Page 29 of His Savage Ruin
The man’s eyes dart between the cutters and my face, finding no mercy in either.
“There’s... there’s a leak,” he stammers. “Someone on your side feeding us information. That’s how we knew about the transport.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. I set the cutters aside, giving him hope.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Above my pay grade. But someone close to you, someone who knows your operations.”
I nod slowly, then notice something that makes my blood turn to ice. The zip tie around his left wrist has been worked loose. Not enough to slip free, but enough for a desperate man to plan something stupid.
“Rafael,” I say quietly. “Step back.”
The warning comes too late. The prisoner wrenches his left hand free, revealing the jagged piece of metal he’d torn from the chair’s frame. He lunges forward with the desperation of a dying animal.
Training takes over. I twist sideways, letting the improvised blade slice through fabric and skin without hitting anything vital. My knife finds his throat before he can pull back for a second strike.
“Should have taken the easy way,” I murmur as blood sprays across the concrete.
But he’s not finished. With his dying breath, he manages to spit out one final insult: “Don’t know why that whore is so important anyway. Probably spreading her legs for you just like she did for every other?—"
My hands close around his windpipe, cutting off the words with surgical precision. I squeeze until vertebrae separate, until the light leaves his eyes, until the disrespect is paid for in full.
When it's over, Rafael straightens up from the wall, shaking his head with dark amusement.
"Touchy about the woman, aren't we?" he observes.
"Shut up," I snap, pressing a hand to the shallow wound on my side.
"I'm just saying, boss, might want to examine why hearing someone insult your prisoner gets you so worked up."
The observation hits too close to home, and I turn on him with enough menace to make him step back.
"I said shut up. We have a body to dispose of and a security breach to investigate. Focus on that instead of psychoanalyzing my methods."
Rafael raises his hands in surrender, but I catch the knowing look in his eyes. He's not wrong—my reaction to the prisoner's crude words about Alessia was excessive, emotional, unprofessional.
It was also completely involuntary.
My phone buzzes with an incoming message as I'm climbing the stairs, and I check it despite the blood seeping through my shirt.
Your coffee is perfect. Your hospitality still needs work. When do I get actual clothes instead of playing dress-up in your wardrobe? - A
Despite everything—the failed interrogation, the wound in my side, Rafael's too-accurate observations—I find myself smiling. She's got spirit, I'll give her that. Even captive and completely at my mercy, she's still throwing challenges at me like daggers.
The investigation into our security breach continues to yield nothing, and my patience is wearing thin. I gather my closest men in the war room, ignoring the blood slowly soaking through my shirt.
"If we don't find our rat soon," I tell them, my voice carrying deadly promise, "I'm going to start assuming you're all working against me. And I think we all know how that conversation ends."
The threat hangs in the air like smoke, and I see the understanding in their eyes. Find the traitor, or become suspects themselves.
As the meeting disperses, I'm heading back toward my room when Romeo intercepts me in the hallway, Marco hovering behind him like a shadow.
"Don Romano?" Romeo's voice carries an odd note that immediately puts me on alert. "Could I have a word?"
"What is it?"
"It's about Mrs. Moretti, sir. She was wondering... that is, she asked if it might be possible for her to take a short walk in the garden. Under full supervision, of course. She seems to be feeling a bit confined."
