“Where is she?” My roar seemed to stun George at the front door, but he pointed up the stairs.

I took them two at a time until I came to her room. Opal sat next to the bed where Sabrina was sitting up but holding her head in her hands.

“She just woke up,” Opal offered as she twisted her fingers together in her lap.

“Are you all right?” I rushed to Sabrina and sat next to her.

Lifting her head, her wide eyes met mine, then trailed down the blood staining my shirtsleeves. “Whose is that?”

“Not mine.” I inspected her face—no visible injuries, thank god.

“Whose?”

“Don’t worry about that now.” I glanced to her throat where reddish finger marks marred her skin. Fury boiled and raged inside me. When I found the motherfucker who’d put his hands on her, I’d do him slow.

She touched my bloodied sleeve. “Hargut? Is he okay?”

I hoped she wouldn’t ask, and I considered lying to her. But in the end, I simply shook my head. Her face crumpled, and a sob ripped from her throat. I pulled her into my arms and held her as she cried.

Hargut had managed to catch up to the men who’d taken her and rammed their car off the freeway. By the time my guys got there, he was already bleeding out, but he’d ripped Sabrina from her kidnappers, leaving two bodies and an injured Russian in the median as shocked bystanders stared from their cars. My men had grabbed him and the surviving douchebag, racing back to the house before the cops showed up.

Lying on my front steps, Hargut tried to apologize for letting her get taken, even while I held my hands on the fatal wounds in his chest. I watched him take his last breath as Peter dragged the surviving Russian around the side of the house. I would end him here in the basement after David questioned him. He wouldn’t say shit. The Russians never did. But I would enjoy working out my anger on the cockbag.

“You sure you aren’t hurt?” I pulled Sabrina away and inspected her face.

“I’m sore, but I don’t remember the accident. I don’t know what happened. But Hargut was there. Hargut—” She choked on a sob, her beautiful blue eyes awash in tears as I pulled the blanket back and ran my hands down her torso, then her legs, checking for injuries.

She hissed as I pressed along her hip. “There.”

I popped the button on her jeans and unzipped them, then peeled them down to her thigh. A large purple bruise was spreading in a thick line down her side.

“I don’t think it’s broken.” I did my best to ignore the delicate pink lace of her panties. “Opal, get her some ice and painkillers.”

Opal rose and shuffled out.

I smoothed my hand over her soft skin, feeling around the bruise. “Anywhere else?”

“No.” She sniffled. “That one hurts the worst.”

Her tears affected me more than they should have. It took me back to an even darker time, one where she’d been traumatized so badly that she thought I was her savior. I wasn’t. I was just an asshole who happened to be in the right place at the right time to pretend to be the hero. It seemed like my luck was holding in that respect, because she was looking at me as if I were the only man on the planet that could keep her safe.

“Come here.” I welcomed her into my arms again.

She clung to me, her body shaking. “He watched out for me.”

“I know. He did his job.” I stroked my hand down her hair. “Shhh.”

“H-He has a daughter. Someone needs to tell her.”

“I’ll handle all that.” I turned her so she sat in my lap, and I leaned back against the headboard.

She nuzzled against my neck, her wet lashes tickling my skin. And just like it had been five years before, I was wrapped around her finger. I would do anything to stop her tears, to make her feel safe even though she already knew—far better than most people twice her age—how horrible this world could be.

“I’ve got you. Nothing will happen to you here.”

She nodded against me. “I know.”

I held her for long minutes as her tears died down. My mind was on overdrive the entire time, and I itched to kill whoever thought it was a good idea to try to steal her from me, though I had a pretty clear idea of who it was. Hargut had managed to describe the kidnappers—fucking Russians. But how did they know? Sabrina hadn’t been fifteen minutes from the house when they struck. There was only one conclusion. The rat was hard at work fucking up my life. Whoever it was, I intended to torture the fuck out of him. Let the Butcher take his time with all the Medieval shit he enjoyed, then I’d bring my A-game for the finale. Do some depraved bloodwork that would make the hardest man in the room want to blow his lunch all over the floor. That’s what happened to rats.

Opal brought ice and gave Sabrina some Oxys.

“Can you talk about it?” I asked once she’d had the pills in her system for a bit.

“His name is Dmitri.” A shudder ran through her body.

