Page 111 of The Wrong Monster

Ariadna smiles faintly. “There’s the man I recognize.” She rises and heads for the door, phone already out, Russian already rolling off her tongue.

Ariadna’s words follow me long after she leaves. It happens when I’m trying to make my way through a report on two of my Boeviks getting in a fight and what discipline should look like.

Soft.

I hate the word. I hate the implication even more. That isn’t how I built this empire, how I survived so long in the woods.

I am not soft. I’m tired. Distracted, perhaps. There is a difference.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

Then I think about Matilda.

Why would she tell me?

She is still, technically, my prisoner. I may have loosened the walls around her, but I am still the reason she’s here. The reason she can’t simply walk out the front door and return to her life.

We aren’t dating.

We aren’t anything.

The story she told Isla (that I’m someone she’s seeing) is a lie designed to protect both of us. So why would she think she owed me an explanation?

She doesn’t.

The realization leaves an unpleasant weight beneath my ribs. I push it away, trying not to let images and sensory memories from the night in the city flood my mind. The heft of her in my hands as I carried her to the bedroom. The scent of her with my face pressed between her legs. The way her body arched and shook as she came, as I kept pumping into her, feeling a flood of emotions that I can’t and don’t want to put a name to.

No, that was one night of a handful. Pleasure before business, which was a mistake. There are more important things to think about.

Yuri. Kevin. My accountant, still in jail, waiting on an upcoming trial date, and the defense attorney I kidnapped picking out jury members this week.

My attention shifts to the files waiting on the conference table.

* * *

I spend the next hour building something else in my head.

A message. A warning.

Revenge.

Yuri hurt Kevin because the boy was useful to me. He crossed a line he knew better than to cross.

I won’t respond impulsively; that’s what Yuri expects. But I need to get back to my roots. To what built Deep Waters and what sustains all of the men and women involved.

Instead of running recklessly into revenge with emotion, which I’ve been letting drive every decision I’ve made lately, I decide to take something Yuri values.

Something that hurts.

I start making calls. By midday, the outline of a plan is taking shape.

A property Yuri has been quietly moving money through. A shipment. A man he trusts.

There are several possibilities.

I choose the one that will make him understand exactly who he’s dealing with without starting a war neither of us can afford.

Be at the main office as soon as you can, I text Arthur. I fully intend to use him as the weapon he was always meant to be and has always been.