Chapter 16
Dark-espresso hairI’d recognize anywhere hangs tousled down her back, the light gleaming off the strands. Shorter pieces frame her face, clinging to her bloodstained lips and the rivulets trailing down her chin.
Her searing gaze snaps to mine. Golden eyes narrow and flash with pure hatred.
Angry, powerful, and… alive.
Relief sweeps through me, burning over my skin, making my head swim with the rush. Whether she is aiming the hatred at her victim or both of us, I can’t tell. We’ll find out soon enough, and sick bastard I am, I hope a good dose of hatred is mine. Oh, the ways I want to spark her fury just to watch her turn her into this.
Stripped bare, at my mercy… and me at hers.
Always at hers.
Chaotic energy brews within me, a combination of helplessness, betrayal, and fury, building with every day she’s been gone. Now it rules me entirely. Having her before me should have quieted the storm, but no—I remain trapped between two souls. One dark, the other pitch-black—vying for control in one body.
But on one thing, those opposing forces agree. They want to punish her for running.
“If you’ve made it your mission to be the single biggest pain in my ass, child, you’ve succeeded.”
Her eyes narrow to slits, an angry hiss sliding from her lips.
Ah, so she doesn’t like being reduced to nothing more than a rebellious kid. Like she gave me a fucking choice. If I don’t, she’ll know just how much she means to me and how deep she’d cut me, by running away.
To give her any of those truths will be handing her power when she already has far too much over me. Power I will take back.
My men fan out along the perimeter around us. I keep both guns in my hands, but lower them to my sides. Keeping my eyes on her, I take measured steps behind her victim. Stopping directly behind him while she stands directly in front of him, I give her a devious grin. The very next step I take, she mirrors my movements in the opposite direction.
We slowly circle her victim and each other. Hunter to predator, predator to prey. A rather delicate hierarchy.
My eyes trace over every part of her. Her sundress caressing sun-kissed skin and hugging new curves that have blossomed during our time apart. The material brushes her thigh, just above her knees as she moves.
Late summer in the country looks fucking phenomenal on her.
My palms itch to teach her a painful lesson about taking off without a trace. Fucking off to wherever she damn well pleases in a world where she is hunted, but too naive, too fucking stubborn to realize it.
A lesson leaving her bare ass red, the flames of hell licking at her skin from the thrashing I’ll give her.
The mutilated man at her mercy has finally stopped screaming. His pleading eyes meet mine as his chest puffs out with some sort of authority. “You’ve gotta help me, man. These whores are crazy… and she’s the worst one of?—”
A buzz skitters over my skin. I bare my teeth and lunge, my gun aimed right at his head, making the words die on his lips. “The fuck did you just call her?”
I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. Before I can shift my focus, Nikoletta reaches around, yanks the knife free from the man’s balls, and aims the lethal, bloody tip of the knife right at me as she approaches.
“He’s mine,” she snarls, her eyes burning with deadly warning. She takes one more step and settles the tip of her blade against my belly, pressing it firmly into my jacket. “If you kill him, I kill you. Got it?”
My gaze drops down to the mutilated flesh between his legs before meeting her gaze once again.
What has he done to bring out such savageness in her? Spilling blood where he is most vulnerable… has it always been there, brewing in the recesses? Or has something, or someone, sparked this viciousness in the time we were apart?
Jealousy slices through me. The idea that anyone else can claim credit for this side of her has rage curling in my gut.
Ruthlessness is born out of education or desperation.
Under me, it would be an education. Under him… I study him, his position, the wounds.
She has him at her mercy. Powerless and small. An eye for an eye.
My blood runs cold.
Desperation.
Rape.
Burning hatred slithers through my gut. The thought of anyone touching her, having her—stealing from her, sends a surge of rage coursing through me so far beyond anything I’ve indulged in during my darkest days.
I search over her with new eyes. Looking for clues to the truth of it, but she’s changed in the time she’s been gone. She stares blankly at me, with slightly hooded eyes, her bored gaze fueling my temper. She’s mastered keeping her mask firmly in place no matter what or who blindsides her.
She may have purposely tipped us off so we could find her, but we’d be stupid to let that detail trick us into thinking she is powerless.
It was a calculated decision.
