Chapter 15
I spotthe pinched expression on Faith’s face, the worry bracketing her mouth, and know exactly what has her on edge. Leaving the babies alone. When Elijah and I get back, I nod to her as confirmation that I’ve done it. I activated reinforcements, calling for help the only way I can. Not knowing when they’ll arrive adds to anxiety already thrumming through us from what Elijah did to Regan last night. Faith’s intuition screams at her to stay with those babies.
Her every instinct thus far where they are concerned has been spot-on, so I have to trust in this.
I reach for her, giving her a quick, hard hug. “Regan and I can get the dishes tonight, go up to Lexi and Alex. I’ll be up soon.”
We’d spent endless nights talking into the wee hours when Lexi and Alex were first born. She hammered me with endless questions about my life as a Bratva princess to keep herself awake while she nursed. She’d had the benefit of distance listening to these stories, but soon, the buffer will be gone. Best to enjoy some quiet time now.
Mafia families fight a common enemy or enemies who conspire against us from beyond our massive gates. Our family is no different, but it is the war my father set in motion on the inside keeping us balancing on a knife’s edge at all times.
My father hates his wife and covets his lover, mine and Nikolaj’s mother. Elena hates him right back. She definitely hates me because hearing my name—the same as my mother’s—never lets her forget that marrying her pussy was a business deal, not desire. Vlad, the child between them, hates anyone he sees as a threat to his birthright.
A fact he never lets his half siblings forget.
The tension between Nikolaj and Vlad had been fed and stoked every day, a game of sorts for my father’s entertainment. Maybe that’s why our father had insisted we live with him full time. To amuse him.
I never quite figured out if Vlad had been born a demented fuck or if over the course of time, little by little, this relentless, poisonous competition bled into a normal heart and turned him into the complete monster he’d become.
Faith’s eyes lit with excitement listening to every sordid detail as though being read a dark fairy tale before bed. My experiences created an almost innocent fascination. Her distance from my harsh reality, the impossibility of it all, lulled her into a sense of safety.
Despite what her father and brother had done to her, she’s lived a sheltered life. She’s never had to live within a gruesome game of chess where the pieces on the board have heartbeats, and removing the defender means spilling real blood, leaving behind stains impossible to scrub clean. She’s never lived bound by the twisted power constricting her year after year, until it becomes impossible to fill her lungs.
I should have prepared her better for this. For what is to come.
“Faith…”
With a hand on the newel post and her first foot on the bottom stair, she turns.
“When they get here, follow my lead. Don’t say anything.” I have no idea who will lead the charge. It should be my brother, Nikolaj. Accepting my fate will be a whole hell of a lot easier if it is him.
But I know Konstantin. He’ll go to great lengths to take the lead on this. To be the first one to get his hands on me. I’ll only know how to play it when I lay eyes on him again, his face telling me everything I need to know.
My gut plummets, as though shoved over the first drop on a roller coaster, at the thought of seeing him again. Looking him in the eye after I told him every vulnerable truth about my feelings for him. Only to have him lie, tell me what I wanted to hear, and take what I offered.
And still the look on his face, the absolute wonder and possession I can’t get out of my head softens the sharp edge of betrayal and sets butterflies fluttering through my stomach.
Oh, fuck him. Fuck him all the way to hell for taking me so fucking completely, there is no way another man can touch me without my comparing the two. Only to have anyone other than Konstantin come up severely lacking every single time.
She nods and gives me a soft smile. Maybe the last soft smile I’ll ever see grace her face. Because my world devours goodness like hers. It tears a huge chunk away at first… a warning of what is to come, shocking the naive out of the safety of the life they knew before. Then it gnaws bit by bit, tearing every bit of innocence and hope.
Soon… very soon, she’ll learn firsthand the bitterness of raw poison flowing behind the shiny veneer. And all evidence of the fairy tale she’s built in her mind will disintegrate before my eyes.
NIKOLETTA
An hour later, with the last of the dishes put away, I walk Regan up to our room where we have kept her since Elijah raped her. With a promise to be back in just a few minutes, I head for the kitchen and begin gathering hand towels, linen dishrags, tablecloths, and oven mitts to run through the wash.
It all seems so foreign to me now, the chores I’ve grown used to, knowing this will be the last time I’ll do them. They’ll come tonight. My brother will never risk leaving me here until dawn. He’ll know that using his card is an absolute last resort and time is of the essence.
My ears prick for the slightest unfamiliar sound. Goosebumps rise on my skin as my sense of hearing heightens until even the most quiet hum turns into a loud buzzing in my skull. The sound of the refrigerator compressor kicking on makes me jump to the point my hand shoots straight to my thigh where I keep my knife.
I listen for a few more seconds and shake my head. I’m being stupid. My body is already on edge, preparing me for the transition from this formerly peaceful, secluded life to a violent world bathed in greed and blood. Ice drops into the bin from the ice maker, but this time, I take a deep breath, holding on to a sense of calm. I’ll need my senses soon enough. I sure as hell don’t need to waste them on the hum of appliances.
Fresh mountain air blows through the open windows facing the hillside. The subtle breeze carries the chorus of crickets, giving a sense of peace I’ve grown to appreciate. The sound is foreign compared to years of my life living in estates with hundreds of staff on the grounds with occasional stints in the sophisticated cities.
Rustic floorboards creak charmingly with every step, in direct opposition to the luxury I grew up with. This is real. No striving for perfection, just simple beauty with rich history.
