Page 28

CHAPTER 27

JAXSON

“You know what I’m gonna ask you to do,” Aurora says sweetly.

Bennett and Thomas don’t think twice and begin to shred the clothes off of Oleg and Dmitri with their knives. I watch Aurora out of the corner of my eye, amazed at how fucking strong she truly is. There’s a fire burning deep within those emerald irises, and I know hell is about to be unleashed. I love having a front-row seat to her torturing these sad fucking excuses for human beings, but I want a piece of these assholes, too.

Hudson joins me. “Wonder what she’ll come up with this time?”

“I’m sure it’ll be interesting,” I muse.

Aurora whispers something in Lykos’ ear before approaching the platform. Whatever she said didn’t soothe the animal because his hackles are raised, and his growls intensify the closer she gets to the men in chains.

“Jaxson,” Aurora calls. “Can you come help me?”

“Got to go.” I rub my hands together methodically. “Duty calls.” I step onto the stage.

Aurora smirks. “I thought you could keep Oleg company so he doesn’t get lonely.”

I crack my knuckles. “Any special requests?”

She taps her chin. “I’ll leave that up to you.” She whistles and calls Lykos to her side, petting him until he settles down. “You’re such a good boy,” she coos. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your pickle.”

Lykos sits down and thumps his tail enthusiastically against the wood floor while the rest of us groan.

“What?” she asks innocently.

“Nothing, baby.” I kiss her temple. “Which one do you want?”

Without hesitation, she responds, “Dmitri.”

“No offense, Rivers,” Bennett says with a chuckle. “I’d rather be Oleg in this situation.”

“Me too,” Hudson echoes.

“Same,” Carver and Thomas say in unison.

I tend to agree with them. Even though we’ve used torture to extract information from our enemies for the good of our country, it’s not been used like this before. Not that I have any qualms about it. In fact, I’m more than happy to dole out some justice without Uncle Sam peering over my shoulder and telling me I’ve taken things too far. Aurora is uninhibited. It’s like watching an artist approach a blank canvas, the end result unknown.

“My pet won’t be able to do anything to me,” Dmitri rants. “She has to hide behind you heathens. What a shame, I would’ve liked one last go at her tight pu?—”

In a quick, fluid motion, Aurora flings her wrist and lets one of her knives fly. It embeds in the top of Dmitri’s thigh, close to his dick. He wails and shouts obscenities in Russian.

“That’s not very nice,” Bennett chastises. “We really don’t like it when assholes call our sister a whore.”

“She doesn’t have any siblings!” Dmitri yells.

I rush forward and wrap my hand around his neck, cutting off his air supply. “How the fuck do you know if she has siblings or not, you worthless piece of shit?” I squeeze harder. “You have no idea who the fuck you grabbed.”

Aurora’s fingers brush my arm. “Jaxson,” she says soothingly. “I kinda want to kill him.” She pulls the knife from Dmitri’s thigh and stabs him in the other one, sneering at the prick. “That’s for pissing off my man.”

I release him with a shove, and he gasps for breath. I stomp over to Oleg and pound my frustrations out on him. Unlike Dmitri, Oleg’s mouth is taped shut so I don’t have to hear anything but muffled screams. Dmitri’s sadistic laughter stops my physical assault on Oleg who sags as I slam home my fist into his right temple, knocking him out.

“What’s so fucking funny?” I growl.

“You… You… You…still don’t know, do you?” he wheezes. “Fucking morons.”

Aurora rips the blade from his leg and holds the point under his chin. “Know what?”

“I’m dead anyway,” he sneers. “I’m not telling you shit, pet.”

“We’ll see about that.” Aurora whistles. “Zwickel!”

A flash of fur bursts past me and lunges for Dmitri’s dick. The sound of flesh tearing has me gagging. Seeing the aftermath of Lykos’ destruction is totally different than witnessing it firsthand. Blood splatters across the floor, hitting Oleg.

“S-S-Stop, please stop!” Dmitri begs before passing out.

“Lykos, heel,” Aurora commands. Lykos unwillingly drops his favorite chew toy and bounds back to her, licking his lips. “I told you, you’d get your pickle. Mommy’s sorry it was so small. Maybe we’ll get you another one.” Her eyes flicker to Oleg, who came to at the sound of chaos, and he violently shakes his head.

Both of his eyes are almost swollen shut, and his nose is definitely broken. I march over to him and twist his nose, relishing his screams behind the tape. I rip the tape off and point my gun at his forehead. “You’re gonna die tonight,” I warn. “How you go is up to you. Personally, I’d love to draw this out and get a little more payback for my woman over there, but as you can see, she’s more than capable of doling out her own brand of justice. You can either tell me what your boss meant or I’ll let Aurora and Lykos have their fun with you too.”

Aurora sidles up beside me, and I wrap my arm around her waist.

Oleg gulps. “Dmitri isn’t the boss.”

Aurora’s spine goes rigid. “What do you mean? All my intel pointed to the Krukov family and Dmitri Krukov specifically.”

“F-F-False trail,” he sputters.

I go to choke him again, but Aurora stops me. “Who’s the fucking leader then?” I yell.