The head of the Bratva in Philly. Fucking fabulous. He was spearheading the efforts to blow my deal with the Irish. The fucker seemed to have a personal vendetta for me. After his move on Sabrina, the feeling was mutual.

I ran my hand up and down her back. “Did he say anything?”

“I knew him. He worked for my father. He said I was his doll. He said he ruined my father’s other toy. What did he mean? He wants to hurt me. He said he was going t-to—” Her voice hitched, and I shushed her and rubbed her back more as red-hot fury rushed through my veins.

“He won’t touch you.” I would kill him with my bare hands. “That’s enough now. You need to get some rest.”

“Stay.” She nuzzled against me. “Please?”

I had a man to kill in the basement, but I supposed it could wait. Giving David some extra quality time with the Russian prick was no skin off my back.

I glanced around at the cartoon cat that stared down at me from the wallpaper and the curtains. “I’m not sure if hanging around in the Hello Kitty palace is really my style.”

She laughed against me, the sound soothing my frayed nerves. “Don’t lie. I know you love it.”

A smile twitched along my lips. “You got me.”

“Believe it.” She sighed and snuggled closer, her breaths becoming slow and steady.

I should have told her that I wasn’t the sort of man you could stake a claim on, but I kept silent as she drifted off into a drug-induced sleep. Spending time with her like this made me feel more human than I had in a long time. Maybe she was right about me changing. I’d hardened in the years we’d been apart, but she managed to bypass the tough outer layers and lodge in my heart. The need to protect her overcame all else.

When David had called and told me there was trouble and Sabrina was involved, I couldn’t get to her fast enough. All those years at school, she’d been safe. But now I’d fucked up by letting her stay at the house. She’d have a target on her back until the shit with the Russians was cleared up. And by “cleared up” I meant, “all the pieces of shit who dared touch her were bleeding out under my goddamn feet.” She was mine to protect from the first moment I saw her, and I wasn’t going to let her down.

The only problem with this plan? She wasn’t a kid anymore. No matter how many times I tried to think of her as the scrawny girl from five years ago, the boner perilously close to her ass said differently. She wasn’t a child; she was a grown woman who would test my severely limited ability to control myself.

My first parole officer had always told me I failed to do the “proper cost/benefit analysis” before committing crimes. I figured what he meant to say was, “you’re an impulsive bastard with outrageous good looks.” Either way, I didn’t have much in the way of self-control when it came to things I wanted. And, at that moment, what I wanted most was sleeping peacefully against my chest. But she was the one thing in my life I hadn’t cocked up. She needed to stay that way. Literally and figuratively.

Only one solution presented itself. I had to end the Russians sooner rather than later. I promised to protect Sabrina, and I would stick to it, even if it meant protecting her from myself. But the sooner she was out of my house, the better. That was something me and my neon blue balls could agree on, for once.

* * *

A muffled scream met my ears as I descended the wooden stairs. The cool basement greeted me, the walls made of the same pale stone that rose two stories overhead. With over a century of use, the dirt floors were tightly packed, hard as cement. Long fluorescent lighting cast a dim, sickly glow on the scene as the metallic tang of blood infiltrated my nostrils.

The thud of knuckles on skin woke my senses and took me from the warm bed filled with Sabrina’s soft floral scent to the stark torture scenario laid out before me.

“He say anything?” I strode up behind David, whose undershirt was splotched with sweat and blood. He lived for this, for enforcing the blood-coated rules of our syndicate whenever it was necessary.

“Just some screams and a few Russian curses.” David spat and backed up, crossing his arms over his chest as he leveled a hellish glare at the quivering captive. A year younger than me, David made up for the age difference with heft. I worked out. I kept my body in top condition, but I was a novice compared to the Butcher. Built like a fucking tank, there was a reason no one saw the light of day again after he went to work on them.

I slowly, methodically rolled up my shirt sleeves as the Russian’s breath whistled in through his broken nose. His eyes barely shown through the puffy flesh around them, and the rest of him looked like it had been through a fucking grinder. I didn’t flinch. This was the fate he’d chosen when he stole Sabrina, when he decided to take what was mine.

Lowering to my haunches in front of him, I stared up into his dull eyes. “I already know you’re Dmitri’s man.”

His nostrils flared the slightest bit.

“What’s his name?” I asked David.

“Oleg.”

“Nice to meet you, Oleg. I’m Nate. Dmitri’s the one who hit my last weed shipment, no?”

