Chapter 4 Anika #2
“An abomination?” Michelangelo asks in that deep, rumbling Italian accent that raises goosebumps across my flesh. “At least I’m not the coward who put an unarmed old man on his knees before I took his life.”
“That bastard deserved what he got after everything he’s done to this family. You should know that better than anyone,” Pyotr hisses.
“Perhaps. But you’re the only one who has a debt to pay today. And I’ve come to collect.”
Michelangelo is across the room in the blink of an eye, his long, jean-clad legs carrying him to Pyotr before my bumbling, half-drunk, hungover husband can get the gun out of his waistband and raise it.
I gasp at the gut punch Michelangelo delivers, seeming completely unconcerned about bullets as he doubles my husband over with ease.
Clapping my hands over my mouth to avoid drawing unwanted attention, I watch with wide eyes from beneath the table as Pyotr tries to recover.
Despite his initial clumsiness, he does manage to regain his footing, swinging the butt of his Makarov to use like a club.
But the Italian behemoth is too fast, and he swats the gun away like a fly before landing another powerful blow to Pyotr’s ribs.
“No guns today, Novikov,” he taunts as Pyotr tries to block the flurry of punches coming at him.
“That would be far too quick of a death. I want to enjoy every last excruciating second of your end. And I’m going to enjoy knowing that, while you might have killed Don Augusta, the Chiaroscuros will carry on.
But your family is finished. Your line is done.
And I will crush the Novikov name into dust.”
My stomach turns, my heart hammering at the sound of cruel enjoyment in his voice.
He’s relishing this violence, savoring it.
And a cold shiver races down my spine as I realize it doesn’t matter who wins this battle.
These men are all cut from the same cloth. Michelangelo might have a beautiful smile, but I know better than to think that makes him any less of a monster.
I don’t know if Pyotr’s too drunk to properly fight back or if he’s used to taking men’s lives from a distance, but I can’t help but notice just how one-sided the fight is.
And no one’s coming to his defense as Michelangelo Chiaroscuro uses him first as a punching bag—then pulls out two cruel-looking knives to turn him into a pincushion.
By now, Pyotr’s face is a bloody pulp, one eye swollen shut, and he spits a mouthful of teeth and blood onto our floor as he wheezes through his clearly broken nose.
“You’ll never make it out of here alive,” Pyotr taunts, searching for a false bravado as he raises his fists like he has a chance of protecting himself.
The low, dark chuckle that Michelangelo releases turns my blood cold, and I curl more tightly in on myself as I realize this is it.
I’m about to watch him kill the man who vowed to protect me.
Not that he didn’t do more harm than good—but when Pyotr dies, I will be trapped inside a room with a cold-blooded killer, a man who clearly wants revenge and might not stop at my husband.
“I don’t intend to leave, Pyotr,” he promises darkly.
Then he lunges.
For a man his size, Michelangelo has almost catlike grace and speed. Faster than my eyes can track, he’s punctured holes all up and along my husband’s substantial torso.
I can count them by the red dots that grow and spread across Pyotr’s shirt, turning the fabric into a macabre Rorschach test.
There’s a sickening squelch as the blade finds Pyotr’s chest, and my husband stiffens. His fists clench around the fabric of Michelangelo’s henley, desperately trying to hold himself up even as he releases a horrible burbling cough.
I can see him struggling for air, choking on the blood that paints his lips, before gradually—as if time were put in slow motion—he slides off the blade.
His eyes are wide with shock as he looks down at his chest in confusion, then they travel back up to the avenging angel’s face.
Or perhaps devil would be the more accurate label as Michelangelo sneers down at him.
Pyotr collapses to his knees in a heap, blood seeping from the open wounds too deep to patch.
But he’s clinging to life with surprising tenacity, and as he looks up at Michelangelo with shock and fury, he looks like he wants to stand back up.
“You don’t mess with the Chiaroscuros,” the colossal Italian growls, swinging his arm in an arc that opens my husband’s throat in a garish crimson smile.
Pyotr tumbles backward, a gurgled choke escaping him as his last breath rushes from his lungs.
His dead eyes stare blankly at me, all the violent cruelty gone from their pale blue depths.
Stooping to wipe his blade on my husband’s shirt, Michelangelo takes deep breaths, seeming hardly winded after such an intense fight.
My stomach plummets as his movement brings him within feet of me, and I can’t help myself. A soft squeak escapes me before I can stop it.
His eyes snap in my direction, their intense blue stopping my heart in its tracks.
They’re wild with bloodlust, his face tense with the instinct to deflect and attack. But it softens slightly as recognition lights his gaze.
“Come on out,” he commands, extending his hand to me, as if to pull me out if I refuse to obey.
Then several sets of feet come pounding into the room, and his attention snaps toward the doorway as he straightens.
“It took some doing, but we swept the entire property,” one man says.
I recognize him as one of the Chiaroscuro twins—something I can quickly confirm as a second man, his spitting image, steps up beside him.
Slowly, trying not to call attention to myself, I creep out from under the table to stand, wondering if I’ll have time to make a break for it before anyone notices.
“They took considerable losses. Any Bratva still alive have fled,” the first twin says, openly deferring to his older brother’s command.
“Good,” Michelangelo growls darkly. “I’m taking control of their headquarters.”
The first twin smirks. “Looks like the perfect place to get comfortable until we can reclaim our home.”
The second twin eyes the table and snags a strip of bacon with his blood-spattered fingers, not seeming to care about the gore as he takes a healthy bite. “Mmm, maple glazed. Looks like the former Pakhan has a good chef.”
“Well, we’re in luck, brother, because he’ll be cooking for us from now on,” the first twin quips.
Horror grips me as my harsh new reality comes crashing down around my shoulders.
Their nonchalance about taking possession over my home is frightening—not just for me but all the people who live and work here.
Flashes of Pyotr and his men’s gloating conversation from last night come floating back to me.
Their amusement at killing all those innocent workers.
Their pleasure in forcing themselves upon any women they kept alive.
I wonder if that’s what I would find if I went out into the hallways of the Novikov household, and the terror that grips me at the thought roots me to the spot.
Then Michelangelo’s next words burst through me like an electric shock.
“I’m taking Pyotr’s widow as well,” he states authoritatively, raising my voice as more men enter the room.
My eyes snap in his direction as he steps toward, as if to stake his claim. I can see that familiar glint of desire—that possessive hunger I’ve seen in far too many lecherous men’s gazes.
My husband’s body hasn’t even grown cold, and Michelangelo Chiaroscuro is already making plans to claim me for his own.
I can’t count how many times I’ve hoped a day would come when someone might end my misery and kill the monster I call husband.
But in those fantasies, I never dreamed I would be trading one devil for another. And the thought of escaping one cage only to walk into another is too agonizing to bear.
I won’t survive another year like this last one.
And I refuse to just lie down and die.
I don’t waste time thinking through my actions—or the consequences.
With one last glimpse of Michelangelo’s icy-blue eyes, I turn and run.