Chapter 30
I thoughtthe whiskey would help me sleep after my shower.
And it did, for about an hour.
But then I’d see that bullet in my nightmares. Hear the sound it made as it bounced off the SUV right next to her.
And then the dream would shift. The bullet hit its mark, tearing through her golden dress, lodging in her chest. Blood poured from her mortal wound. The spot slowly trickling down and spreading out, the crimson stain growing by the second, before she collapsed back into the vehicle.
Then the nightmare flipped. The heart-shattering scene slipped away, and I stood in the den. Every man we collected dead, but one.
The one who fired the shot. He’s clamped to the chair by his hands and feet, his face nothing more than mutilated flesh and blood. I’ve taken his eyes, his tongue, his ears, and his nose. His fingers and toes lay scattered on the floor. He’s in and out of consciousness. Coming to life the minute the flame of my torch meets his skin, only to lose consciousness again when I cut the scorched skin from his body in small enough patches to deliver the maximum pain and keep him alive for a good long while.
Nothing will ease the pain of knowing she’s gone.
I’ve tortured all of them and it’s done nothing to feed this insatiable hunger to destroy everything in my path.
In one final burst of energy, the mutilated man before me slowly smiles. It’s a leering grin of pure victory. But it’s the laugh that grabs me by the throat and makes my eyes shoot open.
Maksim’s laugh.
After dragging my hand down my face, I check the time. It’s just after three in the morning and the place is as silent as a tomb. I’m on my feet, putting on a fresh suit, the need to see her churning in my gut.
Making my way into the living area, the sound of the lock disengaging has me stopping, my hand going to my gun.
Grigori slips in, a small paper bag in his hand from the twenty-four-hour pharmacy a few blocks away. His face is grim as he hands me the package and heads for the surveillance room.
I need to have a talk with him, and soon, before this all completely spirals out of control.
Like it hasn’t already.
There’s still time, though. Still a chance to do this the right way so we don’t destabilize everything Nikolaj has built.
One thing at a time, though. Slipping the packet from the bag, I head down the hall to where she sleeps in my bed. With a quick glance down the hall back toward the living area, I turn the handle and slip inside the door. Heading for the chair in the corner, I stop when I see a new set of dried tears leaving streaks down her cheeks.
She cried herself to sleep again.
While I drank, my feral little killer was in here, reduced to tears.
What the hell am I going to do with you, Pcholka?
I ease into the chair, set the packet on the table next to me, and torture myself by watching her. Every rise and fall of her shoulders with the long breaths that come with a deep sleep imprint in my mind. This serene view of her now continually battering away at the one branded in my head from my nightmares.
Her phone buzzes on the nightstand, but she doesn’t stir. Narrowing my gaze, I count the dried tear tracks on her skin. Three on her left cheek, two on her right.
What caused them this time?
Didn’t I give her what she wanted? I told her the dangerous truth.
I’m hers.
Because she’s the only one with the true power to destroy me. She’s always been the only one. The only one I let in after the brutal lessons of my childhood.
The only person I let myself love so deeply, every aspect of my life tethered to hers.
A soft sigh breaks from her lips and she flips over. She shoves the comforter to her waist, and flings her arm overhead, her hand coming to rest on her thick waves tumbling over the pillow.
The glow from the lamp hits her just right, illuminating the dark circles of her peaked nipples under my shirt.
Well, well, well.
She is mine. I don’t need her to say it out loud. I only need to make sure she never forgets it.
A soft click at the door has me reaching for my gun. Light spills in and Faith quietly pads in with a fussing baby in her arms. As quietly as possible, I pull my hand away and set my palm on my thigh, keeping absolutely still.
Fuck.
She rounds the side of the bed and puts a gentle hand to Nikoletta’s shoulder. “Hey,” she says as she softly shakes Nikoletta’s shoulder.
Sneaking in here was bound to bite me in the ass and here we are.
The baby in her arms lets out a wail that has Nikoletta shooting straight up, rubbing at her puffy eyes. “I’m here. I’m up.”
“I’m sorry,” Faith says as she takes a seat on the edge of the bed. “I tried to call you, but you didn’t hear the phone.”
