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I look up into her tired face. She’s exhausted and hurting, and she’s already been through too much tonight.

“There’s something I want to tell you. About Artem. My brother. But not tonight.” I brush my thumb across her cheek. “Rest first.”

She looks down at me, nodding without argument. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll listen.”

Gratitude and love swell in my chest, blocking out the pain in my ribs.

“I’m sending Scava up to see to you properly,” I tell her, bracing my hand on the mattress and pushing up onto my feet, suppressing the groan in my throat as my torso protests. “Don’t fight him. Be a good girl and let him see to that wrist.”

A ghost of a smile touches the corner of her mouth. “Me? I don’t fight.”

“You bit my hand down to the bone in that basement.”

“That was self-defense,” she says, the teasing warmth making the tight knot in my chest loosen just a fraction. “You were acting like a villain.”

“I am a villain,” I remind her, leaning down to trap her chin between two fingers and press my lips to hers in a slow, deep kiss. A villain’s kiss.

I whisper against her mouth, “I’m your villain now.”

I head for the bedroom door, my jaw clenching as the fire in my cracked ribs flares into life with every step.

When I push open the heavy door to the concrete basement, Alexei is still standing over Troy. The big Russian hasn’t moved a muscle, the barrel of the shotgun resting lightly against the base of Troy’s skull. Troy is sobbing now, a wet, pathetic hitching sound that echoes off the gray walls, his knees slick with his own sweat and the urine pooling beneath him.

I’ll deal with him in a minute.

I turn to Lorenzo. “Cora has a head wound and the cast on her wrist is broken. Will you see to her?”

Lorenzo is already wearing black latex gloves and holding a tray of medical supplies. He steps past me toward the stairs without a word.

Perfect.

Now I can focus.

Troy looks up as my shadow falls across the concrete, his face pale, streaked with dirt and tear tracks.

“Wait—” Troy chokes out, his hands trembling as he holds them up, palms out, begging. “Please! I—I was just following Simeon’s orders. He forced me, you have to believe me. I didn’t want any of this to happen.”

Alexei flips the shotgun and drives the stock into the back of Troy’s head. The crack echoes off the walls. Troy cries out in pain and collapses forward onto his hands.

I turn my gaze to Lorenzo’s workbench. He’s laid out an array of surgical instruments in neat rows. Scalpels. Bone saws. Forceps.

How thoughtful.

Alexei hauls Troy back onto his knees by his collar, dragging him upright like a sack of dead weight.

“Scava was telling us what went on down here while he was waiting for us,” Alexei says, his voice flat. “Apparently this one couldn’t stop gloating. Very pleased with himself about handing Cora over to Simeon. Going on about how nobody was coming to save her. How she’d finally learn her place.” Alexei tilts his head. “Isn’t that right, you piece of shit?”

Troy’s shoulders shake with frantic sobs.

I reach down and pick up a pair of heavy forceps with a serrated grip. The kind that don’t slip when things get bloody.

I crouch down in front of Troy and trap his jaw in my left hand. He tries to flinch away, but I squeeze until his jawbone feels like it’s about to give under my knuckles.

“Wait, please—!” he screams, his breath hot against my hand.

“You told her nobody was coming?” A sharp craving for bloody violence floods my veins.

I force the heavy steel past his teeth, lock the serrated edges onto his back molar, and twist.