Page 50 of Captive Promise

I wish Luca would stop talking. Every one of Dino’s positive attributes is like a knife twisting in my chest. “I know,” I grit out.

We stand there another minute. Neither of us move.

“Ana can’t see this,” I say quietly. “You hear me? Whatever it costs, whoever we have to pay—she gets a closed casket.” I turn to look into my brother’s green eyes so he can see how serious I am. “She gets the version where he went fast. She does not need to know he suffered. Do you understand me?”

“Yeah.” Luca clears his throat. “Yeah. I got it.”

I sigh and turn back to the body. “Dino’s kid’s not even born yet.”

Luca looks pained. “I know.”

“How the fuck do you tell a woman like Ana that her husband went out like this?” I gesture to Dino’s corpse.

“You don’t,” Luca says, looking at Dino. His jaw is trembling, a tell he’s had since we were kids when he was trying to not react to something that was affecting him. “You tell her he loved her and that he was a hero. You tell her he went fast and you take the rest of it to the grave.”

I glance over at him, but he doesn’t look back. He’s staring at Dino’s chest.

I look back down at Dino.

The carving.

The bruising.

The cruelty of what was done to him.

And underneath the grief—underneath the sick, cold horror of what an hour of that must have felt like—something else is starting to move in me.

Something a lot uglier than any of the things I have been trying to be for Katerina Sokolov in the last week.

I have not been this angry in years.

Russo did this. Russo chose this.

He didn’t need an hour to send a message.

Five, hell, ten minutes would have done it.

He didn’t need to do it while Dino was still breathing.

He took his time on purpose, because he wanted me to see this, and know that he knew, and understand what he is willing to do to the people I care about.

Fine. He wanted my attention. He has it.

I reach out and close Dino’s eyes with two fingers.

I fight a flinch when I touch him.

His skin is unnaturally cold and stiff.

The second my fingers touch him something inside me shifts.

It goes cold too.

All the heat I’ve been running on since Katerina walked into the kitchen at four a.m. drops out of me and leaves something else behind.

Something that matches him.

My rage is as cold as his body now, and I’ll take that. Rage is good. Rage brings justice.