“It was a long night. I crashed.”
“Yeah, I figured. So, ummmm, I know you said we have to be careful, but what I didn’t get to tell you before is we’re out of milk in the freezer for Lexi. I thought I could get her back down, but she’s not having it.”
I tip my head so I can hear them better. Can’t Faith just… feed her?
Nikoletta glances at the time. “She misses me. It’s okay. I miss her too. I can take her. I’ll get her back to you before everyone wakes up.”
Heat infuses my entire body… My heart kicks in a hard thump, the beat growing heavy.
She can’t mean—she’s not—but even as my mind resists the idea, all of a sudden everything I’ve seen from her—the changes—it all makes sense.
“Okay, she’s all changed.”
Nikoletta smiles and takes the baby Dimitri danced with earlier in her arms before smiling up at Faith. “Thank you. Just—can you turn the lock for me before you pull it shut?”
“Of course. And you’re welcome.” Faith turns the lock on the knob and slips out the door, never once looking in my direction, giving me an inhibited view of Nikoletta.
Her fingers go to the first of the buttons, slipping it from the loop.
Every single inch of my skin buzzes with awareness as my brain tries to keep up with what I’m seeing.
She undoes another button, the curve of her breast coming into view.
She’s not about to do what I think she’s going to do? This isn’t—I—my lungs ache as I force myself to stay quiet.
Slipping the third button free, a megawatt smile lights up her sleepy face as she gazes down at the little girl fussing in her arms. “Shh, shh, shh, it’s okay, baby.”
A fourth button undone, she pulls back the shirt—my shirt—and brings the little girl to her breast where she quickly latches on, her tiny fist flexing in the air, grasping at Nikoletta’s finger.
She transforms before my eyes, the tear tracks fading away with the way she lights up as she feathers her thumb over the cheek of the baby in her arms.
My twisted world tips on its axis, my stomach pitching into a record-breaking free fall.
Her baby.
Nikoletta has a child.
“I know you miss me, baby girl… I miss you too. So much.” She drops a kiss on the little girl’s forehead and continues to stroke gently over her skin, murmuring to her as she continues to feed from Nikoletta’s breast.
Everything I thought I knew plummets into an abyss of confusion while everything I couldn’t understand becomes crystal fucking clear.
The fierce little killer we branded her as is actually so much more complicated than a moniker so trite.
She’s a mother.
A tormented ache throbs and swells inside me until my joints feel like they’ll explode from the force of it. Nikoletta, Faith, how many other women had Elijah forced at that commune? How many of those infants did he produce in his own personal fucking rape den?
The whole year I looked for her, tore through people and places, and the entire time, Elijah victimized her there, got her pregnant, forced her into having his child.
A bellow of pure anguish demands release from my lungs, but I force it down until my throat aches like the fiery flames of hell. Helpless rage tries to sweep me away with the unfairness of all of it, so I focus on Nikoletta, on how the tiny life in her arms lights up her world the way she lit up mine when they put her in my hands.
The way she still does now. Only today, it’s new, terrifying, and so far beyond what I ever expected that all I can think about is how to hold on to it.
How will I live with knowing another man made her a mother?
Another man touched her, his child grew inside her.
Unfairness eats through my veins like acid.
He had this intimate part of her I’ll never have. Something bonding them in a way that’s even more than the bond I share with her. This whole time pride filled me watching her take control and deliver swift justice in the most savage of ways, errantly believing I sparked that part of her soul to life.
But it was never me. Another man who couldn’t possibly know every facet of her the way I did, tapped into an untouched sacred part of her and made it his.
He turned her into the most ferocious form of herself.
An unapologetic, fiercely protective mother. Ruled by animal instinct and absolutely feral in her response to perceived threats.
Which side of the coin do I fall on, friend or foe, if she could keep this from me?
The unrelenting need to know is a wildfire inside me. Before I can change my mind, I reach for the switch on the lamp next to me.
Nikoletta gasps, immediately pulling her daughter tighter, her hand cupping the little girl’s head.
“Were you ever going to tell me?”