Chapter 17
Four hoursin the car and still my hands shake as restless energy snaps and skitters through my veins. I can’t stop shifting on the seat. My skin throbs where I mercilessly scrubbed it in the shower, much in the same way Regan had the night before.
Both of us stained by him in such different ways.
The occasional light flickers in from the streetlamps along the Hudson, dull beams cutting across my lap. Stretching out my fingers, I spot the dark lines under my nails where I haven’t managed to scrub his blood clean. The glimpse takes me right back to my handiwork.
Elijah’s skin splitting when I hadn’t even meant to cut him yet, but satisfaction filling me just the same as blood trickled down his neck and fear lit in his eyes.
Seeing the knowledge in his eyes that this was the end, even as his body instinctively fought for survival, only made me want it all over again.
The music of his animalistic scream when my blade sliced through his flesh like a hot knife through butter, nailing him to the chair. Leaving him at my mercy.
Open. Vulnerable.
The brief taste only made me crave more.
More of his blood. More of his begging. And all of his pain.
For once, no one ruled me. I made the decisions. No more pretending to be the pretty princess or the lost little sheep trying to prove herself useful because she had nowhere else to go.
I fight to hold on to the satisfaction of payback, but the flood of feelings Konstantin’s arrival brings overshadows all.
Hate, loathing, regret, and so much want I can scarcely breathe at the thought of it. And how stupid is it that I still have to fight the instinct to touch him?
My throat aches from holding back tears.
Every look from his intense dark eyes, every word from his deceptive mouth, his actions, reactions, motivations–his love for me, all of it poisoned by the cold hard truth.
I am a replacement for my mother. Worse, I am a replacement and the best form of payback at my father he can possibly get his hands on.
He must have secretly loved when I begged him to take my virginity. Oh sure, he used that honor he paraded around to feign resistance—but it was all for show. I’d been handing him more leverage than he ever could have hoped to gain. The rush of victory he must have felt when my father and Vlad walked in right after… bastard.
At least with Elijah, we all knew what we were getting. Konstantin’s betrayal was a masterpiece nineteen years in the making. Thousands of lies layered one on top of another, each paper thin and delicate on their own, but together, breathtakingly destructive with their strength.
He left a gaping wound behind. Impossible to heal and always aching. He cheated me. He tarnished my first time, but it went so much farther than that. His lie by omission stole every happy memory I had of him in an otherwise oppressive, often terrifying childhood. Thousands upon thousands of deceptions—everything he taught me, every hug, every forehead kiss… all a means to an end.
Even if we never had more than our one time together, at least I had a lifetime of memories filled with him.
But now with this glaring truth exposed, I have nothing but this anguish I can’t shake no matter how hard I try.
I want him to bleed for it. I want to shred his heart the way he shredded mine. Only in the aftermath of his betrayal, I have to wonder if he has one at all.
Pressing my knife against his gut ignited a twisted fantasy. One where I make him bleed. A fantasy I haven’t been able to get out of my head since. My heart wants his pain and punishment, but my body, the fucking traitor… just wants him.
My skin prickles, heating with awareness. Before I can stop myself, I glance up and lock eyes with the snake.
The intensity I find there brings me right back to that altar, with his fingers flexing on my throat when the thin thread of control snapped and he possessed me, taking anything and everything he wanted.
I close my eyes, and like every other time they closed since that day, he is there. Rough and wild, drinking me in, unblinking as though he can’t bear to miss a second.
Tearing myself from the vivid memory, I squeeze my thighs together, looking for relief. Forcing my eyes open, I find him still staring, only this time awareness flares in his eyes, a flush spreads over his cheeks as though he’s been in my head with me the whole time.
He could learn a thing or two about subtlety.
His eyes have burned through me at least two of the four-hour ride into Manhattan. Now this. And every time Konstantin fixes his gaze on me, Grigori aims a curious one at him.
His man is putting the pieces together, and the more people who know something had happened between us, the more danger we’ll be in. In this world, not only is he my godfather and once my father’s best friend, which is forbidden enough, but I was promised to another man. Once word spreads that I am back, they’ll expect the promise to be fulfilled. It doesn’t matter how long I’ve been gone or what has happened in that time.
It won’t matter that Vlad made the promise, despite my being under Nikolaj’s protection. To the Petrovs, a family rooted in antiquated traditions, I am nothing more than a piece of property unfairly kept from them. Either Nikolaj turns me over to Ivan Petrov, or Ivan will bring a war to Nikolaj’s doorstep.
Does he have the men he needs to win that kind of war? Or will we be forced underground indefinitely? I glance down at Lexi’s soft, rosy cheek and take in the peaceful expression on her round little face. How can we bring these babies underground with no fresh air, no sunlight?
