Chapter 35
Nika
I hate zip ties.
Those assholes bound my arms and feet, leaving me sitting on the cold floor of the lodge.
Max has it worse, though. They’ve used zip ties to hog-tie him so he’s stretched back, his head nearly to the soles of his boots. Then Pavel and Anton picked him up and dumped him outside in the snow like an old piece of furniture.
He could die slowly of asphyxiation, blood loss, or exposure.
At least he’s still wearing his parka.
I trusted these men with my life. And here they are, staring down at me, no hint of shame on their expressions after their betrayal. The man who should have been my enemy bleeds on the ground behind them because he sacrificed himself for me.
These men should be racked by guilt. Eaten alive. Choking on the misery and drowning in pain and confusion, like I am.
Please be okay, Max.
I don’t know what I’ll do if he dies because of my foolish plan. We finally started to trust each other, and look where that got us.
“Oh Kai, I’m so proud of you.” Dimitri cradles his broken arm with his good hand. His eyes shine, not with tears or pain, but joy.
Crazy bastard actually is proud.
I want to vomit all over his shoes.
“You got the locket, stole Max from Roman, and made it out of the blizzard…all to reach me. I’ve finally got everything I need.” His lumpy mess of a nose matches an already swelling eye. Blood drips from his chin to his collar.
In spite of his injuries, his expression stays psychopath-calm. The face of a man who’s won.
“Everything you need?” The question pops out before I can stop myself.
“Pavel, get the first aid kit.” Dimitri smiles at me. “Yes, what I need for Roman Kozlov to lose everything he thought he could keep safe. His wife, dead. His daughter, hating him. And soon, his Bratva will fall at our feet.”
Why…how…when… For fifteen years I trusted you, and now this?
I strain against my bindings, my voice breaking. “Why?”
“Because he killed my mother.” Dimitri waves for me to wait as Pavel comes back in with the kit.
As if I could speak after the bomb he dropped. Funny how he’s never once mentioned that vital fact in the last fifteen years.
I’ve never even known why he hated Roman so much. I just assumed he was doing what I wanted without any agenda of his own.
I’m so ignorant.
I gulp, my throat thick with the scent of Max’s and Dimitri’s blood. “What?”
He digs around in the med kit and fills a syringe one-handed, injecting it into his thigh before capping the needle and packing everything away. Like self-administering hard narcotics while injured is just another skill in his repertoire.
He planned for this.
“Thirty-five years ago, Roman got a girl pregnant. He was what, sixteen? Then he just ditched her and never glanced back.”
I choke down bile and steel the quiver in my voice. “Last time I checked, having sex isn’t a crime.”
“But abandoning a pregnant woman should be.” He secures a makeshift sling around his arm. “Anyhow, the girl, Marina Sorokin, had the baby. Me.”
Oh my god.
Dimitri’s Roman’s son. Sorokin’s his mother’s last name. That means I’m…
My brain scrambles to keep up with the constantly shifting realities. If he’d just stop talking, maybe I could manage to absorb some of these unsettling details.
Unfortunately for me, he continues. “Roman couldn’t be tied down by a wife or child. He was on the up-and-up in the Bratva, and my mother was a complication. A nuisance. Dragging him down.” He peers at me, ensuring I understand. “So he killed her.”
Is he joking? Days ago, I would have believed the story without question, but now… “Dimitri, you—”
“He left her!” Dimitri waves his fist like a fucking cartoon villain.
“Abandoned her. She was fifteen years old and pregnant, with no money or help. She couldn’t provide for me.
We barely had enough cash or food to survive.
” He takes a shaky breath. “Eventually, she got sick. I watched her get weaker and weaker because she couldn’t afford a doctor. I was there when she died.”
Surely he’s not serious.
I suck in a slow inhale, in through my nose, out through my mouth.
And then I remember Dimitri taught me that. Rather than fade, the panic grows.
He looks at me fully, so I can see the truth written in his cold, dead eyes. “Roman killed her.”
I’m rendered speechless.
