Fractured Freedom(83)

In and out.

I breathed with him as his eyes met mine, and the wild in them calmed for just those seven breaths. His piercing emerald eyes closed for a second like he was settling his soul, and then he opened them again and they landed directly on me.

“Cade, get the knife.” His gaze cut back to Iago, and I watched Cade smile as if the ideas flying through his head were lollipops floating by and he was a hungry kid with a sweet tooth. He walked to the kitchen counter and pulled a large knife from a wood block.

I hadn’t had a chance to take in the room—the plush carpeting, the granite countertops, the lights twinkling above us in a low-hanging crystal chandelier. This room on a cruise ship probably cost a fortune.

It would be expensive to ruin too, I thought to myself as I stared at the blood seeping into the carpet below Iago’s chair. It dripped from his pant leg.

Cade handed the knife to Dante as he continued looking on, lost in a reverie we couldn’t pull him from.

Cade said softly, “One of the guys on the police force can get us more essentials if you need them.”

Iago wriggled in the dining room chair. The motion was the equivalent of a mouse in a trap. Nothing worked. The duct tape dug into his wrists; a large hole in his arm looked like it had been cauterized closed. His eyes pleaded with mine as he tried to mumble something against the tape over his mouth.

“Did they touch you?” Dante asked softly without looking at me. His voice was full of pain, like he’d wronged me somehow.

“Touch me?” I asked, my mind probably a bit too fuzzy for questions. I shook it. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Besides the bruising on your face, Lilah, did he put a hand or weapon near you, Lamb?”

Running a hand through my hair and glancing away, I lied. They’d hit me in the elevator, choked me, and beaten me too. I didn’t lie, though, to spare the man’s life but only to soothe my wolf’s soul. “No. They were just angry about the twin swap.”

He growled and stalked toward me. Then he leaned down to whisper in my ear, “Lilah, do you know that I know your body better than you know it yourself?” He touched my hair. “You lie, and still I love that I get to find the lie you’re telling me, just by one movement. I’ve learned them all over the years. It’s how I know they’ve hurt you, how I know I’m going to now make them wish they were dead.”

His warning should have scared me. “Dante, you don’t have to do anything for me.”

“Lamb.” It was a plea, heavy in emotion and from deep in his gut. “Don’t ever do something like this again, you understand?”

My eyes filled with tears as I nodded at him. I whispered, “You don’t have to do this.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

I chewed on my cheek and glanced back at my sister. Her chest was still at my back, her arms still wrapped tight around me, like she wouldn’t let me go, like she was protecting me.

My baby sister.

The one Iago had tried to hurt.

I looked past Dante at the man whose eyes begged for his life.

I’d tried so hard most of my life not to make a mess in other people’s. I’d tried to be perfect. I’d tried not to share my true emotion, my true pain, everything.

“Had it only been me you touched, Iago, I would have told Dante that you could rot in jail.” I tilted my chin as I said the next words. “I would have shown you mercy.”

This was me embracing the mess, embracing that I was capable and entitled to causing destruction. I wanted it here and I wanted the man who could do that with me. Dante accepted me for who I was and I accepted him too.

Dante nodded, his jaw working up and down as he got up from kneeling before Izzy and me. When his hand left my face, I immediately missed his touch on my chin. “Tell me, Lilah. What happened? And then I want you to watch what happens to them. It’ll be a lesson for you to never risk the life of my lamb again. These are the consequences of your actions as much as theirs. And these men, for the time they are still breathing on this earth, need to know what happens when you mess with an Armanelli’s Untouchable.”

Iago’s eyes widened. He shook his head fiercely. I squinted at what he meant, whether he was talking about Izzy or me or maybe himself.

The other guy tried to argue through the duct tape, and he kept saying in a muffled tone, “You? You’re an Armanelli? Well, we didn’t know she was yours. We didn’t know. We didn’t know.” He started to cry then and looked to me for help.

“You know, it would be one thing to take a shot at the person undercover working against you. It’s another to take an innocent bystander and cause her pain. Did they know you were innocent, Delilah?” Dante asked, but we’d lost him. His voice was monotone as he twirled the knife in his hand.

I bit my lip, my brows furrowing. I nodded yes.

The sound that came from him was animalistic as he stopped the knife from spinning and drove it down into the man’s hand.

Flesh being stabbed sounds a lot like meat being thwacked with a mallet. It has that wet, squishy sound, like you're ridding it of blood.

Iago’s scream must have been heard throughout the cruise ship. Both Izzy and I jumped, but I didn't shut my eyes. They were on him.

Glued to him.

Mesmerized by him.

Before I knew what I was doing, I’d grabbed the phone from my back pocket and found the soundtrack Dante had played for me during my massage. Dante stopped for a split second to whip his head around and stare at my phone. His brow furrowed, and a small smile teased his lips. “Little Lamb,” he murmured, and I thought I caught what I felt for him in those green eyes of his.