Page 234 of Untamed

“Is that really how we greet each other now, Russo?” he says, accent clean, not Sicilian. Roman, maybe. Or Naples. One of the old cities where men still think violence makes them gods.

“You’re not family,” I reply. “So, you don’t get a greeting. You get a grave.”

He laughs once, softly. “I didn’t touch her. You’ll find not a scratch on her.”

“You think that means you get to breathe?”

He finally moves, steps to the side. A full view now, Jordyn, pale, swaying where she kneels. Her head lifts just slightly, her eyes lock onto mine.

Something breaks inside me. Quiet but sharp.

He gestures at her like she’s a prop. “I wanted you to feel what it’s like,” he says. “The helplessness. The burn. The way time slows when someone you love is just… out of reach.”

I don’t blink. I just raise the blade in my hand.

“You just made the biggest mistake of your fucking life.” He opens his mouth to respond, and I lunge.

I don’t go for the throat, not yet.

I slam the man back against a metal pillar, blade to his jugular, my forearm crushing his windpipe just enough to blur the edges of his vision. The clang of impact echoes through the hangar. Jordyn flinches.

His grin cracks. Blood beads under the knife.

“You have five seconds,” I growl, my voice a death sentence, “to tell me who you are and who the fuck sent you.”

He gasps, but it’s not fear that flashes in his eyes, it’s pride. “You already know who sent me,” he chokes. “You’ve been receiving the messages, haven’t you?”

I press my molars together while he chuckles through broken breath. “Tick, tock, Russo. This was just the beginning.”

I drive the blade deeper, just enough to make him wince. “That wasn’t an answer.”

“Moretti,” he rasps. “But you already knew that, too.”

Everything goes still inside me. The name hangs there,Moretti, like rot in the air. Nicolai’s reach just crossed a line I didn’t think even he would dare.

“Why Jordyn?” I ask coldly. “Why not come for me?”

His grin is blood-stained now. “Because pain means more when it wears a face you’d die for.” I slit his throat, clean and swift.

He crumples at my feet with a soft thud, like he was never anything more than a shadow.

Behind me, I hear Jordyn suck in a sharp breath.

I turn and find her staring at me like she doesn’t know what to say, like she’s looking at a stranger in a body she’s kissed. I drop to my knees in front of her, blood still wet on my hands, and start untying the cords from her wrists.

She doesn’t speak. Her eyes are wide, but not with fear. Something colder.

Realisation. Because she’s seeing him now.

Il Mietitore.

Not the man who touches her softly in the morning. But the one who ends men in silence.

“Ti ho preso, bambina.” I murmur, my voice low as I catch her wrists gently. She nods, but her gaze lingers on the corpse behind me as I pull her close and press a kiss to her temple.

The drive back home is silent.

Jordyn hasn’t said a word. Not since the warehouse. Not since I cut her free.

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