Chapter 9
I’ve died.I must have. Because Konstantin has collapsed on me and I’m running my fingers through his hair.
I’m broken and sore, but God, I’ve never been more alive than I am right here, right now. I want to laugh, dance, sing, run the entire length of Manhattan.
He shifts above me, slowly pulling out of me, and I hiss with the sting.
Okay, maybe I can hold off on the running.
“Come here,” he rasps as he draws me up with him and settles me against his chest. “I was rough with you.”
“Yes,” I say with a breathless laugh. “Thank you.”
A rare sound of amusement rumbles through his chest against my cheek. God, I could spend every day listening to him, fighting with him, making love to him.
“The next time, I…” His words die on his lips, but his grip tightens on me. “This is dangerous.”
I grasp his collar and stare up at the turmoil in those dark eyes. “Tell me anything about my life that hasn’t?—”
The first pop splits the air and we freeze, our gazes locked, until two more shots follow. The doors fly open as we scramble to right our clothes, but there is no hope for it. There’s no way to hide what we’ve done.
“Well, well, I have to say, Malikov, you surprise me.”
Vlad’s voice turns my blood to ice in my veins. It resurrects the suffocating darkness despite the light. He doesn’t need to lock me in rooms or tiny spaces anymore. He just needs to speak, that polished voice with a maniacal lilt has pure power over me.
I’m reduced to that stupid and scared little girl, helplessly flailing.
With one fluid motion, Konstantin shoves me behind him as he faces my brother walking down the center aisle of the church. At first glance, he looks like the ideal man—every woman’s dream. Muscular and blond, clean-cut in an impeccably tailored suit, but inside he’s an endless well of poisonous pain and greed.
“You actually fucked her. My father always said the day would come, but you know, I didn’t quite believe him.”
Konstantin says nothing. Instead, he keeps his eyes trained on my brother while he curls his palms around the guns holstered at his back.
Vlad comes to stop right before the stairs leading up to the altar. Shoulder propped against the pillar, he crosses his ankle over the other and slips his hands in his pockets.
“He’s not alone,” I whisper. Because Vlad would never be so cavalier if he were at a disadvantage. I’d be willing to bet he has an army outside and Nikolaj will be marching right into the slaughter.
“What? Nothing to say?” Vlad shakes his head, that smug grin on his pompous mouth eliciting a snarl in me. “If you don’t want to talk about it with me, maybe you’ll have something to say to him,” he says, hitching his thumb over his shoulder.
Our gazes swing to the front of the church where my father stands. The smirk on his mouth is a never-ending reminder that while he may not be quite as sinister as Vlad, they are very much the same. Where Vlad relishes the opportunity to inflict pain and torture, my father covets the show.
Maksim Romanoff would never be so casual as to lean against a pillar. No, he stands tall as he makes his way up the aisle. Careful steps—not too fast, not too slow—before coming to a smooth stop at the bottom of the stairs. His gaze lands on Konstantin’s hands and the guns he has ready there before sweeping to me.
“Nikoletta, I hoped when you managed to slip away from the watch we had on you in Paris, you were smarter than this. Such a pity. Your mother’s daughter through and through.”
And suddenly letting Konstantin hide me behind him fills me with shame.
I’m only as weak as I make myself.
So I take a step out from behind him. Followed by another.
“Nikoletta, no,” Konstantin commands me in a harsh whisper.
But I need to do this. If this comes down to a fight and we don’t have the manpower to win, I need my father to know exactly what I think of him.
“You can physically take me, but you will never possess me. Never.”
“No?” My father cocks his head and evil lurks in his gaze. “I took your mother. I possessed her. And when she betrayed me, I scooped out every last bit of humanity in her until there was nothing left to do but discard her.”
I’m shaking my head before he even finishes his words. He didn’t kill her. I was there when they pulled her body from the bottom of the cliffs. “No. Mama was sick. She killed herself.”
“But did she, child? Tell me, were you so na?ve that you believed that?”
Broken and battered, I saw her. I—I meet his eyes then, the slow smile spreading over his face chilling me to the bone.
I saw exactly what he wanted me to see.
“No more.” Konstantin pulls his shoulders back and stares my father down.
“And you… did you tell her yet, Konstantin? Did you tell her the only reason you loved her was because you were in love with her mother, but her mother chose me over you?”
No.
No, it can’t be.
But I turn to him then and a flash of guilt so utterly horrifying flits through his eyes and I stumble with the truth of it.
“Pcholka,” he says, laying a gun on the altar and reaching for me.
“Is it true?” My voice is deceptively calm despite the vicious staggering pain that seizes every cell in my body. I gave myself to him and the whole time—the whole fucking time—he’s what? Been in love with my mom? Saw me as a version of her he could have?
My God, he called me by my name. When he fucked me—because I refuse to call it anything else now—he called me by my given name.
Her name.
“It was a long time ago.” His eyes plead for me to listen to him, to give him a chance to explain. But this world is twisted in lies, drowning in deception, and the one person I thought I could count on is the last person I should have given myself to.
Weakness frustrates me.
But feeling stupid and small—cuts me open wide and leaves me bleeding endlessly.
Too stunned to cry, I stumble back another step just as a torrent of bullets rip through the front doors, splintering pews and shattering centuries-old glass. Vlad and my father dive behind marble displays, guns ready, but instead of worrying about us, they’re aimed at the door.
The twisted sordid tale lies between us, and I should be grateful that I know before it goes too far.
A humorless laugh bubbles from my throat followed by a sob I’m helpless to contain.
Because it’s already gone too far for me to ever go back, and it turns out the one man trusted to keep them from breaking me broke me most of all.
Konstantin doesn’t cower. He doesn’t flinch. Strong and sure, he reaches out to me even as the war arrives at our feet and our sanctuary crumbles in a hail of gunfire. “Take my hand, Pcholka. Right now! Take my hand and I’ll go with you. We’ll leave all of this behind.”