The logic is painfully, blatantly flawed. Even if the facts are true, Roman wasn’t directly responsible for that woman’s—Dimitri’s mother’s—death. He couldn’t have been.
But I know firsthand how a desire for vengeance can lead someone down a dark, lonely road.
Anton shifts away, his dark eyes flicking over Dimitri’s face before going to Pavel’s, then to the floor. No one speaks.
I certainly don’t. I’m not suicidal enough to argue with Dimitri in this moment.
Telling the crazy man he’s crazy while he’s got two armed guards—and casually pulling his broken arm straight as it crunches and pops—won’t get me out of this.
Calming Dimitri down and escaping is what matters now.
My mind stutters, then replays the conversation again, stuck on the revelation that I’m related to this psycho. “You’re…my brother?”
Dimitri flashes me a twisted smile, drawing a shudder from deep within. “Hi, sis.”
This rewrites my entire existence.
My half-brother raised me and never told me. That truth at least explains why he felt somewhat responsible for me. A sibling’s duty reminiscent of the one Max felt toward his younger brother and sister before they died.
But…he raised me. Got me through my first period, my teenage years.
He also put cameras in my bedroom and shower.
Revulsion rockets through me, and I heave, spitting onto the dusty wooden floor. Thank God I haven’t eaten.
Dimitri keeps talking. “In case you haven’t caught on yet, I didn’t save you on the island.
I abducted you after our dad ran off in the wrong direction to look for you.
” He ties off the wrap around his arm. “All those fires I set really had everyone confused, so I suppose I can’t blame him for not knowing where you were.
Your nanny was dead, and so was your mom.
I just wish I’d been able to see his face when he found Lilia’s body. ”
“Found?” Chills that have nothing to do with the weather run through me. “What do you mean?”
Dimitri laughs, a low chuckle I’ve never heard from him. “I let that slip, didn’t I? Oh, well. Yeah, Roman found Lilia after I stabbed her to death. I lost track of how many times. Do you remember? I know it was in her autopsy report I got you for your tenth birthday.”
The floor tilts as my vision grays. Everything in me recoils from all the nightmarish implications. “You killed my mother?”
“And had her portrait, crafted by her loving daughter, mounted on my wall like the hunter’s trophy it was.” Dimitri gestures for Pavel to tighten the sling on his arm. “We’re even. Roman killed my mother, and I killed yours. An eye for an eye.”
Hatred burns through my chest, and my vision blurs from rage-fueled tears.
Dimitri. Killed. My. Mother.
I lunge.
Lashing out with my bound feet, I catch him behind his ankles. He goes down heavy, lands on his broken arm, and screams.
I squirm, trying to get in a position to do more. Anything. Anton and Pavel appear in a heartbeat, just waiting for my next move.
Dimitri holds his hand out as he gets back to his feet. “You showed such potential. You’ve got as much hate and cunning inside you as I do. We’re a match made in heaven.”
The pride in his voice sickens me. We’re nothing alike.
“Although, to be brutally honest, Nika, you made a mistake.” Dimitri pauses. “You shouldn’t have let Max take down my cameras. That hurt my feelings even more than you giving your first time to someone else.”
Max was right. Dimitri had them set up so he could watch from a distance. He’s secretly recorded everything I’ve done in that house, all for his own viewing pleasure. Sick bastard probably got off by watching me.
Hopelessness takes root in my chest, curling alongside the revulsion in my stomach.
“But your biggest mistake was that one.” He points toward the door where Max is bound and bleeding in the snow.
“I mean, really. You choose him? After all those years when I was just waiting for you to be ready for me?”
I shudder, biting the inside of my lip until I taste rust.
He can’t be serious.
“Not that I didn’t enjoy that sexy little video. The second time was truly a masterpiece.”
The thought of him watching me with Max, seeing everything we did while trusting we were alone…
I want to die.
I almost wish we’d never had sex at all. If I hadn’t, though, we never would have seen the cameras, never would have put all the disparate points together to uncover Dimitri’s lies.
“I always thought it would be me who took your virginity. That’s why I taught you how vile other men are, so you’d turn to me when you were finally ready.”