God, look at her. Just when I think I’ve seen all of her, every single side, I find her like this. Coiled with deadly aggression, ready to strike.
Bathed in blood and completely unshakeable.
She is no one’s damsel in distress.
Now that I know this version of her exists, a modern-day Pandora’s box of sorts splits wide open. I’ll be helpless to stop myself from warring with her, anything to seek a taste of her wrath.
I’ll let her spill my blood just to use it to anoint her full lips.
This Nikoletta will never be reduced to dressing up in elegant gowns, her ears dripping with jewels. A pretty ornament on display in our Bratva world.
No.
She’ll demand to stand with us. And if she chooses to do it wrapped in extravagance, she’ll do so because the posh elegance makes for the perfect mask.
There’ll be no keeping my distance. Fuck loyalty. I took her virginity; I’ll take every other first too.
If she has any left.
Because what if he stole them? The precious firsts that should have been hers to give. The ones I would have made mine, until my collection is complete.
Respecting her right to exact vengeance stops me from lashing out for my own satisfaction on the heels of my worst nightmares playing out in vivid color in my head.
Her screams. Tears. Excruciating pain. An inescapable humiliation diminishing every experience in her future.
The monster lurking in me, the beast I fed every day she’s been gone, refuses to recede into the shadows even though we found her. The man she knew, stoic with honor, bound to duty, died on that altar with her virginity. I’ve morphed into something new. Darker. Grittier. With nothing to lose, I’ve become an aggressor to the core.
That sick fiend, haunted by what might have happened to her, wants to see what she does next.
I lower my gun and take a step back. “Don’t let us stop you, Pcholka. How does it end?”
I want her violence.
I crave her reckoning.
For him. For me.
Not one to give the enemy an advantage, she pierces the knife straight down between his legs. He screams, the high-pitched sound piercing our ears as the blade stabs through his cock and balls, impressively close to the holes she left the first time.
Blood pools under her enemy, but not enough to signal his impending death.
She glances down at her handiwork, a look of dissatisfaction crossing her face. Her hostile gaze crawls from his mutilated cock and balls up his chest before landing on his sniveling face. A look of contemplation lights her features. Her eyes narrow in a glare, lingering on his fingers, then his eyes.
My pulse kicks up. I suck in a breath, my chest expanding, my shoulders straightening as curious energy zips through me. I need to see her in action, the carnage she leaves behind when she metes out punishment.
Take the eyes, Nikoletta. Do it!
A wicked smile curves her lips as her slim fingers grip the knife once again. Grasping a hunk of his hair at the crown, she yanks his head back. Staring straight into his eyes, she rocks the blade back and forth as though she needs the scissoring motion to free the knife from the chair under him. But there is no way she needs to move it that much.
No, she is torturing him. Keeping him nice and distracted.
If Nikolaj were here, there’d be hell to pay for allowing his sister to do something so barbaric. Something reserved for the men in our world. We’ve kept her sheltered for so long and he’ll never have the chance to see another side of her. But I’ve had a glimpse, the night she put her virginity up for sale so she could leave this world behind. So desperate to escape, she plunged, bleeding, into shark-infested waters.
We’ve been wrong sheltering her. We should have been training her. Nurturing her untapped potential. Turning her need to flee into a desire to stay.
The knife pulls free. She flips it in her hand with deft fingers. Wasting no time, she sinks the tip into the corner of his eyeball and pops it from the socket. With a slash of her arm, the orb slides free from the tip of the blade and tumbles to the floor.
Nostrils flaring, she drops the knife between his legs and slice into his thigh. Hot blood gushes from the gaping wound. Proof she hit the femoral artery.
Pride tilts her chin as she throws him to the floor, one eye still intact, so he’ll have no choice but to see what she’s done to him. He slinks pathetically away, fingers groping the wood, his gushing leg dragging behind him. His final moments, he spends searching for the eye she plucked from the socket.
When he collapses, what little energy he has left spent, Nikoletta rolls him over onto his back and kicks his feet open. With a gritty snarl more animallike than human, she delivers a nasty kick right between the legs.
The rest of my men begin filing in then, bringing with them the residents they’ve collected. Gazes land on the mutilated corpse, a few gasps break free, but beyond that, no one seems surprised to see the destruction before them.
