The door to the basement was shut tight. David had left my room ten minutes before, right after getting a call from his brother. The immediate danger was over, but David wore a glare that told me his work was just beginning. I’d crept down the stairs and along the hallway to Nate’s office. Deserted. Only George stood watch at the front door, and I could hear Opal working in the kitchen.

They were here. I’d heard several sets of footsteps downstairs when David had left. There was only one other place they could be—the basement. I stared at the heavy door, wondering if I had the nerve to push it open and find out what was going on in the bowels of the house.

“Hey.”

I jumped and whirled, my hands up in defense.

Angus stepped back and held up his palms toward me. “Whoa, tiger. It’s just me.”

“Jesus!” I crossed my arms over my middle. “You scared the life out of me.”

“Sorry.” He glanced at the door. “Are they down there?”

“Yeah.”

“They got the guy. I guess he’s down there right now. No telling what they’re doing to him.” His jawed tensed. “Good.”

“God.” I clenched my fingers into my sides. “This is real.”

He nodded and took a step toward the door. “You make a move on a boss or his woman, there’s hell to pay. That’s the way it’s always been. Otherwise, it would be a free-for-all—anyone who wanted to be king of the mountain would make an attempt. There have to be consequences, steep ones, for an attack like this.”

So much violence. I thought I understood Nate’s world, but the brutality of it was something that went beyond anything I’d ever experienced. Even Angus, who’d been kind in the short time I’d known him, was clamoring for blood.

“Are you going down?” My voice quavered.

“Yes.” He grabbed the door handle. “You should stay here.”

I should. He was right. But I wouldn’t. If this was the life I was choosing, then I needed to see all of it, to understand my choice on every level. Nothing could scare me away from Nate.

“I’m coming.” I stepped up behind him.

“Are you sure?” He looked at me over his shoulder, concern crinkling the skin next to his eyes. “It’ll be brutal.”

“I know.” I took a deep, shaky breath. “But I need to see it.”

“This is a bad idea.” He opened the door anyway, allowing me to follow. “I would hold your hand, but Nate would take my arm off.”

A small laugh bubbled to my lips, but the sound was drowned out by a scream that had to belong to the shooter.

My knees tried to buckle, but I didn’t let them. I followed Angus down the stairs, the heavy door closing behind me and sealing the tomb.

“—next time you send someone to do the job, I’ll send him back in pieces.” Nate’s voice.

“Why do you think I sent Karilev?” Dmitri’s voice slithered through the air.

How did he get here?

“Dmitri.” I gripped Angus’s shoulder as my eyes searched through the dim basement for the Russian. “That’s his voice.”

If he was here, surely Nate had him hog tied?

“You send dickless wonders to kill me because you’re an asshole.” Nate was in the back room. “Next question.”

Another scream from the captive chilled my blood.

Angus and I followed his voice. When we got close, Angus whispered over his shoulder, “Dmitri’s on a video call. He’s not here.”

I couldn’t relax, exactly, but there was a small measure of comfort in knowing he wasn’t in the same room.

“I sent Karilev because he’s expendable.” Dmitri’s cold tone verged on bored. “I’ve rather been enjoying this little snuff show you’re putting on for me. Keep going. But, might I ask a favor?”

“Only if it involves me putting a bullet in you.”

“No, this one is a bit more, shall we say, personal. Could you put my kukla on the video? I haven’t seen her since she was sunning herself this morning.”

My hands and feet went numb, and I couldn’t seem to draw a breath. Angus reached back and put a hand on my waist, keeping me behind him. He stood in the doorway to the back room, his wide back blocking my view.

“So beautiful, my little doll. I prefer it when she wears the white bikini, you know. I imagine pulling it off her with my teeth. How she’ll purr for me once she’s trained and—”

An agonizing scream, one that went on and on, curdled my blood and cut off the far more chilling sound of Dmitri’s voice. When it finally died to a quiet gurgle, I knew its owner was dead, too.

“Well, well. I rather liked the way you looped the guts around his neck like that.”

“Yeah?” Nate’s tone held murder in its timbre. “I’ll be sure to do the same to you.”

Dmitri’s slimy laugh coated the air. “I do hope you’ll wait until after I’ve enjoyed my doll. She’s so smooth and perfect. I bet her skin will scar beautifully. By the time I’m done with her, she’ll look like a whole new canvas covered with my art.”

“You aren’t touching her.” The clang of instruments being thrown down rattled through the air.

“We’ll see. Thanks for the show, Nate. I only wish I’d had popcorn to go with it.”

