Grievous (Wanted Men #5) - Nancy Haviland Page 0,98

But she also knew she’d try again later. How telling that he thought one needed to love another to feel compassion for them. What would the world be like if everyone thought that way? Not a place she’d want to live in.

Wondering if there was a point to attempting to sift through the rubble that was once her pride, she didn’t. She allowed herself to drift. She didn’t fall asleep, so she was acutely aware of Lucian pressing a kiss to her lower back before getting to his feet. He walked around to the other side of the bed and dragged the chair over.

He sat, murmuring, “I need to see your face.”

Why? She wanted to ask. So you can enjoy my pain? She opened her eyes to show it to him. And that’s how they stayed. Him sitting, her on her belly, gazes locked, neither saying a word.

His mouth turned down at the corners when his phone buzzed. He took it from his pocket and still he didn’t look away as he answered. “Sorin.”

The change that came over him had Yasmeen sitting up. As he continued to listen, she found herself barely drawing a breath so as not to attract attention to herself. His demons. She was looking right at them as they writhed and swirled in his darkening ocher stare.

He said something in his language, got to his feet, and was out the door before she could even think to stop him.

Her lungs burned as she sucked in some air and sank back into the pillows. She stared at the dark hallway through the open door and drew the blankets up to her chin. If the eyes really were the window to the soul, she was the pet of Satan himself.

TWENTY-TWO

The trip to New York was the longest sixteen hours Lucian had ever spent. Plans had been cemented, and the long wait was finally over. Their Baikov contact had confirmed Sergei was ready to move on his uncle.

The Fane organization was now in position to move on him.

Lucian looked out the window of the lead chopper of the three flying in a V formation, but he wasn’t watching Long Island whiz by below, he was seeing Sergei Pivchenko’s dead body. He couldn’t arrive and find that.

And didn’t.

The choppers landed. Their team got into position. Lucian was held back as a shot rang out inside Vasily’s compromised home. And only when Gheorghe deemed it safe did he lead them in.

Lucian entered the debris strewn foyer he’d crossed many a time to attend one of Vasily’s rare social functions or simply to share a meal with the Russian leader. He had tunnel vision this day, his sights set on his brother’s murderer who was currently being chopped up by a man seeking his own revenge for a multitude of acts performed against him and his family, one of which being the attempted murder of the infant daughter Alek had only just learned he had. Sorin yanked one of Markus’s best friends off their target and shoved him between two poised MP5s.

Lucian didn’t hesitate to reach down and drag Sergei to his feet. He was missing an arm and was unkempt, but alive. Cupping the back of the killer’s head, he poised a long, curved blade beneath a weak chin.

“Finally. You have come out from under your rock.” Feeling something roll into his foot, he looked down to see the missing arm. He kicked it away. “But it will not be your cousin who has the pleasure of killing you. It will not be your uncle, either. My brother, who you took for nothing, was not only innocent, he was mine. He was mine, and you stole him. So, now, I will steal you.”

He brought the sickle he’d found in the lower level of the castle down, plunging it into the soft spot under Sergei’s collarbone. The tip escaped through an exit wound but curled around the clavicle to act as a hook. When it all became too much for the Russian’s body to process, it shut down, and Sergei went limp. Using his makeshift hanger, Lucian took in nothing of his surroundings as he dragged his prize away. He was intent on getting him into the chopper where one of the best surgeons in the country waited to perform a patch job.

In no time at all, they were landing on the helipad behind Lucian’s Southampton home. It took two hours for the surgeon to properly tend to—mainly cauterize—Sergei’s injuries. Lucian stayed