“I don’t know,” he cries. Aurora snaps her fingers, and Lykos trots over. “No… no… wait. I don’t know because I wasn’t told. Dmitri was worried I would try to overthrow him. There’s someone else at the head of the family, pulling the strings. I swear I don’t know!” he screams.

Not needing to hear any more, I pull the trigger, putting a bullet in his head.

Aurora looks up at me. “Do you think it’s true?”

“Only one person here who knows, and he’s unconscious and bleeding out.” I tug my hair.

“Hudson,” Aurora hollers. “Do you have any adrenaline on you?”

Hudson rushes over, vile in his hand. “You know what to do.”

Aurora winks, uncaps the syringe, and plunges it into the wound on Dmitri’s thigh. A few moments later, he jolts awake. His head jerks around, and his eyes widen when he sees Oleg with a bullet in his forehead.

“What don’t we know, asshole?” I demand.

“The Bratva is c-c-changing,” he gurgles. “Men aren’t the only ones in charge anymore.”

“Uh… Jaxson,” Hudson interrupts. “Remember when you asked me if someone could bleed out from having their dick cut off?”

“Yeah,” I respond.

“This is one of those times,” Hudson points out.

“Fuck,” Aurora mumbles. “I wanted more time with this son of a bitch. I need everyone to get behind me, now. Jaxson, grab Lykos.”

She lifts the gun from my waistband and moves quickly behind Dmitri, and we scramble to follow like good soldiers. “Fire in the hole!” she shouts.

Carver snickers. “I taught her that.”

Aurora shoves the barrel of the gun up his ass and pulls the trigger.

The bullet hits the wall at the same time Dmitri slumps forward. Our mouths hang open in shock, and I turn my icy glare on Carver before stalking toward him.

“Whoa,” he says, holding up his hands. “I didn’t teach her that .”

Aurora inserts herself between us and tries to hand back my shit-stained gun.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You shoved that up his ass, Aurora.”

She glances at the weapon before grinning up at me. “We’ll clean it up, and it’ll be good as new.”

“No, babe,” I groan. “I’ll never look at my gun the same now.”

“I’ll buy you a new one,” she promises.

Hudson spins around. “How’d you know the bullet would come out of his body?”

“I didn’t,” she says nonchalantly. “I guessed.”

Carver howls. “Damn, sis. You give literal meaning to shoving something up someone’s ass.”

“Don’t you forget it,” she sasses as Carver covers his ass and backs away.

We still have no fucking clue who is calling the shots.

“Bennett, Hudson, and Carver, you start clean up,” I order. “Thomas and I are going to do a sweep to make sure there’s no one else in here.”

Aurora glances at me. “You didn’t already do that?”

“We did,” Thomas interjects. “Killed all the guards, but there’s a lot of locked cell doors.”

“The keys are probably in his office or his pants.”

Thomas raises his brow. “How do you know?”

“This is where I was held." She scrunches her nose. "At least, this is a location I remember.”

I check Dmitri’s pants and come up empty. “His keys aren’t here. Can you remember where his office is?” She nods. “Let’s go. The sooner we check the rooms, the faster we can get out of here. Hudson, give me your gun.”

Hudson grins, holding it out for me. “What’s wrong with yours?”

“Everyone’s a fucking comedian today,” I mutter under my breath, taking it from him.

We leave the three of them to start cleaning up the bodies while I, Aurora, and Thomas make our way down a series of hallways until we come to Dmitri’s office. Busting through the door, Aurora stumbles for a moment but catches herself before marching over to his desk and ripping open the top drawer.

She holds up a set of keys. “Got ‘em.”

Turning back the way we came, she leads us down another series of twists and turns, revealing cell doors. She unlocks them; each one is empty. I don’t know if we should be relieved or worried. I text Benson to let him know that Oleg and Dmitri have been sent on a permanent vacation, but we have no idea if any luggage was taken. He responds right away that he and his team will stay vigilant and keep their eyes open and ears to the ground.

“This is the last room,” Thomas announces. “We cleared the rest that were unlocked.”

Aurora’s hand trembles as she places the key in the lock but doesn’t turn it. “I-I-I don’t know if I can.”

I spin her around and pull her into my chest. “What is it?” I rub my hands up and down her back.

“That’s the room… Where… Senator Briggs,” she sobs.

I look over her head at Thomas. “You don’t have to go in. Thomas and I ca?—”

“No!” she cries. “They don’t get to win. No fucking more, Jaxson. They don’t get to have any more power over me. I have to do this. I’m not weak anymore.”

“You were never weak, baby.” I sway with her in my arms. “Take your time. Whatever you need for as long as you need.”

“Aurora,” Thomas speaks up, and she turns to look at him. “You took back all your power, there’s not a single one of us who ever thought or would ever think you’re weak. No one could ever survive what you, or any other person like you did, and be weak. We’re Marines, and sure we’re tough, but honey, you’re the fucking strongest person out of all of us, and don’t you ever doubt that. It takes so much more to be a survivor. You took back your life, and you made all those fuckers your bitches.”

Thomas opens his arms, and Aurora runs into his embrace. Thomas is a man of little words, but when he speaks, he makes it count. He said exactly what Aurora needed to hear.

Aurora juts out her chin. “Fuck ‘em. Open the door, Thomas.”

That’s my girl.