Trey - Shandi Boyes Page 0,47
“You taught him a lesson. He won’t defy you again.”
Confirmation she can get through to him like no one else is proven without a doubt when Nikolai’s next two hits aren’t as bone-crunching as his earlier strikes. He still pounds Rory’s face to within an inch of recognition, but even I can tell his focus is shifting, and we’re strangers. She’s calling him to her, gravitating him nearer as I instinctively navigate myself closer to Trey. Even though I’m scared as to how he’ll respond when he discovers who I am, I need answers, and he’s the only man who can give them to me.
Just as Justine whispers, “Nikolai, I need you,” I slip my hand into the tiny slither of space between Trey and me not taken up by his balled fist.
After unclenching his hand for me, opening up to me as no one ever has, Trey peers down at me, shocked and muted. We don’t talk. I can’t even hear the words Nikolai and Justine exchange. I’m too stunned by the massive turn of events the past twenty-four hours to get my mouth to work. I am so confused, I’m beginning to wonder if Vladimir killed me and this is a whore’s fucked-up rendition of heaven.
I lose the devotion of Trey’s eyes when the thud of a lifeless man slumping to the floor booms through our ears. Nikolai has released Rory from his grasp. Shockingly, he’s still alive—just. My sky-high heart rate is too loud to hear a word Nikolai and Justine share, but that won’t stop me from saying it’s heart-clutching. There’s too much sentiment crackling between them to ignore. It’s almost as intense as the zaps darting up my arm from Trey’s simple hold. I doubt he’s a man known for his gentleness, yet he holds my hand as if it’s a delicate flower that could be crushed at any moment.
Not even thirty seconds later, Nikolai scoops Justine into his arms before he makes a beeline for the door.
Just as quickly, Trey frees my hand from his before he steps into the room.
Believing the show is over, the crowd dispels remarkedly fast. Within seconds, it’s just Trey, Nero, Rory, and me. A normal person would tell Rory to thank his lucky stars he’s still alive. I’m nothing close to ordinary. I felt the surge in Trey’s pulse before he stepped away from me, heard his mumbled comment about Rory’s punishment not being sufficient.
He’s not standing Rory to his feet to help his lungs fill with the air Nikolai’s beating stole. He’s doing it so he’s forced to face the person responsible for him being sent to hell. Trey wants him to know why he’s ending his life as Nikolai failed to do. He wants him aware he’s being killed because he touched me.
It proves without a doubt how many lies I’ve been told the past six years. He didn’t send me away because sleeping with me sickened him so much he wanted to die. I doubt he even knows what happened to me. He’s in the dark just as much as I was only yesterday.
After wrapping the cord he removed from the curtain stretched across one wall around Rory’s neck, Trey’s focus shifts to me. He stares at me for mere seconds, his eyes deadly and murderous, before he drifts them to Nero. He barely lifts his chin an inch before I’m grabbed around the waist and yanked out of the room.
Although the door separating us rapidly closes, it doesn’t stop me hearing the sickening crunch Rory’s neck makes when Trey tugs on the thick twine curled around his throat so brutally it snaps his neck. If the initial break didn’t kill him, he’ll be dead within seconds. Trey’s murderous smirk leaves no doubt about this.
He killed for me—twice—and I have no clue how to repay him for that.
Thirteen
Trey
As my thumb skims over the rope burn on my index finger, I follow Eight through the sleeping quarters at Clarks. Since Rory’s death was so quick, it gave me little satisfaction. I’m still itching for a bloodbath, but since my desire to make sure K is okay outranks my urge to kill, I’m prioritizing her first.
“Did she need stitches?”
Eight strays his eyes from a body bag housing Bailey’s body to me before he shakes his head. “Dok said her wound was deep, but he glued it instead of stitching it up. Some shit about it being easier to keep clean if its fully joined.” He shrugs before