He glanced to the side then met my gaze again.

I shrugged. “It was him. You admitting it will only confirm what I know. I can only assume he’s got designs on tonight’s shipment as well.”

No response.

“I bet you know who the rat is, don’t you? Who’s been telling your boss all my little secrets?” I rose and walked around him, taking in the wedding ring on his left hand. “Got a wifey at home?”

He turned his head at that.

“Hey, David, when’s the last time you got some strange?”

“Been a while. You?”

I smirked at him over the Russian’s head. “Your mom hasn’t been in town for a few days, so I’m overdue.”

He glared at me but kept silent and let me work.

“I bet you’ve got a pretty wife.” I walked to Oleg’s front. “She’s going to be so lonely.” I sighed and leaned against the metal table full of bloody tools. “The Butcher here, he’s really into redheads. She a redhead?”

His eyes widened.

“Bingo.” I shot a look at David. “He’s got a ginger at home. Where’s his ID?”

He reached across the table and grabbed a beaten-up leather wallet.

I flipped through it to his ID. “Lives on Westing Lane. I bet it’s a nice little seventies ranch house, isn’t it? I used to fuck a girl in that neighborhood. Her parents’ room was right across the hall. We had to be quiet. That was okay, since she was really into choking. You feel me, right?” I laughed, and the dumb shit actually seemed to give a little nod in agreement. I leaned down and stared into his eyes. “I’m good at choking. Your wife will appreciate the skill, I’m sure.”

He shook his head, the tremble in his body increasing.

“But.” I cocked my head to the side. “You could tell me who the rat is, and she won’t be touched.”

“I don’t know.” His voice rasped through his throat.

“Progress.” I elbowed David and leaned against the table next to him. “But I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t know. Only Dmitri knows.” He coughed, blood spilling from the corner of his lips.

“That’s unfortunate.” I tsked and flexed my fists.

“I’m telling the truth.”

I glanced to David, who gave a faint nod, which meant the dumb shit was telling the truth.

“Why Sabrina?”

He went back to the silent treatment.

I turned to David, kicking up a conversation as if we didn’t have a bloodied prisoner sitting five feet away. “You know what chicks are really into these days? That BDSM shit. With the whips and the flogging and the pain.”

“I’ve flogged my fair share.” David smirked. “Probably more than my fair share.”

“What’s your favorite part?”

“When they cry.” No hesitation.

“Cold.” I laughed, playing it up. Mine was an act, but David? I wasn’t so sure. Fuck, I needed a cigarette. “And redheads really do it for you?”

He grunted. “They fight back the most, more blood that way. And their tears”—he grinned—“you get enough of those, mix it with her blood, and you’ve got all the lube you need to—”

“He says he owns Sabrina,” Oleg spat out. “That you took her, and so you have to pay. She’s his.”

“Well look who got chatty all of a sudden.” I turned back to Oleg. “Why does he think he has any right to Sabrina?”

“He worked for her father, Petrov.” He coughed, more blood dribbling from his puffy lips. “Petrov was a merzkiy detoyeb.”

I gave Peter a what-the-fuck look.

“Sabrina’s dad was a…” His brows drew together as he worked on the translation. “Pederast. Liked boys. Abused Dmitri, I figure.”

So this was about revenge. Punish the daughter for the sins of the father.

I turned my gaze back to the prisoner. “So that’s why he’s been all over my ass like a horny gorilla?”

“Da.”

Now I really needed a cigarette. Sabrina was firmly at the rotten core of the feud between my crew and the Russians. The moment she’d left the safety of her boarding school, Dmitri pounced. And I was the idiot who said, “Go shopping, get out of my house, have a great time, parade around in public. Here, let me draw a big, red bullseye on your back before you go.”

“Is Dmitri planning on hitting my shipment this afternoon?”

Oleg snorted back and hocked a bloody wad of snot onto the floor at my feet. “Yebat' sebya.”

“He said—”

“Go fuck yourself. Yeah, I know the cuss words, at least.” I peered down at Oleg, weighing whether threatening his wife would get me any further with him. He stared back, stripped bare and with the heavy weight of impending death dulling his eyes. He was done.

I dropped all pretense and grabbed the Glock from my back waistband and aimed at his face. “You have my word that your wife won’t be touched.”

“Spasibo.” He dropped his gaze to the floor.

“You’re welcome.” I pulled the trigger.