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TWENTY-THREE

M ilo

Two months later

It’s been two months since Fallon cut the monster down to size. Two months since I took Igor’s arms—one at a time.

She never told us why. She never screamed. She never cried. She just said, “Take his arms. But he lives.”

And I did.

God help me, I did.

I’ll never forget the first time. How I clamped the tourniquet just above his elbow.

How he fought so hard I thought he’d rip his own arm off when I saw the leather straps start cutting into his skin.

Dr. Stevens was there, white-knuckled and swearing under his breath.

Still, he did it, kept the man alive while I carved the limb off.

The smell… Jesus, the smell of his flesh burning as Dr. Steven’s cauterized it.

He lost so much blood we had to run two transfusions that night, he bled like a stuck pig.

When I went to Fallon afterward, shirt soaked and shaking from the adrenaline, I told her the second one would kill him.

She looked at me, the belly already starting to round beneath her robe, and said, “Then you better make sure it doesn’t.

” I could only stare at her in shock at how cold she was.

I just cut off a man’s arm for her, and she didn’t even look the least bit disturbed by it.

So, days later, I did it again.

And Igor lived.

Now he’s a stump in a cage, a breathing carcass chained to a bolt in the floor of our basement like some sick family secret we never speak of upstairs. Fallon never gloats. She never threatens him. She just brings him breakfast.

Every morning.

Right on time.

And today’s no different. Fallon is at the stove in one of Leone’s old T-shirts, one hand on her belly, the other stirring porridge like this is just any other Sunday.

Her hair’s tied back in a loose knot. She’s humming something I can’t quite catch.

The sun filters in through the kitchen window and hits the swell of her stomach, making her glow even more.

Which is fucked up, considering what we’re about to do.

Leone stands beside me, arms crossed, watching her with the same puzzled expression I’ve worn every morning for weeks now.

“You still think this is healthy?” he mutters without looking at me.

“I stopped trying to label her behavior after the first week,” I reply.

Fallon doesn’t acknowledge us. She pours the porridge into a wooden bowl, adds a little cinnamon like she always does, and slides the spoon in like she’s preparing it for a friend. Then she turns and walks past us with her little wobble, and heads toward the basement door.

Leone and I follow like we always do, too afraid to let her go down there on her own. Not that he will get out of there or be able to hurt her in his state.

“She’s going to have to let this go eventually and let us kill him or at least tell us why we are keeping him alive,” he says.

“Tell her that,” I mutter, knowing how hormonal she is.

I’m not game enough to tell the woman no, afraid of the water works and feral cat lady energy she could give off.

Her hormones lately are giving me whiplash; one minute she is crying, the next she is ripping our clothes off and demanding our cocks like they no longer belong to us and are purely for her use.

We reach the door. She stands there, waiting, patient as ever, one hand resting protectively on her belly.

Leone sighs and unlocks it with a heavy click . “How much longer are you going to keep him alive?” he asks. “Why not just end it?”

Fallon doesn’t answer. She just steps through the door, bowl in hand.

We descend together. The air shifts the lower we get, damp, metallic, and sharp. Like torture lives here. Which it does.

Leone flips the light switch.

Igor sits in his chair, or what’s left of a chair after his thrashing.

He’s slumped, shirtless, bandaged stumps resting limp at his sides.

There’s a rusted chain wrapped around his torso and fixed to a bolt in the wall.

The chain jerks and clanks as he lunges forward the second he sees us, snarling something guttural in Russian.

The bolt holds.

He gets yanked back hard, landing against the wall with a thud that shakes dust from the ceiling. He screams again, curses—his voice hoarse, throat ragged from screaming. He spits, drool dripping down his chin.

Fallon doesn’t flinch. Not even a blink.

Her coldness toward him scares me more than what I did to him. And I’m the one who took his goddamn arms.

She drags her metal chair forward same one every day. She sets the bowl down on the little table and sits across from him like she’s visiting an old friend in a retirement home.

Leone steps forward, blade already drawn. Igor tries to kick him. Leone moves too fast. He grabs Igor’s leg, yanks the ankle cuff tight, then the other. Then he gives the chain at Igor’s waist a hard pull, winding it tight against the bolt in the wall.

“Sit down,” Leone growls.

Igor snarls something else in Russian. We don’t need a translation. We know hate when we hear it.

Then Fallon calmly scoops a spoonful of porridge and shoves it into his mouth. He chokes, growls, gags. She waits until he swallows.

