Page 164 of Blood & Snow

But It's hard to control my temper when the woman I need in my life is quite possibly being tortured to give up very real information about us.

Maybe… Maybe she's dead already. I don't know.

"You are."

Leonid turns to face me.

"This isn't about operational security. This is about you. You have feelings for this girl."

I say nothing.

My jaw tightens.

"I warned you," Leonid continues.

"I told you not to let distractions interfere with your work. Yet here you are, asking me to divert resources to save a whore you can't keep your dick out of."

Violent fury rises in my chest like hot lava.

My hands curl into fists at my sides.

"She's not a distraction," I growl, "and she's not a whore."

"No?"

Leonid walks closer.

His voice is calm and controlled, but I hear the steel beneath it.

"Then what is she? Because it appears to me she's just the hole you put your dick in and someone you pay to clean your blood off walls. Distraction—whore… See how I get that conclusion?"

Hiseyebrows both rise, but it's shock on his face when I growl out my response.

"She's more than that."

"More than what? You've known her for weeks, Xander. Weeks. And now you stand in my house demanding I help you rescue her as if she's worth the lives of my men."

"She knows too much," I say.

My voice is low and dangerous.

I would never challenge the Pakhan's authority in any way, but this isn’t something I'm going to back down on.

If he won’t help me, I'll declare war on every last person in this fucking family.

"If they break her, she'll expose everything. Locations. Names. Operations. They'll use her to destroy us."

A light bulb goes off in my head as his face flashes in my mind, the expression written there when Nadya walked across the room in this very fucking house.

"She knows where you live, Leonid. Do you really want to have to move?"

"Then kill her," he says coolly, not even missing a beat.

He folds his hands casually in front of himself and purses his lips.

It's so easy for him.

No attachments means no heart, and no pain when he has to cut ties with someone.