“You’re okay,” he whispered harshly. “You’re okay. I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re safe now, my life.”
Behind them, the room exploded into shouts.
Zel pinned Anatoly down with a knee to his spine while Lirian checked him for weapons with clinical efficiency. No one paid attention to his cries of pain.
Anatoly didn’t speak again; he simply stared at the man he had called son. There was something raw and unspeakable in his expression.
But all Faolan could see was Thane.
And the way he never stopped looking at her like he was terrified to take his eyes off her.
Her voice was a whisper. “He said…his name was Tolya.”
Chapter 47
He swung like a grotesque pendulum.
The meat hooks groaned under Anatoly’s weight, rusted metal biting deep into the sinew of his shoulders. Blood dripped in sluggish rivulets down the length of his arms and thighs, pooling in the grated floor before slithering into the central drain. Strips of skin hung like tattered streamers from his torso, peeled with a surgeon’s precision. One ear was missing. His face, once elegant and refined, was now swollen, unrecognisable, a violent patchwork of bruises and busted veins.
Dimitri had insisted on being part of it. They’d blindfolded him, placed noise-cancelling headphones over his ears, and brought him in the last stretch by hand to the warehouse on the farm. Once inside, he listened to his old man—his mentor, his father, the man who raised him—speak about how he had murdered his wife and destroyed his daughter from the inside out. Dimitri had listened to the truth spill from Anatoly’s mouth over Faolan’s open line when he decided to let them borrow his helicopter and come along to help.
He hadn’t asked for permission; he simply took his pound of flesh.
They would have died anyway, Anatoly and his two remaining dogs, but this wasn’t about mercy. What they needed was information about how deep the rot went. So, while Lirian scrubbed the surveillance, making it appear Anatoly had departed toward the nearby airport—disappearing into the ether like so many ghosts—Dimitri painted the truth in blood.
He had left an hour ago after apologising to Faolan for his incompetence and promising her a blood debt.
Most of his nails were gone.
Maro had taken his time with those.
He’d stood beside Anatoly with a calmness that was far more frightening than rage. Every question was followed by silence. And if Anatoly hesitated, Maro reached for the tool he’d brought.
A cold little thing, custom-forged. He called it the Wailer.
He’d designed it for one purpose, and he used it with care.
Each pull was slow and deliberate. He held Anatoly’s gaze the entire time before his eyes were swollen shut, letting him see what was coming, letting him feel every second of it.
“Think about your answer,” Maro murmured once, wiping blood off the handle with clinical detachment. “I’ve still got a few fingers left.”
By the end, Anatoly wasn’t just bleeding.
He was singing.
But it was too late for mercy. They were here for the truth, and he wasn’t leaving the room in one piece. It was just a matter of how much he suffered on the journey. And Maro? Maro was an artist.
Anatoly’s limbs bent in ways they never should: dislocated, broken, ruined. The shoulder had stopped bleeding hours ago. His body twitched now and then, some nerve impulse firing in the body that was close to giving up the ghost.
Faolan had watched for a while but had to leave once he lost control of his bladder. Thane and Lirian had walked her to the farmhouse.
Lirian had remained close after Thane went back to join the others, never more than a few feet away. From the coat rack near the door, he grabbed a thick wool blanket and draped it gently over her shoulders. She flinched, but didn’t look at him.
“You’re safe now,” he said, voice low. “That bastard won’t touch you again.”
She nodded once, barely perceptible. Her eyes were still locked on something that wasn’t there.
Thane had already patched the cut on her forehead, hands trembling despite his training. Every bruise, every scrape, he had touched them all with the fury of a man barely restraining the monster inside. His jaw had ticked, knuckles white as he muttered to himself through clenched teeth. He had rubbed her cold hands on their way to the farm, and his eyes had not left her face throughout the entire trip.