City lights come into view, looking deceptively far away. We’ll be winding between skyscrapers in less than ten minutes.
Tugging the elastic free from my damp hair, I shake the heavy bun loose and massage my aching scalp. Grit coats my eyes, making them burn. A dull ache pulses in the back of my skull, the throb growing stronger with every passing minute.
I loathe the idea of talking to him. I definitely am not ready to hear his voice, the deep, sexy rasp always on the edge of more. Like he’s constantly on the prowl, waiting to be prodded into letting loose a roar.
But I have to know. I have to prepare now if we are heading into the dark. “Where are we going?”
His hard eyes meet mine in the mirror. “Somewhere safe.”
I swallow the ball of trepidation creeping up my throat and hold his stare. I will not show fear, dammit. I just carved up a guy and here I am, on the verge of panic at the thought of the narrow pitch-black entry point Grigori led me to the last time. “Underground?”
Fuck.
My voice wobbles just a fraction, but I feel it and the way his eyes soften tells me he sure as hell hears it.
“No, you’ll have all the light you need, Pcholka,” he says quietly.
My heart pinches.
Don’t you dare make me feel anything for you, you bastard.
My throat grows impossibly thick as stupid girl tears I overpowered before come rushing back. Tears that won’t change one damn thing. Tears I absolutely refuse to give him. Fixing my gaze out the tinted window, I watch the Hudson disappear from view as the city rises up around us, swallowing us whole.
Konstantin makes a call, likely getting security clearance before our arrival. I take the opportunity to lean over and shake Faith awake.
“Hey, we’ll be there soon,” I whisper.
“Already?” she asks, pushing herself upright. Her focus goes straight to the babies. “I swear I just blinked.”
I give her a reassuring smile. Alex and Lexi’s safety is the one thing I’m sure about at the moment. They won’t remember a thing and one thing I know to my bones, these men, no matter how I feel about this world, about them—they will stand before the enemy and take a spray of bullets before they ever let anything happen to a child.
Faith turns in her seat to face me. “So, are we headed underground?” Her lips twitch and no doubt the details I told her of my night in the crypt with Konstantin plays in high def through her mind.
“No. This will be new to both of us.” Just as I say the words, Grigori slows and turns into a parking garage under a massive high-rise that has to be at least eighty stories. Concrete closes in around us. I wince, waiting for the sound of the roof scraping when we bounce over a bump, but Grigori winds his way through with confidence, and the sound never comes.
Around and around corners we go, winding down until we have to be at least three stories underground. My heart creeps up in my throat. I’m not convinced this is better than the dark hole Grigori prodded me down the last time.
He pulls to a smooth stop in front of a set of elevator doors. When they slide open, six men, almost as big as Konstantin, step out. Not an easy feat since he is over six and half feet tall. Clearly, Nikolaj made impressive progress in building his empire and army while I’ve been gone.
Lining up shoulder to shoulder, three on the right, three on the left, they form a corridor of sorts from the car to the doors. Not a sliver of a gap to be found. Their shrewd eyes endlessly sweep the area around us.
Konstantin climbs out, his eyes narrowed, his jaw locked. Tension rolls off him, turbulent and stifling, serving as a wordless warning. We aren’t safe. Not yet.
He opens the door and motions for us to exit.
“We just need to unhitch their seats,” Faith says.
He reaches out his hand to Faith. “Babies last. They’re safer in the vehicle than they are out here while you climb out.”
Her inner hussy surrenders to the gesture. Next thing I know, she lays her palm in his and steps out all regal and shit with a smile on her face.
Charming bastard.
“Once you’re both in the elevator, I’ll pass them to you,” he says as he reaches for me.
Instinct has me complying, but I freeze, my fingers just inches from his. “Don’t touch me.”
The muscle in his cheek jumps, but he doesn’t push.
Hands braced on the doorframe for support, I jump out and turn to help with the car seats.
“Elevator, Pcholka,” he bites out, popping Lexi’s carry seat from the base before reaching back to do the same with Alex. “I’ve got it.”
“How do you know how to?—”
“You seriously have to ask that?” he tosses back at me with a smirk.
Apparently, he’s used up all the charm on Faith, leaving me with this prick. Good to know. His attitude douses any thawing my heart may have done when he reassured me I wouldn’t be trapped in the dark.
Sarcasm, a language I understand well, is exactly what I need to cling to right now. I huff out a breath. “Oh, shut up.”
Dark eyebrows slash over his eyes in the way that makes me itch to land another punch. “Ass in the elevator. Now.”
Preferably a punch right where the bruise has just begun forming from the first one.
I jump across the threshold, all dramatic movements, and spin back toward him, then jut out my hip. “Happy?”
“Little shit,” he mutters.
“What? I didn’t hear you,” I say, turning my head and cupping the ear closest to him.
