Page 32 of Lash

"I investigated him," I answer. "I have evidence against him. Enough to bring him to justice." I hesitate, but I know Scarlett is right: I owe them answers. "I brought charges against him. He would have been imprisoned for life had I succeeded, but he…" I swallow hard, fighting the hot lump in my throat, the burn behind my eyes. "He kidnapped my wife and infant children. If I gave him the evidence I had against him, he claimed he would let them go once it was destroyed."

“A man like that doesn’t take chances," Solomon guesses.

"No, indeed he does not. I knew it, too. So I…I tried to rescue them. It was…I slaughtered dozens of his men. He had my wife, my children. They were innocent, and he had them. So I…I did what I had to do.”

"Of course you did," Sol says. "Who wouldn't?"

I shake my head. "I succeeded…for a while. I tried to get us away, off-grid. I used every favor and contact I had. New identities, a new life. I left Germany, hid my family, and tried to start over working as an investigator for a small police force in Denmark. But Pugli found us anyway.”

"Fuck," Solomon says.

I stare at nothing, seeing flames, hearing the screams of my wife. "He captured us. Tied me to a chair and used an ophthalmic speculum to force my eyes open. I was forced to watch as his men locked my wife and infant twins in a room. He himself doused the house in gasoline and lighter fluid, and he himself threw the match."

Silence greets this.

I know I must continue.

"I heard them die. I will forever hear my wife screaming for me to save them. And I could not. I was helpless."

"Lash, Jesus fucking Christ," Solomon says, grabbing me by the shoulders in a rough embrace. "I'm so fucking sorry, brother. That's…I don't have the fucking words."

"There are no words, my friend," I whisper. I look at Tatiana, who is weeping. "That is why I am broken."

“He didn't kill you?" Lorenzo asks.

I shake my head. “No. I had hoped he would. It would have been kinder if he had—which is why he didn’t.” My eyes burn, and I look away, blinking and swallowing. "He left me alive. Unbound me and left me there to watch the house burn. All I had to bury was a handful of bones. I walked away from everything. Went to the States and…I suppose I was a ghost, then. I found what work I could, usually unsavory jobs for unsavory people. Eventually, I encountered Inez and ended up with the rest of you."

"Perhaps this mysterious employer of yours left you out of the vow against killing because he knew you could never truly find peace until Roberto Pugli has been brought to justice for what he did," Scarlett says.

I nod. "That is my thought as well."

"Do you seek revenge?" Lorenzo asks me, his gaze sharp and watchful.

"Of course." I look away from him. "I have dreamt of it for a long time, but…he is well protected. Insulated. I have formulated many plans for getting to him and killing him, but…my oath to the Broken Arrows took precedence. I could not and would not leave Club Sin to pursue my vengeance. I know well enough that killing Pugli will not bring my family back. Perhaps it will bring me peace, perhaps it will not. But now that I am here in Europe and so close to him, how can I not at least try? But…" I shrug."Inez is in danger. Her safety is more important. And I still do not know how I would get close enough to Pugli to put a bullet in his skull."

Lorenzo eyes me again. "If it were me, I would not be content with a bullet to the skull."

I shake my head, sighing. "I have dreamt many nights of the punishments I would enact upon him, it is true. Clever, horrible ones. A blood eagle, perhaps. Or cover him in honey and stake him to a fire ant hill, as the Apache used to do. I have realized, however, that to do such a thing would only make me more like him. So no. I will not torture him. I will not murder his family—his wife, his daughters, his grandchildren. They are innocent of his crimes. But he will die. I will look him in the eyes and I will put a bullet in his brain, and I will not take up a gun ever again thereafter.”

Tatiana is watching me carefully, tear tracks staining her cheeks. "Lash…my god. How you have suffered." She says it in Croatian.

I shake my head, shrug. "Life is suffering. A mob murdered my parents when I was a boy."

“Murdered by the mob?" Scarlett asks.

I shake my head. "No, notthemob, as in your American mafia.Amob. During the revolution in Romania, where I was born. My people, the Romani, were persecuted. We have always been hated and persecuted wherever we went, and we still are. But that was…" I shake my head. "It was a horrible time. Many innocent people were murdered."

"How did you survive?" Tatiana asks.

"Thievery, begging, and starvation." I look at her. "Your father saved me. I left Romania and made my way on foot south and west through what is now Serbia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, and into Croatia, eventually ending up in Zagreb. Your father hired me to wash dishes and sweep floors in his restaurant. Hetook pity on me, I think. Why, I do not know. I do not know if he knows why, but he did." I blow out a breath. "Enough story time. Now you know my history." I gesture at the corner, indicating the police presence. "We have to find another way out of Croatia, or we have to deal with them."

Lorenzo meets my gaze. "I think we deal with them. I won't kill police officers unless I have to, but I think we could use them to draw this Pugli out of hiding. Bait him into coming for you himself. You aren't on your own, now. We are with you. We will help you."

"And Inez?" I ask.

"We need a way back across the ocean. But this Pugli is here. He knows you're here. So we may as well make the best of it. Kill him, and then we rescue Inez."

I look at Solomon.