Page 172 of Heir

Roman was hard to read, but he was easier than Micah.

He moved out of the way for me to enter, and I walked in.

A shirtless man had both hands tied to a hook.

He cried when he saw me.

The bastard was mine to kill.

He took the most important person in my life. Hurt her, scared her.

My fists clenched as I thought back to when I took Gemma home and saw fucking bruise in the shape of a handprint on her cheek.

The fucker had slapped her.

Multiple times.

And I was going to make sure he suffered ten times over.

I moved to the table with all the knives and weapons.

My hand stopped at a small blade.

Frank tried to back away when he saw me coming toward him, but the hook stopped him.

He wasn’t going anywhere.

“Now, don’t cry,” I said, running the blade over his cheek. He froze, looking up at me with dull eyes. “You’re not getting out of here. But that doesn’t mean your death has to be even more painful than it already will be. Why don’t you tell me what I need to know?”

“W-what do you want to know?”

I patted his head. “Now you’re getting it. Good boy for cooperating. What’s the Savkin Bratva’s plan?”

He shook his head. “I’m not a member. I don’t—fuck!”

He groaned as I cut into his left cheek. The same side he’d hurt Gemma’s face.

“Please. I really don’t know their plan.”

“Who’s in charge?”

“Grigoriy Savkin—no, please! Fuck!”

Another slash. Two more, and I would make a pretty little square that would allow me to carve the skin away.

“You want to try that again? You expect me to believe the old bastard riddled with sickness and death is really running the operation? The one who incited the fucking prison riot?”

That shit had proven to be more of a headache than it was. Already, we had a few protests outside our businesses, demanding that the King’s Men disband.

Fuck that.

We would have to ride out this wave of unease, but this shit pissed me off.

“I’m gonna ask again. And if you make me ask a third time, I’ll use this blade to saw off one foot. Got me?”

He swallowed and nodded. “Aleksei Savkin.”

I looked back at Micah. He didn’t show any reaction, but he was probably thinking the same thing I was.

---