“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.
