Page 60 of Climbing Everest

Everest

I refuse to show it, but I’m a wreck. I can’t believe I just did that. I can’t believe I tortured information out of someone.

Thing is, I’m not a wreck because of what I did, but rather the fact…well, damn. I kind of liked it.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t plan on going around hurting or killing innocent people, but that jerk was far from innocent and was one of the people who caused me to lose my child. He was one of the people who caused me to lose four years with my soul mates.

Saying he wished he’d been the one ordered to take me away and kill me so he could rape me…

He deserved every moment of pain. I really hope I managed to splatter his balls. Maybe even crush his dick.

What sucks is I can’t hurt him anymore. Because he’s dead.

After we got what he knew about my father, Eriks, and Mikhail, Brix put the barrel of his gun to his forehead and pulled the trigger. I’m confident enough to admit I turned my back on that. I didn’t want to see his brains and pieces of skull splattering against the floor.

I’m currently standing under the shower with Maddox carefully cleaning blood splatters from my skin while Brix tells Kato what we learned.

“You okay?” he asks softly, like he’s afraid he’ll spook me if he speaks too loudly.

“Honestly? I’m not sure.” I tilt my head up to look into his face. “Shouldn’t I be…I don’t know, puking or something? I should have some kind of visceral reaction to torturing him and being feet away from him when his brains were blown out, but I’m not.”

“You’re shaking,” he says as he runs his hands over my shoulders and down my arms.

His cock is standing at attention, but he hasn’t tried anything, hasn’t touched any part of me that didn’t need to be scrubbed free of blood.

“I know. I can’t make it stop.”

Lifting my hands, I stare at them as they tremble.

“I’m not freaking out. I should be freaking out, right?” The fact I’m not freaking about torturing someone and beating them with a hammer is actually what is freaking me out.

“Everyone reacts differently. It could catch up to you later.” A wicked, sexy as sin smirk quirks up one corner of his mouth. “Or you could be like me and just enjoy making assholes cry.”

I can’t stop the grin that stretches across my face. “I really shouldn’t have liked that, but –”

“He made you cry, right?” I nod. “Then I say you had every right to enjoy it.”

His arms wrap around my back and pull me close, one of his big hands cupping my head to hold it to his chest.

“Even if you freak out later, it’s okay. If you don’t freak out…still okay. Everyone reacts differently to different shit, and that asshole put you through hell. If anyone deserved to have his balls popped with a hammer it was him.”

Fantasies of what I’ll do when we finally find Eriks and Mikhail play through my head, and I have a moment where I’m mildly ashamed of myself. Only mildly, though. Even if they don’t spew the same vitriol Denis did, they still almost destroyed me and my whole life.

I chuckle when an image of Denis’s balls literally popping like balloons filled with confetti floats through my head, then shake my head when Madd asks me what’s so funny.

“I’m getting married in a week,” I mutter after a few silent moments of simply letting Maddox hold me under the shower spray.

“Yep,” he says before lowering his cheek to the top of my head.

His dick is trapped between us, and he’s as hard as he was when he first stripped – I’ll analyze what turned him on later – yet he hasn’t made any move to fuck me or even attempted to seduce me.

Nope. He’s simply taking care of me. He’s making sure my skin is clean of Denis’s blood and that I’m in the right headspace.

“I’m not freaking out about that, either,” I admit, nuzzling my cheek against his wet chest as though I can possibly get any closer.

“Why would you? This is something that should have happened twenty years ago.” He pulls back and presses his lips to my forehead before reaching behind me and ending the spray.

“Really? We should have gotten married when we were three?”

He shrugs his wide shoulders. “Fine. Ten years ago. I knew you were mine the first time I got a boner thinking about you.”

I pull a face, but I can admit while mildly pervy, it’s kind of romantic. Especially since I’ve been in love with him for just as long.

Maybe longer since girls mature faster than boys and all that.

But ten years ago would have put me at thirteen, and I know I sure as hell wasn’t ready to be married at that age.

Twenty-three is still considered a little young to some people in society, but it isn’t uncommon for parents in our world to push their kids into marriage even younger if it’ll build their power or earn themselves an ally.

Hell, I was always prepared for my father to sell me to someone in the Bratva to further his power. I can’t be the only one who sees how badly my father wants to be the Pakhan.

Not a chance. He’s not strong enough, not smart enough, and far too many soldiers are loyal to Roman.

Maddox grabs the hunter green towel from the rack and begins to rub it over my skin.