For a second, just a second, I know what it feels like to be small in the world.
I know peace.
A hand curls around my hip as a lewd hiss echoes next to me. “I knew you’d wait down here for me.”
Elijah’s smug voice floats over the shell of my ear, his fingertips digging into my skin so hard I know he’ll leave bruises.
I bite back my initial reaction, ignoring the itch in my fingers to draw my knife and take a chunk out of him. With him at my back, the swipe will be weak. Virtually meaningless.
No. I’m Bratva. We bide our time and strike when we can inflict the most damage.
Elijah will not get off that easy. Not after what he’s done. Not after what Regan will carry for the rest of her life.
His pathetic cock presses up against my ass and I meet the force with pressure of my own. Luring him in. Making him think I want this—that I’m helpless but to chase after more contact.
When his fingers slide between my thighs, making their way higher, hesitating just short of my underwear, I shudder as disgust sweeps through me. Cocky fucker he is, he laughs, then hums in my ear, mistaking my disgust for lust.
“So hot for me,” he gloats, as though he is some magnificent catch and any of us would be lucky to have his undivided attention.
Spinning in his arms, I lean back against the table’s edge and curl my fingers into his shirt, dragging him closer.
His eyebrow pitches in a smug arch as he glances down at the grip I have on him. “I knew you wouldn’t be like the others. You’re not meek, are you, Nikoletta?”
The others…the need to avenge his victims—who knows how many—takes over. Luring him in with flirtation dies as the echo of Regan’s sobs come back as though we are back in the bathroom where she scrubs herself painfully raw.
I want him exposed and vulnerable when I turn my violence on him. Dropping my hand to his waist, I flick the snap of his jeans and peel down his zipper.
With greedy eyes, he watches my hands work his jeans and underwear free, with a feigned eagerness, as though I can’t bear another minute without his cock.
Fighting the shudder of disgust, I peer up at him through my lashes and offer a smile that feels so brittle I’m sure he’ll recognize it. But basking in his own confidence, he misses the clues, the ones promising painful retribution.
Oblivious to the perfect storm of absolute rage building in me, he grips the base, his scrawny cock looking like an overcooked hot dog. One that has been nuked in the microwave just before bursting and left to cool and shrivel for hours on the counter. With an arrogant smirk tilting his lips, he thrusts his hips and smacks the pitiful-looking prick against my cheek.
A taste of the humiliation Regan had to have suffered spikes in me and his words—like the others—reminds me there are more women he’s left hollowed out and shamed, carrying stains of him they’ll never wash away.
My Romanoff blood and upbringing choose wrath. I let it sweep through me, embracing the violence, feeling more like myself than I have since I arrived.
With a jerk of my chin, I strike, sinking my teeth into the fleshy top of his thigh until the coppery taste of blood blooms on my tongue. He screams, the high-pitched sound ending on a whine before I grab ahold of his balls and dig my fingertips into where the delicate skin connects to his groin. My nails, although short, still have a bite. I grip him in my fist, digging them into the fragile area where they meet his body. The feral look I aim at his pain-filled eyes has him fighting to scramble away, but no, he won’t get off that easy.
I hear it then, a sound I can’t identify, but foreign all the same. As though the night has come to life, rippling with chaos and intent. If I want to make him pay, I have to do it now so the suffering inflicted is my trophy, and mine alone.
Elijah stumbles back, coughing and wheezing, his hands frantically pushing against mine as he fights to break my grip.
“You raped her,” I say through gritted teeth.
“No, I—she wanted—” His scream of pain cuts off his denial as I twist, sinking my nails deeper into his skin.
“She wanted?” I shove him back by his balls until he drops into the wooden chair. “Don’t you dare try to tell me she wanted it.”
“I—”
“No!” I slide my knife from my thigh, the light glinting off the blade before I press it into the skin of his neck, the pressure just enough to promise pain.
“She wanted her body to be her own,” I seethe.
“She wanted the fucking choice.” The skin on his throat splits under the pressure of the blade resting against his vulnerable skin. It takes everything in me to hold back. To keep myself from ending him quickly. Slicing into his artery is a mercy I’ll never give him.
“She wanted it to be for love.” I lean over him, his blood staining my lips, trickles of it drying where it runs down my chin. My words end in a vicious growl. In a fraction of a second, the knife at his neck is gone, flipped in my grip. I smile at him then, an evil smile that has him making one more futile attempt at lunging away.
Then everything happens at once. My ultimate power and my greatest weakness converging.
Soldiers swathed in black burst through the windows, leaving a shattered spray of glass in their wake.
The pounding footsteps of the army surrounding the building echo through the night.
The front door flies open, Konstantin’s massive height and wide, powerful shoulders dwarfing the doorway as he bursts through, guns drawn, eyes absolutely savage and locked right on me.
Pain slashes at my heart.
Every betrayal delivered by my father, Vlad, and finally, the man possessing me with his gaze alone, right at this very second, merging into a tight ball of hatred.
I channel my rage and stab my knife into the space between us. Pure instinct guiding my aim.
His eyes widen in battle between shock and terror, until shock wins, giving him one last reprieve before agony robs him of breath.
The blade drives through Elijah’s shriveled pathetic cock, before piercing clean through his balls, where it lodges with purpose and irrepressible violence in the wood under him.
My heart thunders in my chest, the only sound now of Elijah’s crying and my heaving breaths until Konstantin’s deep voice, like delicious grit over velvet, utters three words I both hate and love.
“That’s my girl.”