Grant gazed forward. She watched him control his own need to strike. She was ready for anything and after the small altercation with Dmitry, she had a vicious need to expend more volatile energy. It didn’t matter who she took it out on at this point.
He exhaled and rolled his head on his shoulders. “It is not my story to tell and you’ll either accept that or we’ll get to the nitty-gritty right here, darlin’,” he bit out.
“I can’t kill you, Grant. I might hate that you’re a necessity, but you’re important to my sisters.”
He snorted. “I don’t like you much either, Bone. And who’s to say I wouldn’t kill you?”
It was her turn to snort. “I saved your ass, Grant. If Joseph knew what you’d done, he’d wipe you from the face of the earth. You can’t kill me because you owe me and I know that black heart of yours has a white streak in it. But let me reiterate—if she makes a move toward us, I will kill her. She isn’t as good as us and it shows. She’s held nothing back, but like you, she’s slower, less inclined to make a kill shot than we are.”
“Why do you think that is?” he asked conversationally, though he made no move to continue driving.
“She doesn’t hate as we do,” Bone answered him simply. She’d analyzed the situation for a while, had her own idea of who the woman was and why she was dogging them.
She would not share those ideas with her sisters, not yet, though she knew they too remembered the night that had changed everything for them. They’d been created in the light of a morning, but the darkness of a single night four years later had given them a purpose beyond death.
He laughed, and the sound was harsh in the silence. “She defines hatred, Bone. You and your sisters, as much as you’ve been through, have no idea what formed that one.”
The quiet grew again and Bone let it. “Keep her out of our line of sight and she’ll live. That’s my final warning, Grant. You are obviously tied to this woman somehow. Maybe she’s one you saved? You’ve saved a few over the years, haven’t you? I don’t know and I don’t care. Just keep her away.”
He said nothing, simply shook his head and finally put the car in gear.
“Asinimov will find out it was you,” Grant told her.
“He will,” she affirmed. She knew exactly what he spoke of and the deflection from his problem to hers didn’t go unnoticed.
“What will you do then?”
Grant seemed genuinely concerned. She couldn’t help but wonder at the reason. “Why do you care?”
“He is a killer. Oh, I know you and your sisters have seen a side of him others may not have. The side that protects and heals. Make no mistake, the man is just a breath away from being what his father was.”
She turned her gaze to Grant and studied his features. “You know something else you aren’t sharing, Mr. Fielding. That’s not very nice.”
He shrugged. “You only call me Mr. Fielding when you’re pissed. And yes, I know a lot I don’t share. It’s what makes me valuable.”
She rolled her eyes again. “I’m waiting.”
“Both Dmitry’s father and Dmitry himself were trained by the same one who trained Joseph.”
He dropped that bomb and Bone’s insides froze. The thought of Dmitry in the hands of Badr Abela made her skin prickle and her hands clench. Badr Abela had been a Dutch-born Moroccan mixed-martial arts master. Versed in kick-boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Jeet Kun Doo, Muay Thai and plain old gutter fighting, he had been a preeminent killer. If you wanted to learn a million ways to kill, or die, he was who you sought. He’d also been a sadist. He enjoyed pain—his, but more importantly, other people’s. If anyone had been born evil, it was Badr Abela.
“I see that caught your attention,” Grant mused. “Perhaps now you understand my concern when it comes to your safety once Dmitry finds out the truth of his father’s passing.”
Bone said nothing. There wasn’t anything to say. Her fight with Sacha Asinimov had been brutal and now she understood why. Badr Abela.
When her training at Joseph’s hands ended, he’d sent her to Morocco. For an entire year she’d trained under Abela. For an entire year she’d suffered. She’d been away from her sisters, but that had been the smallest of the pains she endured. The agonies, or as Badr Abela called them “lessons”, only ended when she’d taken his head into her hands and twisted the life from his body.
She clenched her fists as she struggled to contain the hate.
She had learned so much under the man who called himself Master. Abela taught her to channel her rage. He taught her to be quicker in mind and body than her opponents. He was the one who taught her lusting for death was as natural as breathing and if she accepted it, took it inside her and succored that desire, she would become death in whatever form she chose. What her father began when she’d been a baby, had found fruit and manifested first under Joseph then Abela. Master, had given her a target and she’d taken everything he taught her and utilized it perfectly.