“I’m curious – who picked the color,” I say, nodding my head at the towel.

And, oh my gosh…are his cheeks pink?

“I did,” he admits softly.

My big nutjob is blushing because he not only remembered my favorite color but made sure there was something of that color in my room.

“I bought a bedspread in the same color for when the new room is finished,” I say, taking the towel from him and squeezing the excess water out of my hair before twisting it around the bulk.

Maddox grabs another towel and scrubs at his skin before wrapping it around his waist.

Of course, his boner creates a delicious outline, but he’s yet to actually do anything about it.

Warmth spreads from my chest out to my fingertips. He’s genuinely concerned, as in he thinks I’m moments away from having some kind of meltdown.

I’m more concerned that I’m not moments away from crying or puking.

“Were you telling the truth?” he asks as he glances in the mirror and finger combs his wet hair.

I frown at him through the mirror as I start my skincare. “About what?”

When he plants his hands on the vanity and hangs his head, there’s a beat where I’m actually a little worried. I run the events from downstairs through my head; is it possible that him seeing proof that I’m no longer the sweet girl they fell in love with might be too much for him?

“You told that prick the doctor said not to get your hopes up about getting pregnant.” His tone is so soft. So sad.

Putting the jar of serum back in its place, I turn my head to look at him. “Yes. That was the truth.”

I don’t want to have this conversation in nothing but a towel, but I can’t exactly stay mad at them if I continue holding shit back from them.

“They did a blood test to see if I’m already pregnant.

I don’t know the answer yet, but the doctor said it’s highly unlikely because of how long I’ve been using the implant, and there was more damage to my uterus than I realized since I didn’t receive proper care after losing the baby.

If I can actually conceive, there still is no guarantee I’ll be able to carry to term. ”

Tears burn the backs of my eyes, but I blink them away.

He turns and drops heavily onto the end of the unmade bed we’ve all slept in together for the past few weeks. Then he lowers his elbows to his knees and his shoulders hunch forward as though the news is too much to carry.

I get the feeling. It had taken everything in me not to burst into tears or let the rage overtake any form of rational thought.

Well, until I’d been presented with my gift in the form of retribution.

More like justice.

“Fuck, E,” he says so softly I barely hear him.

But I see the muscle jumping in his cheek and the way he’s blinking rapidly, as though he’s trying to hold back his own tears.

Why the hell hadn’t I even thought about the fact that me not being able to carry a child would affect them as strongly? They lost their son or daughter, too. And now, our chance at having a family together might be completely off the table.

I dress in silence, glancing at him periodically when he simply continues to sit like a statue and stare at the floor like he doesn’t really see it.

I’m just pulling a sweater over my head and jump hard when he shoots to his feet and declares, “We’ll just adopt. We’ll adopt ten kids. Babies. Toddlers. Even teenagers. Kids like me and Brix. Except we’ll be good to them.”

He’s still in the towel, but at least his boner seems to have gone down a bit. Might have made this conversation a little…awkward.

“Teenagers?” I say when I can finally find my voice. Those damn tears are back only this time for a whole different reason.

“Sure. Why not? We’ve got plenty of room. Guards are on the property, so it’s not like they can sneak out and do crazy shit. We’ll adopt…ten kids. Maybe more.”

A watery smile breaks free, and I begin to giggle softly. I’m both sad that this is a conversation we have to have instead of simply deciding it’s something we want but elated that Maddox would see any child as his, regardless of his or her bloodline.

Suppose that shouldn’t surprise me, considering that the three of them always said they had no desire to have a DNA test on any child we brought into the world.

Tears stream down my face, and I don’t bother stopping them.

He drops back on the bed, his eyes unfocused as though already making plans in his head.

Instead, I step closer to Madd and wait for him to lift his head and move a bit so I can stand between his knees.

Taking his face in my hands, I lower and press a kiss to his lips, then say, “We’ll adopt as many as you want.

Babies, toddlers, teenagers, even sibling groups, and we’ll love them and spoil them and give them the best life ever. ”

Definitely a better life than any of us had.

We’ll shield them from the darker parts of my husbands’ work, keep them safe, even hire a whole new group of guards specifically for each child who comes into our lives.

And just like that, the anger I’d felt over them not telling me about the removal of my birth control implant is all but gone.

We have a life to build together. And that life has no room for grudges. At least not against each other.

No. The four of us are a united front and will cut down any and every single person who’d attempted to destroy us.