If anything, most of them look… relieved.
I swipe a hand down my face. What a fucking mess.
A pretty pink blooms on Nikoletta’s cheeks. My palms itch to reach for her. To claim her. But these men have no idea the lines we crossed, leaving us in the confines of goddaughter and godfather.
Adrenaline rules in the aftermath, leaving her pupils blown and her breaths coming in rapid pants.
Oh, she’ll be in this position again. I’ll make sure of it. But this time, without an army of witnesses. Only the two of us… and I’ll tap into the perfect storm brewing and fuck every last drop of energy out of her.
“Nikoletta…” Her name, almost rusty with disuse, cut through the thick silence. The first time I’ve uttered it since the last time I saw her.
Her golden eyes lock on mine at the sound. Her head tilts and her jaw clenches tight. Tension rolls off her as she takes a step toward me. And then another.
Six in total.
The final step is punctuated with her closed fist delivering an uppercut directly under my chin that sets my teeth rattling with the force of it.
Gasps fill the room and my men grow more rigid, more alert, never taking their eyes from her. She may be the mission, but they won’t stand by indefinitely and let her show such disrespect.
“Don’t you ever say my fucking name again.” She delivers the warning with a dangerous edge. The girl she had been, dead and gone, leaving her bitter and hostile.
We face off, her feet planted wide apart, her hands curled into fists at her side with no sign she felt the contact her knuckles made with my jaw. She is good. I’ll give her that. Not even a flicker for the ache sure to be radiating through her hand for days to come.
I should have known she’ll never deliver an open-palmed slap. It would be too predictable. So incredibly pedestrian and beneath her.
Physically weaker… sure, but she won’t let it deter her from hanging with the big boys and delivering payback in the same crude way.
Stepping into her, I force her to tip her head back if she wants to maintain her warning glare. I snake my fingers around the back of her neck and bury them in the hair at her nape.
My fury for the cheap shot and relief at touching her for the first time in far too long war within me. The force of my grip surely causes pain where my fist locks in those silky strands.
Settling my cheek to her temple, I suck in a deep breath, my chest expanding, lungs filling with the scent of her.
She stiffens, a gasp lodging in her throat.
I close my eyes for the briefest moment as a hum of pleasure escapes me.
So. Fucking. Affected.
By me. By my touch.
We’ll hash out our attraction soon enough, but first… the rabid little shit needs to be reminded exactly who is in charge here.
She’s the one who led us to her. If she wants to remain in control, she should have stayed lost to us. If my putting her in her place delivers pain, so be it. She’s lucky I don’t inflict more.
Oh, and I will… just not here. Not before prying eyes.
The hurt I’ll deliver won’t be a fraction of the agony I’ve been through searching for her.
“Be very, very careful, little girl,” I say, watching goosebumps bloom as my breath caresses her silky skin. “You’re not the only one who’s changed since we saw each other last. Push me hard enough and you may just find out the man who indulged you no longer exists.”
Her fingers curl into my shirt, the only thing keeping her nails from scoring my flesh. “I’m not my mother.”
I discreetly trail my nose along her hairline from temple to the shell of her ear. Her breasts heave with her rapid breaths, the round swells splattered crimson and straining against the edge of her bodice.
Blood rushe below my belt and I swell impossibly hard, the evidence of my want concealed between us. I discreetly press my length even harder against her stomach.
“No, Pcholka… you’re not. Not even close,” I say, knowing she’ll misunderstand my words, assuming I find her lacking when compared to her mother. The woman I thought I had loved, but it turns out, was nothing more than an object between two prideful, competing men.
Her breath catches. When it breaks free, she snarls with hatred. But it is the shaky exhale, the way she bites down on her lip as she pierces me with lust-filled eyes that give her away.
The encore? The feel of her body discreetly thrusting against my hard cock.
She can pretend she hates me, but her primal reactions to my proximity expose her for a liar. My goddaughter’s body craves me inside her.
If it comes down to a battle of wills between her head and her base animal instincts, those animal instincts will win every single time.
With every thrust, she’ll question if I’m fucking her or fucking the idea of her mother. And still, she’ll spur me on. She won’t be able to help herself.