“The same thing will happen to the next guy you send, and the next, and the next. If you want to keep wasting your resources, go right ahead.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got plenty of cannon fodder to spare. Give my best regards to my kukla, and tell her I’m coming for her soon.”

I gripped the back of Angus’s shirt so I could stay on my feet. Something shattered in the room beyond, and I got the feeling Nate had wrecked the laptop.

“We are moving forward with our plans to hit his shipments,” Nate’s dark command whipped through the air. “Tonight.”

“The heroin?” Peter asked.

“Yes. I want all of it intercepted and dumped out at sea, right along with the Russians.”

“I want in.” Angus found his voice.

“Your father wouldn’t like that.”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

“Who’s that beh—”

I peeked around Angus’s arm, keeping my eyes away from the shooter’s body. Nate was covered in blood—his shirt soaked and streaks of it on his face.

Wild and lethal, he stared me down. “You shouldn’t be here.” His irritated gaze flickered to Angus. “Why’d you bring her?”

“I didn’t. She wanted to come.” Angus shrugged.

“I came because I’m a part of this now.” I stepped from behind Angus and met Nate’s gaze. “There’s no point trying to hide what you are or what you do from me.”

Nate glowered. “You think you can handle watching me kill a man?”

I still couldn’t look down, couldn’t take in the full horror of what Nate had done to the man who’d been alive only moments before. But he’d done it to protect me, to exact vengeance for an attack on the both of us. He sent a clear message to Dmitri even though Dmitri seemed too sadistic to heed the warning.

“It’s not something that I want. I don’t want you to have to hurt anyone, but when it’s necessary…” I finally dropped my gaze to get a glimpse of the dead man, his gray entrails wrapped around his neck and his blood staining the floor. “I don’t want you to hide it from me.” It was a relief that I couldn’t see the shooter’s face.

Peter and David exchanged a look, one that was perhaps more shocked than anything else.

Nate flicked his hands, the blood spraying in small droplets, and shook his head. “I need to get cleaned up. Wait for me upstairs.”

I wanted to continue this discussion, but not in front of his men. Turning my back on the grisly scene, I trudged upstairs to his bedroom. I flopped on his bed and tried to erase the dead man’s image from my mind. I didn’t judge Nate for what he’d done. How could I? I felt safer now that the shooter was dead. But I would never feel truly safe until Dmitri was in the ground.

A shiver raced through me and punctured my heart when I recalled Dmitri’s words about watching me sunning myself by the pool. Though I would feel like a prisoner in this house, I wouldn’t go outside until I knew there were no unwanted eyes on me.

I burrowed into the navy-blue duvet as the sun streamed through the parted curtains. The bed smelled like Nate’s soap, clean and masculine. I rubbed my cheek against the smooth fabric as my thoughts continued to race.

After another few minutes, heavy footsteps on the stairs told me that Nate was approaching. I sat up and crossed my arms, waiting for the confrontation. He burst in, his hair darkened with water. Shirtless, fresh from a shower, and with no trace of blood on him, he stalked to the bed, grabbed my ankles, and yanked me down. Prowling over me, he gripped my wrists and pinned them above my head.

“That wasn’t for you to see.” The anger in his voice mixed with the concern in his eyes. “You shouldn’t have to deal with shit like that.”

“I can handle it.” I met his gaze. This wasn’t the time to back down.

“I know you can.” He squeezed my wrists, then let off. “But that doesn’t mean you have to, okay? It’s part of what I do. I’ve done horrible things, and I’ll do a lot more to keep you safe and to keep this operation running. My men and their families depend on me. I won’t let them down. Not when I’ve brought them so far out of the old ways and into the new.” He shook his head and put a gentle hand to my cheek. “I’m trying to get away from that shit—the killing, the turf wars. That’s why I’m allying with the Irish, why I’ve had Peter focused on gaining more legit businesses. We either modernize or we die. But the Russians are part of the old way. I have to fight this war before we can reach the peace on the other side.”

“I understand.”

“You do. You’re smart. But that still doesn’t mean I want you anywhere near the war that’s about to go down. The things I’ll have to do…” His eyes darkened. “I don’t want you to see me like that. I never want you to be scared, especially not of me.”

I leaned up and whispered my lips across his. “I just saw you covered in blood.”

He winced.

“But I didn’t see anything but you. Being strong. Doing what you had to do. No matter what, I always see you.”

He let out a breath, and I could have sworn his eyes watered, but he claimed my mouth with such sweet intensity that I simply reveled in the feel of him. No more thoughts, no more reassurances—just the two of us coming together exactly as we were meant to.