Page 64 of Ruthless Commander

My phone vibrated in my hand. I glanced down. It was a message…from Kurti. My pulse picked up the pace.

“Commander?”

I jerked my head up at the sound. “Yes?”

“Did you hear me?” Orlando Rossi asked.

I licked my lips, feeling the attention in the room shift to me. “Please, repeat the question.”

“If we’re distracting you…” Dominic Salvatore leaned forward until he filled the screen, those dark eyes piercing through the camera.

“No.” I slid my phone back into my pocket and forced my attention to the room.

“I asked what provisions have you made to secure the rest of those on the island,” Orlando Rossi repeated.

“The same ones I gave you an hour ago…when you asked the last time,”I snapped.

I didn’t have time for this fucking bullshit. The cameras jerked and shuddered.

“Sorry…” Rossi’s words were garbled as the connection flashed, jumbled, and dropped out.

No connection…

The words flashed on the screen.

“I don’t think they heard you,” Lazarus said carefully, then turned and met my gaze. “Lucky for that.”

I sucked in hard breaths, listening to the wind howling outside the building, until the door opened and Damon Zakharov, with his busted-up face, strolled in. The bastard’s father had forced me to let him free, on the provision he stayed the hell away from Kat…

But that was before.

Before it had all gone straight to Hell.

He glanced my way, feeling brave flanked by his bodyguards. Lazarus just watched him with a savage stare as the rapist pile of hyena shit strode through the room. Lazarus's lips curled, revealing teeth. I knew that kind of hatred, that viper coiled in your belly, waiting for the moment to strike.

Lazarus was more than a little unhinged when it came to Kat. He was a man possessed…a man who looked exactly like the one I saw in the mirror when it came to Xael. He shifted his gaze, watching Damon Zakharov as he strode toward Hale and they exchanged muffled words.

Damon flinched, then glanced over his shoulder at Lazarus before turning and heading to the door with his men.

“Nice teeth,” Lazarus snarled.

The asshole was busted and broken. The cracked teeth that cut the inside of his cheeks with even the slightest twitch of his mouth were jagged and disgusting, leaving Zakharov nothing but to flip him the bird as he passed.

Hale and Sebastian VanHalen followed, taking their fucking stench with them.

“I fucking hate him.” Lazarus stared at the doorway as they left. “I hate all of them.”

Logan cleared his throat. “They’re her family.”

“Not Hale,” he spat. “No fucking way.”

“Did you know about that?” Freddy took a step forward and nodded toward the doorway.

“Not from her, no,” Lazarus answered, and cut a glare my way.

But I didn’t flinch. I didn’t move at all.

“So she didn’t tell you anything about that Hale jerk?” Freddy muttered, and scowled. “Makes perfect fucking sense then.”