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Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. Because now, I have this bone deep need to learn the name of any motherfucker who ever touched her, hunt them down, and beat them to death with my bare hands.

“It’s the past. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“You don’t want to talk about it,” I say, more a statement – or accusation – than a question. “Is there someone I should track down?”

She huffs a sound that almost sounds like one of those disbelieving snorts. “Like I knew most of their names,” she says more to herself than me.

The more she speaks, the angrier I get.

Not at her.

At her past. At the men who’d hurt her. At her father.

Fuck, even at myself.

Maddox tried. He tried all that time to convince us we were wrong, tried to convince us her dad was full of shit, that Dima Sidorov was lying to us.

We hadn’t believed him.

He’d gone a little…nutty. A little unhinged. We all dealt with her absence in our own ways, but Madd was close to being downright suicidal. Kato had done everything he could to keep our brother busy and under someone’s watch at all times, fearing he would walk straight into a gunfight in the hopes of taking himself out.

Nico pulls back, turning off the gun as he switches out the needle for the next color. “Someone we need to kill?” he asks Everest. Not me. He asks Everest.

Her brows shoot almost to her hairline. “You work for Kato, too?”

“Nah,” he says, rotating on the stool when he gets the new needle in place and the next color arranged. “But if the big guy here loves you, then I love you. Known him long enough to know he doesn’t give his loyalty to just anyone. Someone hurts you, tell him. Or me. Or another member of your harem.”

She huffs a surprised sound, this one not quite the disbelieving scoff from earlier but more like Nico completely caught her off guard.

“Thanks?” she says, posing it more as a question.

“Stop flirting with my wife,” I growl, standing over Everest with my arms crossed over my chest.

Everest and Nico glance at each other, then burst into laughter at the same time.

“Laugh it up,” I mutter, moving away from the table and dropping into a chair in the corner of the room.

The two start up a conversation as Nico works on E’s tattoo, so I take the free time to check through my emails and texts. Literally nothing of importance for the time being, but at least it’s keeping me distracted from the green fog slithering through my gut.

Nico would never disrespect me, especially not when it comes to Everest. He knows literally everything. He’s seen me cry. He’s seen me put my fist through walls when I drank too much and couldn’t contain my rage.

And now, he’s getting to know her, getting to see how warm my stunning girl is. He better keep his fucking emotions and dick in check, though.

“Sorry,” Nico says, catching my attention. “This location tends to be a little on the spicier side.”

“Spicy my ass,” Everest grits out.

The tattoo had been my idea. I’d reveled in the idea of seeing not just our initials front and center but watching her endure physical pain after what she’d put us through.

Now…I fucking hate myself. I hate myself for putting her through this.

“We can stop. You don’t have to fill the rest in,” I tell Nico.

“I’m not walking around with a half-finished tattoo. That’s…trashy.”

Nico scoffs. “According to some people, any tattoo or piercing is trashy. I’ll stop if you’re content with what you have, but don’t keep going if you’re worried about what anyone else will think.”

He’s pulled his hand away and is watching her, not me. The decision is completely hers.