It was small, plain and utterly unremarkable save for the plastic sheeting on the floor, and the large eyelet screwed into the ceiling. Well, those and the entire shelf full of sharp and rather menacing looking devices.
“You know,” Ezra said. “I’m really starting to like you, Bodhi.”
“I grow on people,” Bodhi answered as they secured Karagiani to the eyelet. It meant loosening his restraints, but he wasn’t going anywhere. A grunt of pain escaped the man as they pulled his arms higher.
No sympathy existed within me.
“PPG?” Bodhi said and I shook my head. That nickname was amusing, if it bothered Em, Trouble would never have used it. But the tense air around her lightened and the source of the nickname gave her room to breathe.
I would never find fault with that.
“He worked for my uncle,” Em explained and she had the attention of everyone in the room. “The day I was taken back… he was there. He stopped the one guard who sliced my wrists, but he wasn’t my friend. He made that very clear.”
Every word came out stronger than the last.
“Did he hurt you, Ivy?” Pretty Boy’s question belied the intensity in his glare.
“Not directly.”
Well, that was one point in his favor.
Not that it was going to sway much.
“So, you didn’t hurt her directly,” I said, meeting Karagiani’s gaze and holding it. “But you were ready to assault me the minute she recognized you.” The temperature in the room plummeted. “I want to know why.”
Chapter
Four
EZRA
Dolion 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.”
