Page 116 of The Games of Madmen

“You tell us?” Rodion says, placing a hand on my thigh beneath the table.

“I was talking to Ally, or is it Alyona?” Adam sneers.

My eyes track the snake on Z’s throat as he swallows, and then warns, “I think it would be in your best interest if her name doesn’t pass your lips at all.”

“You do know it wasmy brothertaking care of her for the last two years?” Adam narrows his eyes on Z.

“Wasand now she’s back where she belongs.” Z's broad shoulders flex beneath his T-shirt. I noted when he got dressed that his outfit was unusually casual for him, but nothing Z does is without purpose.

“So, you were fucking them behind Jeremiah’s back?” Adam screws up his face in disgust.

“No,” I snap. “You fed your brother those lies, and it sent him fucking crazy.”

“Did he really kill himself?” His fist crashes down on the table, making the metal buckles on the restraints clank against the surface. “Don’t fucking take me for a fool.”

“Your brother was the fool, and it was more likely he didn’t mean for the car to go over the edge,” Rodion responds with a bored tone. “Drinking and driving ends lives. He was an idiot.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Adam snarls, and Andru begins laughing, dark and deep, making a chill chase up my spine and filling the air we breathe.

“He doesn’tthink. Heknowswho he is, and if you knew, you’d err on the side of caution with your tone,” Andru says, the veins pulsing in his neck.

“Who areyou?” Adam rears his head back to glower at Andru.

“I’m the man who took an hour out of my morning to meet with Chad Reed. You may know him as Spike. I hear he earned his name from using a spiked bat to kill his classmate when he was fourteen.”

Viktor perks up at that information. “Sins of Eve president?”

“One and the same.” Andru nods.

Adam’s eye twitches, and he shifts in his seat.

“In that hour, I ended your arrangement with the Sins of Eve chapters. Got an espresso, and something called a bear claw. Delicious, by the way,” Andru says with a smirk. “I also made a couple of calls to acquire six of the eight facilities you use to run your business.”

Adam’s spine straightens, and his eyes dart to the other man he brought with him, who takes out a phone and begins flitting his fingers over it.

“Who I am, to answer your question,” Andru continues, a deadly bite in his tone, “is Andru Vetrov. You cannot conceive my wealth, reach, and power, boy. I can take your life apart until it’s just ruins and then I’ll piss in the wreckage of it while you try and climb out, all before lunch.”

Goosebumps sprinkle up my arms. Rodion’s hand tightens on my thigh.

“What the hell did I do to warrant your wrath?” Adam asks through clenched teeth.

“You touched what belongs to us,” Z growls.

My stomach tightens when I see the glint of his curved blade, and then he moves quickly and precisely. He jabs four quick movements into Levi’s side, just below the ribs, aiming upward, before anyone can react. Z grips Levi with an arm around his shoulders. Levi’s eyes widen in shock, and blood sputters from his lips. Then Z slices him from hip to hip, opening him up and spilling his intestines into Adam’s lap with a sickening slosh. Blood splashes up Adam’s face and onto the table. Levi’s hands reach to contain his insides, his knees buckling.

The other man jumps up, and stumbles backwards, fumbling for a gun on his hip. Viktor moves like a shadow, disarming him, and smashing him into the table, his arm locked up his back with a grunt.

Blood covers Adam’s entire body, crimson spray paints his face, and pieces of Levi sit in his lap.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

“I prefer a bloodier approach.” Z drops Levi’s body with a disregarded shove and bears down on Adam, holding the bloodied blade to Adam’s throat.

Holding his hands up in surrender, Adam frantically starts babbling. “People know where I am. I wouldn’t come here without assurances.” His chest rises and falls rapidly, sweat beading on his brow and upper lip. “There’s more of my men outside if I don’t walk out of here.”