Dmitry remained silent. She continued.
“None of you understand that you are secondary. Oh, maybe not in my sisters’ hearts, but your goals are secondary to a promise made in Hell. Tell me, do you know what we did to save your sister?”
Dmitry wanted his anger to germinate and grow into rage but it wouldn’t. It refused him.
“We knew Ninka was weak from the moment she came to the compound. We had been there for a week before she was dumped on the floor in front of us, tears on face and her thumb in her mouth. But we all looked at her and without words vowed that we would protect her.
“In the end it was for nothing. Bullet held her hands, Arrow sang to her, Bone took her punishments, and I took her kills. Still she died. Tell me, what did you and yours ever do for Ninka besides leave her to Joseph?”
There was the rage then, he stood and immediately went back down. He too had taken a severe beating when he’d been caught snooping in the wrong places. The fingers of his right hand had been broken, though hadn’t required surgery. They’d been set and he now wore a cast. His shoulder was infected but he was improving. Of course, none of that would have happened had he not been looking for Bone.
Yeah, he’d been looking for Bone but found…his mother. Oh, and he’d discovered his father’s killer was one of the best killers of all…Bone.
Good God, the shock hadn’t worn off. His mother had been alive the entire time. She’d been the one to sell his sisters. She’d requested Joseph kill his father.
And Bone had seen it through on Joseph’s orders.
His head rang with the knowledge. He stood by dint of will alone and glared across the room into the shadows.
Blade laughed low. It was an ugly sound. “Beckett came back for Bullet. I do not think you will return for Bone, and that is sad to me.”
“Why?” Dmitry asked from a voice with holding in his emotions.
“Because she killed your mother for you. Because she killed your scourge of a father—and if you ever doubt what your father was, please come to me. I will tell you exactly who your father turned into. Also because she sang to Ninka and took every single punishment for your sister…and Asinimov? They were brutal. Last but not least, it is sad because Bone did it for you.”
He closed his eyes, hearing every word, seeing the hazel of her eyes, the jade-splintered glass calling to him.
“Joseph will not kill her.”
She laughed again, loud and full and Dmitry hated her. When she stopped and the silence was left ringing in his ears, she stood and walked to him. Each of the women of First Team was stunning, this one no more or less than the others. She was taller than Bone but much shorter than Arrow. She wore a black unitard and there was a bag…wait…it was Bone’s bag, strapped across her shoulders.
“He is killing her, slowly and meticulously.” She opened the bag and pulled something out. It was a leather-bound copy of a book. She stroked over the frail, aged leather and handed it reverently to Dmitry. “She would want you to have this. A remembrance, she would say. I do not think you deserve it, but she would want you to have it.”
Blade turned then and walked to the door. “You will not go for her?” Dmitry asked harshly.
“She would not want me to and that is another vow we made when we started this journey. If we had to give our lives to destroy Joseph, we would. We helped you when Beckett returned for Bullet because it was convenient. Bone set the charges and created a diversion. But I have other steps to take and now that Bone has fit her pieces of the puzzle, it is my turn. There will be no diversions for Bone.” She shrugged then and glanced back at him once more. “Out of us all, Bone is the strongest. She would expect us to keep our vow and it is loyalty to her that prevents me from going for her. Her control is a thing of beauty. Then you came into her life and she weakened. The one thing we have never known has destroyed her.”
“What is that?” Dmitry called out.
Blade stopped and her head drooped. She stood straight and proud seconds later and left him with a single word before she became the shadows and disappeared.
“Love.”
?●?
Two hours later and Dmitry was broken. He’d stood there for a long time once Blade left before the leather of the book he held in his hands reminded him. He’d walked back into his room, the room that still carried just a hint of her apricot fragrance, and opened the book.