He refers to his fifteen years of grooming disguised as mentorship so casually.
Pieces click into place. Every lesson about men, every warning about trusting them. Every story of aggression and betrayal and how I need to protect myself. How men use sex and violence to control women.
Even with all of that, though, I still can’t quite process his words. The confession doesn’t fit. “You wanted me?” I fight back the urge to puke. “All this time?”
He shrugs. “I’m a patient man.”
“You’re my fucking brother! What the hell is wrong with you?”
His grin transforms him into a grotesque imitation of the man I always knew. “Only half, right? The other half is fine.”
The nonchalant dismissal of incest—like it’s a technicality instead of an absolute violation—curdles my stomach. The world tilts beneath me, my balance gone. Each breath tastes of ice and fear.
I shoot him a glare while clenching my hands in front of me. “You raised me, you freak!”
His hand lashes out, the blade a blur in the dark.
I toss up my arms and parry, but not fast enough. The slice stings my cheek and blood trickles down my face, but the cut doesn’t bother me.
It’s the fact he’s willing to cut me, to scar me, that has my mind reeling.
Dimitri always insisted on never marking my skin in any permanent way. He was always so, so careful.
But now…
He flicks my blood from the end of the knife. “I kept you safe and unmarked, my little snow princess. I waited until you were an adult and could choose me.”
He kept his prize pristine.
But I’m no longer a prize. I’m used goods, my lack of virginity the sole measure of my worth.
Fury like I’ve never felt before courses through me. I’m going to kill this asshole.
His boot comes down on my left hand. My fingers splay against wood as he grinds his heel, twisting and pressing as bones crush and joints pop.
I choke back the scream building in my throat, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’s hurting me. Spite might be the only thing I have, but I’ll use it.
I grit my teeth as he cracks the fine bones in my hand beneath his boot. Trying to stay silent, I hold my breath against the torturous pain.
Finally, he lifts his boot and crouches. “It’s okay to crush her hand.” Who the hell is he talking to? “Even if she’s my blood key, it’s just a hand. She has two. Once I finish breaking her in, I’ll have the rest of our lives to get her to love me again.”
Blood key?
Pain must be scrambling my thoughts, because I’m completely lost.
While trying to comprehend all these twisted revelations, I almost miss his next words.
“Right after we finish my first objective. That gives you a couple of days to get used to the idea.”
First objective? Blood key? I still don’t understand any of this. “You’re twisted.” I kick out again.
He’s ready for my attempt and backs away. “Keep talking like that, keep fighting me, and I’ll toss you to the guys first. Maybe letting you see how bad it can be will help you appreciate my love.”
That shuts me up.
Dimitri reaches down with his good arm and hauls me up by the bicep. “Come on. It’s time to go.”
Not fighting him is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I force my body to stay limp and pliant. “Where?”
“Where it all started, of course.”
I plant my feet, jarring us both. “What? You can’t be serious.”
Dimitri pivots back to me, his eyes sparkling with triumph. “Isla de Huesos.”
The name freezes my blood. “Why?”
Dimitri gestures for his henchmen to head for the door. “Family business.”
Max
I finish counting to one thousand in the silence. That’s enough time for the rumble of the engines to have long since faded. I roll my shoulders forward and bring my knees up to my chest.
Behind my back, the plastic keeping me in this hogtie snaps. Now that I can straighten, I kick one leg out and push up on my elbows and climb to my feet in the snow as the remaining restraints fall off.
The zip ties added a few more cuts to the rest of the mess they made of me.
For a moment, the world wavers, my vision spinning from loss of blood.
Inhaling slow breaths, I catalogue my damage. A broken rib or two, a weak ankle, and cuts and bruises that I can more than handle.
I take all that pain, shove it in a bag, and drown it deep in the ocean of my mind so I can focus on my two current priorities.
Protect Nika.
Kill Dimitri.
Not follow Roman’s orders or carry out the family’s mission. This is mine alone, the only thing that matters in a world that’s gone sideways.
They’re going to Chaos Island, and so am I.
This time, I’ll save Nika and bring her back to the Kozlovs.