“We found out we’re having a boy,” she says, voice light, almost conversational. “His name’s undecided. Leone likes Luca. Milo hasn’t weighed in.” He opens his mouth to scream some profanity at her and gets a mouthful of breakfast instead.

“We also finally painted the nursery,” she continues. “Light gray with little stars. Milo found this old rocking chair, it creaks, and Leone reckons it will wake the baby, but I like it.”

She smiles faintly at that, it’s not joy. It’s something darker. A look I don’t like on her face, it’s almost mocking.

Igor glares at her. There’s blood in his teeth from where the spoon clanged against them a little too hard. He spits it to the side and mutters something that sounds like you bitch, or maybe it was Russian—his words are too mangled to translate.

Another spoonful.

“Doctor says he’s healthy. Kicks like hell. Last night, I swear he decided to sleep on my bladder; I think I peed thirty times.” She turns her head slightly.

Igor gurgles a protest. She shuts it down with more food.

This is what she does.

Every. Single. Morning.

She talks to him like he’s family, and tortures him by not giving him what he really wants which is death, dignity, or perhaps an explanation.

We don’t get it.

She never tells us why.

She’s never missed a day.

And me? I’m starting to feel something I didn’t think I’d ever feel for the bastard.

Pity.

He has no arms. No control. No privacy. Every meal shoved down his throat by the woman he pissed off by killing her mother, or so she says. And still, he lives. Because she won’t let him die.

And he knows it. That might be the worst part.

When Fallon’s finished feeding him, she wipes his chin with the edge of a napkin like a nurse caring for a patient. Then she stands, hands pressed to her lower back, stretching slightly against the weight of the baby inside her.

Leone loosens the chains on the bolt. Igor sags forward, exhausted.

Fallon picks up the bowl, which is empty now, and turns without a word. As she starts walking toward the stairs, I speak up.

“Why?”

She stops. Doesn’t look back.

“Why not just let him rot?”

Fallon finally glances over her shoulder, expression unreadable.

“He killed my mother,” Leone moves past me and grips her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze.

“That isn’t good enough, there is something you’re not telling us. You barely knew the woman and would have us keep him locked down there for months. Let us kill him,” Leone pleads.

“No, if you do before I say otherwise, I will make you sleep in the basement.”

“You’ll make me sleep in the basement?” he scoffs. She arches a brow at him.

“Then I will!” she says, knowing Leone would put himself in the basement before allowing her to sleep down here ever again.

Leone grits his teeth, and lets her go, and we watch her wobble up the steps.

“She is driving me insane with how she is keeping him like he is some pet.”

“Well, I’m not sleeping in the basement. Be my guest.” I grip his shoulder and follow her back inside the main part of the house. Reluctantly, Leone locks the door and follows after me. Reaching the main floor, I spot Rocco come in with a box.

“A parcel was dropped off for you?” he says, reading the name on the parcel before handing it to Fallon.

She reaches for it excitedly and takes it from him.

Rocco has been quiet since learning about Sienna; he spends most of his time away chasing up people for Leone now.

He seems to have to keep moving, never staying long before he is asking for more work from Leone.

Leone seeing her with the parcel groans. “I swear if that is something I need to build it's going in the bin,” he groans. She shakes the box which sounds like it has another smaller box inside it.

“Nope, nothing like that,” she says excitedly before rushing off up the stairs. Leone reaches for her as she moves past him, and she holds the box out of his reach.

“Nope, this is what you get for denying me,” she snaps, stomping up the steps. I glance at Leone who is watching her move up the steps. He turns to look at me and I shrug. I have no clue what she bought.

Turning back to Rocco, I take him in. He looks rougher than normal, days old stubble growing on his chin, dark circles under his eyes like he isn’t sleeping. “You staying this time?” Leone questions and he shakes his head.

“Rocco…” Leone sighs.

“Do you need me here?” Rocco asks.

“Always, you just—” Rocco shakes his head.

“I’ll stay for a few days, then I need to leave, your father asked me to go do a job for him.”

“A job? You mean a hit?” Leone asks.

“Unless you need me for something?”

Leone pinches his brow and sighs. “No, go. I can tell you want to, just come home afterward. We need to talk,” Leone tells him, and Rocco nods once before leaving. Leone and I watch after him worriedly as he leaves, closing the door to the patio behind him.

Once he is gone, Leone turns for the stairs. “Where are you going?”

“To see what she has bought and is trying to hide.”