we give it to the twins?" He didn't wait for an answer. "No, the twins can have him after. We need answers first. Acceptable, O'Connell?"

"Acceptable," Liam said in an easy tone. "Rome…"

His twin didn't move. "I'm just watching until after."

Despite the pain twisting his expression, Karagiani actually cut a look toward the silent twin who was just "watching" him. He actually paled the longer he stared.

So, pain didn't bother him, but Rome did?

I kind of wondered what he saw in his eyes. Then I decided maybe I didn't want to know. I snapped back to the conversation in the room. Milo was moving, he had a knife and slash it along the achilles tendon of the man's uninjured leg.

His teeth clamped together, the clack of them audible. But he didn't scream. His pain tolerance would be impressive if it weren't annoying.

"You good?" Adam asked, his voice low and close to my ear. A warmth seemed to spread out, a wall against the fire still burning inside of me. Lainey still leaned into me, her arm around me and I recognized what she was doing.

She was comforting me. It was why Adam was still here.

"Get a pound of flesh for me, too?" It was a simple request but when I met Adam's gaze, there was no mistaking the retribution shining in his damn near purple eyes.

The violet in them always seemed subtle until he was really angry. The violence brought out the darkness in them or maybe it was the darkness in him that brought out the violence.

It was really fucking attractive. If we were anywhere else, I'd kiss that sensuous mouth of his. Raincheck, I promised myself.

"Just a pound?" Adam asked, flicking a look to Lainey for a moment. Long enough that I could admire the possessive heat in his stare and marvel at the fact he was including me in his display.

"Trying not to be greedy," I told him and the weight of his stare landed on me again.

"Be greedy," he said. "I'll let you know when it's too much."

Fuck.

Me.

Desire geysered upwards, splashing lava on all the burnt embers left by my temper. That raincheck was more than guaranteed.

I'd never been so damn hungry for him.

Did he have any idea of what he did to me?

I was about to make myself stop staring at him so heatedly before I just threw all caution to the wind. Karagiani absolutely needed to die and we could make out over his corpse—or not.

Then Adam winked at me before he strode forward.

He winked .

A huff of laughter escaped me…

"Your father knows," Karagiani said through gritted teeth, blood flecking each syllable he spoke. "You know that, right?"

I stared at him. "Not what the lady wanted to know." Yes, I was aware of my father's knowledge.

The next blow Karagiani took was to his kidney. Fists were effective. So were knives. I had no doubt that he was going to suffer a thousand cuts.

A dark laugh escaped him that turned to a grunt as Adam struck Karagiani again. The blows were calculated, didn't follow a natural rhythm. It just happened when he felt like it.

Not letting the betrayer brace for any of the strikes.

The man hissed as Milo sliced down his side. The shirt was going to be shredded. The shallow cuts were probably the worst. They would sting and bleed. Each injury chipping away at him.

"He hates that you can't even be a real ma—," Karagiani spit as Adam landed an even harder blow. "Ha… he hates you."

I waved a hand, almost bored with this attempt to incite me. "Not telling me anything I didn't know." Right now? I found it hard to care. The two most important people in the world loved me. Graham Wallace could go fuck himself.

Bodhi dislocated the other knee as something in Karagiani's shoulder popped and this time, he did scream.

"Everyone breaks," Bodhi said into tense silence. "Everyone."

"I killed them," Karagiani admitted, but he wasn't looking at them. He was still staring at me. My gut soured. "Killed them and made sure it hurt. His instructions were specific. He wanted you to know exactly what would happen."

The men my father had killed. Genevieve. The warnings of what he would do to Lainey and to Adam…

"That's why you were going to attack me?" Lainey said into the tension brewing around all of us. "Because Graham Wallace is a cowardly prick who gets off on terrorizing his son?"

She sounded… offended .

Karagiani spat out blood. His pallor was growing more ashen. He was losing blood. But we didn't want him to die too quickly.

"Did you work for my father the whole time?" It wasn't what Lainey asked but it was close enough.

The bodyguard started laughing, and it turned to coughing as more blood spilled out of his mouth. Where the hell was all the blood?—

"He took something," Bodhi said sharply and Milo swore. Then everyone was in motion, but the blood spreading in a pool on the floor just kept getting wider.

As much as I wanted to see him dead, I didn't want a single piece of him touching Lainey. When I drew her back from the bloody pool, she retreated with me.

Emersyn stared in horror as Rome also joined us. They got the man down, but it was no ruse. He seemed to be bleeding from his eyes, his nose…

Hell, there was even foam bubbling out of his mouth. What the actual fuck…

Not that we'd get any answers to that. His eyes glazed over and emptied of anything resembling life. The ashen complexion just went pale and waxy. Dolion Karagiani was dead.

Just.

Like.

That.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Bodhi said, with a note of disgust.

"And messy," Rome added but the dry comment just made Bodhi chuckle.

"Sorry Buttercup, PPG, we wanted to make it hurt more…"

"It's fine," Lainey said, rubbing a hand up and down my arm. The fact she'd been stroking me in gentle, slow comforting motions penetrated and I glanced at her. "Would I have liked more details? Clearly."

The little shrug she offered at the end of the question wasn't an act or affectation. She wasn't particularly bothered by the loss.

"He needed to die," Liam said. "He's dead. The only thing we don't know…"

"…is how much he compromised us." That was on me.

"It won't matter," Lainey said, then she twisted to look up at me as I frowned. "It won't." The two words were so firm they demanded I believe her. "We'll take care of it."

"She's right," Milo said. "Whatever it is, we will take care of it."

"If he set us up in some way, we'll deal with it," Adam added. "He worked for your father and Graham is already on the list."

"This just moves him to the top," Bodhi stated and I blinked slowly.

"You're going to kill my father?" All these years, I'd wanted to. It had been there, in the back of my mind, and I couldn't say I hadn't imagined it. He'd had me beaten, more than once. Done the beating himself until I got too tall. Then he had men for the job.

"Yes." The answer came from Lainey, succinct and simple. "You don't have to do anything."

"You don't," Bodhi agreed and Milo nodded.

"We will take care of it," Adam said at the end.

Casual, direct, and accepted. We were even discussing it in front of Emersyn, Liam and his twin. Then again, Liam knew us and Emersyn…

The horror radiating off of her when she'd seen Karagiani had pissed me off instantly. The horror was gone, replaced by a kind of rough sympathy.

"That's what family does," she told me. "They help us face our demons and when we need it, they take those demons out."

Take the demons out.

I tugged Lainey a little closer and she went pliant against me as I wrapped her up in my arms. "I like having you for a cousin, Em."

Her grin was wide and accepting. "You're not so bad, but cousins doesn't mean you get to be bossy."

"He's already bossy," Lainey muttered and a weird feeling broke in my chest, it crackled and popped. It was as though I'd been drowning from pneumonia, the pressure unbearable, yet now I could breathe again.

"You like us bossy," I murmured and Lainey pinched me even as she held me tight. I was still shaking, and I wasn't a fan of it. But every breath seemed to fill me more, bolstering me.

"That leaves really only one question," Milo said.

"Not it," Rome and Liam said in a single breath and Milo just snorted.

"Not it, for what…?"

"For cleanup," Bodhi said in a droll tone, then rolled his head from side to side.

"I can help," Lainey offered. "Body disposal is not something I've really done before."

I pulled back and stared at her.

"What?" She swung a glance around the room. "I haven't."

Fuck, was it any wonder I loved her?