Inked in Lies (The Fallen Men 5)

That could’ve explained Irina’s palpable fear today, but otherwise, I was completely lost to the conversation between the two men. Only, the voice of the first struck a chord with me that reverberated through my bones and made my blood sing.

I could have sworn I knew that voice, or one very similar to it before.

Footsteps padded closer over the carpet, and I held my breath as a pair of dirty combat boots, the utilitarian kind, not the cute, fashionable ones, appeared in my line of sight.

“Should you be here though, Shaytan?” Javier asked silkily, a threat woven into the rich fabric of his voice. “It is dangerous for you and yours to be on Canadian soil. I am surprised you did not want to stay on the boat.”

“I fear nothing,” the man called Shaytan said as his booted feet moved even closer to me.

I swallowed the rise of bile in my throat as he hesitated before the desk chair then took a seat.

He was a large man dressed all in black, from his military fatigues to the compression shirt on his clearly defined torso. I shrank farther beneath the desk, focused on being as small as possible.

So I didn’t notice at first the ink on the back of his dark-skinned hand.

An iris.

The same flower I had tattooed on my inner wrist.

The tattoo Dane and I had Nova inked into our skin as a reminder of Mama, of Ellie, because irises were once placed on the graves of women who needed aid getting to heaven.

I blinked, my heart stopped up in my chest, my breath a forgotten thing like lint caught in the filter of my lungs.

The tattoo remained, small, but profoundly detailed, the purple and yellows still vivid even on the dark skin, even on the back of a hand that always saw the sun.

I tuned back into the conversation in time to hear Javier say, “Irina plans to have the girls in by the end of the month. I will ensure her delivery this time, but the next, she is on her own.”

“And you know what that means?” the man with the iris tattoo asked in that soothing, lyrical voice.

A voice I recognized.

A voice I’d known as my first memory before I knew anything else.

A sob bubbled up in my throat that threatened to choke me. I swallowed it down, once, twice, and expelled a small blip of sound from my mouth as I struggled to do so.

But it was enough.

The man in the chair froze, tension in every inch of his massive form, then slowly, he rolled the chair closer to the desk.

I held my breath as he reached behind his back and produced a small gun, adjusting it in his hand so he could lean closer to the table and level it unerringly at my face.

Then he continued speaking to Javier. “Your wife will be dead. Does this bring you no sadness?”

Javier sighed dramatically. “She has been a poor wife since we came up here. Canada has corrupted her. She runs too wild and does not spend enough time on her business. Anyway, there are many lovely women in this town I may choose from. As a powerful businessman and the town mayor, I have my pick of the lot.”

“Mmm,” the man with the gun to my head said with faux interest. “And do you have your eye on anyone in particular?”

Javier’s voice was thick with lust as he chuckled. “Yes, yes, there is someone I have in mind. Perhaps she can be trained to do more than give excellent head.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and wished I was anywhere but there listening to two men speak about women as if they were items in a grocery store.

Especially when I suspected one of them might be my long-lost fucking brother.

The gun trained on my head pressed closer, the cold rim of it kissing my forehead.

“Good luck with that. Now, if that’s all, I’ll wait while you collect the list, and then I’ll be out of your way.”

Javier agreed, his footsteps moving away as he left the room.

The second the snick of the door closed, I was yanked up by a hand in my hair and dragged out from under the desk.

I blinked the tears from my eyes into the sudden brightness from the overhead lights and tried to focus on the man above me.

The fluorescents cast a harsh yellow halo around his head, casting the short pelt of his rough black hair into inky shadow, and his features, always so strong, so proudly carved, into stark, almost menacing relief.

But even the shadows couldn’t hide the brilliant, oceanic blue of his eyes.

A sob blossomed like a thorny rose in my throat, abrading the tender insides as it rose and fell out of my mouth with a wet, ragged plop.