Savage Queen (The Dark Elite 3)

“He says he’s got information for us. We want you there,” I say, trying to push my own feelings aside. “You’re just as much a part of this as we are. You should be there when he reports what he’s found.”

She nods. “Okay.”

Unable to resist, I press a kiss to her lips then gesture to the hallway, motioning for her to follow me. She walks by my side comfortably, and I realize with no small amount of pride that everything I was wishing for a few weeks ago is slowly happening. She’s becoming more comfortable with us.

Becoming one of us.

We make it down to the first floor and take another hallway that leads toward the back of the house. A door near the end leads to the basement, which is where Ciro handles any necessary interrogations. Normally, we keep that stuff out of our personal living space, but this is a special case. Hale still hasn’t told his other captains about Leland’s betrayal. If he did, it would blow Leland’s cover for sure. We need as many people as possible to believe that he’s still loyal to the Novaks, or Camilla will get suspicious.

Grace’s footsteps slow a little as we near the basement door. “Are they… torturing him again?”

I glance down at her, watching her bite her lip. She surprised me the first time we interrogated Leland by showing up in the basement with Ciro, hand in hand. She didn’t have to be there, she chose to be there, and I’m still not sure how I feel about that. There’s still a part of me that wants to protect her from the uglier side of our world, but I have to remind myself that she’s already seen and experienced enough to know it exists.

No matter how much I want to, I can’t hide her from the monsters.

All I can do is stand by her side as she faces them.

I want to ask her why she decided to watch Leland’s interrogation that night, but I don’t. She’s starting to voluntarily include herself in more and more of our lives, embracing our world, and I get the feeling that she understands she can’t just pick and choose what aspects of it she wants.

Mafia life is all or nothing, and she knows it.

Smart girl.

“If you consider sitting alone in a room with Ciro torture, then yes,” I say, giving her a shrug. “Zaid and I left the two of them alone while we went to get you and Hale.”

She huffs a soft laugh, but we both know I’m only partly joking.

I can picture the scene downstairs easily. Ciro’s probably sitting still as a statue, completely silent. Just watching Leland.

I know everything Ciro is capable of, and even though Leland only knows half of it, I can only imagine the psychological terror of anticipating what my friend might do. Even though Ciro is just sitting there, maybe not even looking at Leland, Damian’s old captain fears him.

Ciro is so good at his job that it never has to be about a show of tools or weapons or torture instruments—because he has become the living representation of torture.

“I’m more than willing to beat a guy up,” I say quietly as I push open the door that leads to the basement, “but I’ve never envied Ciro’s job.”

“I don’t think anyone would.” Grace’s face softens, and she pauses to look at me. “Sometimes I hate that he’s so good at it. I hate that he learned how to be so good at it.”

“Yeah.” I grimace. “Me too. Honestly, I think in a way it helps sometimes. It’s like a fucked up form of therapy, letting him work through the shit that happened to him while he was in captivity. But whenever he goes back to that place in his head, I always worry a little that he won’t come back.”

She nods, concern darkening her hazel eyes. “I wish there was more I could do.”

Bracing the door open with my body, I reach up to cup her face, angling her chin up a little.

“Princess, you’ve done so much. I know you might not see it, but that’s because you don’t have any idea what Ciro was like before you got here. He’s changed so much. It’s fucking mind-blowing. And it’s because of you. Maybe not even because of anything you did, but just… because of you. You make him want to be better, I think. You make all of us want to be better.”

Her throat moves as she swallows, and she looks a little overwhelmed. I hope I didn’t freak her out by saying too much, but it’s the damn truth, and I’m done pretending otherwise. She may not see it, but she’s changed all of us. We’re not the same men we were when we pulled her from that church all those weeks ago.

“Speaking of being better, we shouldn’t keep our guest waiting. Wouldn’t want to be rude,” I joke, breaking the moment and drawing a small laugh from Grace.

I like that I can make her laugh. With all the shit going in on her life right now, it seems necessary.

We head down the steps together. The door to the interrogation room is unlocked, and we step inside the large, cement-walled space.

&nb

sp; Ciro and Leland are both in the room, sitting almost exactly how I imagined. A vein bulges on the side of Leland’s head, a single bead of sweat rolling down his temple. Ciro watches him like a lion, lazy and sleepy in the sun, ready to pounce in a heartbeat.

Despite the tension in the room and the smell of blood that still lingers from last time Leland was here, Grace doesn’t look afraid. She even gives my brother a small smile as he and Hale enter the room a few moments later.