Scenting the blood coating her, the urge to drag my tongue through the deep valley of her breasts swiftly follows. I yearn to savor the reckoning she so beautifully delivered, now a masterpiece painting her skin.
“You are so much more than your mother,” I say quietly, the words only for us. “You’re magnificent.” Releasing her from my painful grip, I tip her chin up just a bit more with my thumb. “Now, we go.”
She pulls her chin out of my grip with a firm shake of her head. “Not until we make arrangements for them.”
“Pcholka…
“No!” She yanks free of my grip and glares up at me. “Elijah owned this property… with him dead, these people will lose their home. For some of them, the only home they’ve ever known. If you want me, you have to protect them.”
I snake my hand out in a flash and wrap it around her wrist. With a quick yank, I spin and tug her back against me. Her back to my front. “You can march that sweet ass of yours out there, or I’ll haul you out in the least dignified way I can think up,” I promise, grinding my cock shamelessly against her with every word. “Either way, you are coming with me.”
Craning her neck to the side, she glares up at me and makes sure she looks me dead in the eye. My fierce little goddaughter will not hide, not from anyone. “You’re not the boss of me. You’re just my ride out of here.”
Tightening my hold, only our thundering hearts between us, I drop my voice low with warning, my lip grazing her ear, making her shudder in my arms. “Your ride? Just your ride, huh? You just wait, little girl. I’ll show you exactly what kind of ride I am. Now move it!”
A sexy little whimper breaks free. She tries to smother it with a frustrated growl. “Not without a promise from Nikolaj that he will make sure this land goes to them. Call him,” she snaps.
I maintain my hold on her, though I know if she attempts to break free and run, she’ll never make it past my men who have every exit protected.
Her pulse in her wrist hammers under my fingertips. Her golden eyes blaze with pure belligerence. I hope they’ll do the same when she stares up at me from her knees, with my cock choking the air out of her as I fuck her throat raw.
Because I will definitely fuck that throat raw, her tears and spit mingling before rolling down her chin under her jaw.
She’ll love every single minute of how I plan to filthy her up.
With the touch of one button, still holding her wrist, I wait for Nikolaj to pick up.
“You better not be calling to tell me you lost her,” he warns. The meeting with the governor sounds more like a dinner party in the background, which definitely explains his surly disposition.
“Your baby sister…” I begin, enjoying the snarl bubbling from her throat with my use of ‘baby,’ “… is making bold fucking demands. You meet them or she doesn’t leave.”
“You’re over six and half feet tall, Malikov. You outweigh her by at least a hundred pounds.” The tension in his voice flees with the confirmation I have her in my grip. “But to get her out of there, after she deliberately alerted us to her whereabouts, you need promises from me? You losing your edge, old man?”
“You want me to throw her over my shoulder, her bare ass hanging out from under her dress for all of our men to see, just say the word.”
“Jesus! No. Fuck.” He mutters a few more choice words I can’t make out. I picture him shoving his fingers through his hair in exasperation.
This is only the beginning. Wait until he gets a taste of who she’s turned into. He may just tear his own hair out.
“Dammit… put her on.”
I thought he might see it my way. Not that I’ll ever let a single one of these men get even the barest glimpse of what is for my eyes only. Not without them paying for the glance with their life.
She snatches the offered phone from my hand and spins away, getting as far from me as she can.
I catch a few words here and there, ‘you will do this for me,’ ‘set them up,’ ‘five hundred thousand’… the number that always seems to crop up since the long-ago night I bought her virginity at the cabaret for the same amount.
That fucking number, a curse and a salvation, mocking me with its existence.
Her cheeks flush more and more with her every demand. She keeps her back against the wall, just as this life taught her long ago, her gaze sweeping the room as she speaks.
Pride fills me watching her like this… her tactical stance, assertive in her commands, strategic with what words she uses to play on emotions and get what she wants. Even knowing she worked me over the same way almost a year and a half ago, and will surely work me over again, I take great satisfaction in the forceful woman she’s become.
Finally, a satisfied smile curves on her lips. Her glance sweeps up to the balcony, landing on two women standing there with wary expressions on their faces and sleeping babies in their arms.
The hair on my neck stands up.
My skin prickles.
The weight of dread settling in my chest.
Fucking hell.
I already know where this is going when I hear her words clear as day. “I’m bringing friends.”