He opens his mouth, but whatever he planned to say dies in his throat, the sound of squealing tires cutting off his words.
Men all move at once, shifting formation in an instinctual way until two form a blockade in front of the elevator and the other four surround the SUV.
Faith gasps next to me. I squeeze her hand and find a small gap between the men where I can just barely see what is happening.
Konstantin yanks the second car seat free. For such a big guy, he moves in a flash, bringing the babies before him side by side, where he curls over their tiny little bodies, shielding them with his.
A red sports car filled with rowdy teens careens around the corner, their hands waving out the window as they scream their way through the parking garage.
No one moves until they are out of sight. Konstantin last, and only when Grigori reassures him they aere clear.
With the men forming a corridor once again, Konstantin sweeps between them, a car seat in each hand, only handing them to us once he joins us in the elevator and the doors have closed completely.
A side panel slides open then, leading to a long, straight passageway. “We’re not staying here?”
“No. It’s just another entry point.”
“So Nikolaj has tunnels above and below the city now?”
“Technically no, we’re still under the city,” he says with a hint of laughter in his voice.
The fucker.
“You shielded them like you’ve done it a hundred times before,” Faith says as she brushes her finger over Alex’s cheek.
“I have.” His deep voice echoes with his answer.
“But for who?”
Glancing over his shoulder, his dark stare holding mine, the heavy silence serves as his only answer as Faith glances back and forth between us.
“Oh,” she says quietly.
The minute he turns around, I let out the breath I’ve been holding and turn to Faith who mouths the word “sorry” to me.
Was any of it real? At least in my infancy? A memory of my mother throwing her head back and laughing flashes through my head and I have to swallow down the bile rising in my throat.
He tainted my memories of her too. Now I agonize over whether she ever felt the same for him, if they kissed, if they did more than that… my mother, the idea of her, her ghost, turns into some sort of twisted rival.
He stripped me of every bit of happiness I’d had to cling to and here he is, just leading us to who knows where, where he’ll have complete access to me whenever he wants. Oh, how fucking satisfied he must be with himself right now. His victory will be temporary. I’ll make sure of it.
We had to have walked at least half a mile, Konstantin offering multiple times to carry Alex and Lexi, before arriving at a nondescript gray hallway with a private elevator at the end. Konstantin presses his thumb to a screen, then his right pinky, left middle finger, his right index and ring finger at the same time and finally his left thumb.
Okay, so no one is getting in. Good to know.
The door slides open with barely a sound, everything about it screaming high-tech security and designed to draw as little attention as possible. If anyone even manages to find it.
Konstantin presses the one and only button with no designation, setting us smoothly rising. In just seconds we come to a stop, the doors sliding open to a hallway almost identical to the one we’ve just come from.
Another panel, a different pattern of fingerprints later, and we are in.
Soft light fills the massive room. Okay, more than a room, this is one whole corner of a single story in a high-rise.
Floor-to-ceiling windows face the mirrored windows of the building next to us.
“Um, can they see us in here?” Faith asks.
“You can see out, but they can’t see in,” Konstantin assuresa her. “I’ll give you the tour after you get some sleep.”
He leads us to the first bedroom and pushes open the door. Lamps burn by the bedside. Light spills into the room from the en suite bathroom, illuminating the edge of a crib in the corner.
“Another crib will be here tomorrow as well as anything else you need. Will one do for tonight?”
Faith’s shoulders slump with relief. Her chin wobbles and her eyes fill with tears. “Uh, yes, um, thank you. So far they’ve always shared one crib so this is perfect.”
Side by side, we unbuckle Alex and Lexi from their seats. When we pick them up, they both do the same baby stretch where they arch their backs and stick their booties out.
I tuck Lexi into my elbow while she makes a suckling motion with her lips, just waiting to see if she will wake up, but with just a few brushes of my finger along her cheek, she settles into sleep once again.
My heart thunders in my chest the minute we get them down. There is no avoiding this anymore and Faith’s worried gaze only confirms she knows it too. She glances at Konstantin leaning against the doorway, his jacket over his forearm, his hands in his pockets, like this is the most normal thing in the world.
Her arms shoot around me, squeezing me tight. “You’ll be okay, right?” she whispers.
“I’ll be fine. I don’t know if he will be,” I say, pulling back. “I promise not to commit murder tonight. Well–another murder.”
“Nikoletta will be in the room at the end of the hall. Last door on the left.”
My shoulders go rigid and a fiery haze fills my vision.
He did that on purpose.
“So much for that promise to not commit another murder,” Faith mutters. “Just maim him a little maybe? I kinda like him.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get attached.”
I don’t meet his eyes as I pass by him in the doorway. If I did, I might just drag what nails I have down the side of his face.