Chapter 34
The door opensas I’m picking up one of my most vicious serrated blades.
“Miss me?”
The sound of Nikoletta’s voice sends my blood racing through my veins. My insatiable hunger for her mixing with the adrenaline coursing through me a dangerous combination in the confines of the soundproof room.
The swift urge to confess to Nikolaj when he asked me if I knew about Lexi had me biting down on my tongue until it bled. Lying to him is against my nature. The weight of my original sin where Nikoletta is concerned already carved away at my reason until I took stupid risks and invited more danger.
For everyone.
Every lie erodes at the foundation of what I’m helping him build and I hate her for putting me in that position, too.
“You want to explain to me what the fuck you didn’t understand about my orders to keep an eye on her and not to let her leave the safe house?”
Body parts lay scattered in pools of blood from two hours spent dismantling six of the seven living men, one body part at a time while their screams battered my eardrums to the point of pain.
I turn to them then, flicking the teeth of the blade over my thumb in clear view of the little fucker who almost stole her from me.
Roddick glares at Nikoletta who stands there with one hand on her hip, the other clutching her knife, her curious gaze sweeping through the room. “Oh, I understood. I also understand that she’s eager to slice and dice the shit out of someone, and I’m good with it not being me.”
“But if I kill you…”
He slants a look at Nikoletta before jutting his chin at me. “At least I won’t be dribbling piss down my taint.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “What?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll give you a full report later. Just… let her fuck some shit up please so we don’t have to sleep in shifts with one eye open.”
I step up to the fucker bound to my chair and tap the side of my blade on his forehead. His swollen jaw is almost double its size, his face misshapen and a canvas of sickly green from watching the show and deep blue and purple from the bruising.
“If you’ll excuse me. This won’t take long and then, you and me, we’re going to spend some quality time together. You won’t be as lucky as these fuckers.”
I take the edge of the door in my hands and lean down until my face is just inches from Roddick’s. “Go.”
He shoots a glare at Nikoletta and leaves, closing the door behind him.
“I don’t know where you think you get off doing this without me, but you be?—”
I curl my fist into the front of her dress and haul her to the center of the room, pinning her against the steel support beam there. “You really think you’re up for this, Pcholka? This isn’t just some little girl swipe of the blade. The feral little killer I found at that commune better up her game.”
Her lungs heave under my hand. Cheeks flushed, she stares down at my bloodstained hands and licks her plump bottom lip.
Cool steel grazes over my forearm. The light catches the edge of her blade as she drags it over my skin. The flirty little threat has my hard cock twitching behind my zipper.
Her chest swells with a deep breath, and her eyes flare with excitement. And I know… she’s greedy for the scent of blood filling the air.
She’s hungry to deliver a special brand of Romanoff justice.
“He came for me, and when he did, he came for Lexi.” Her lethal tone rumbles with a promise of retribution as her hot glare slides to the man in the chair.
Our daughter’s name from her lips cuts me to the core with her betrayal. Will it fade? If it does, will it take days, weeks, months, years?
How long am I condemned to love the woman before me when all I want to do is hate her?
“This one…” I say as I step up the man secured to the chair. “He’s the one who tried to make Lexi an orphan. He’s the one who tried to send me to my grave before I even knew I was a father.”
A burst of life lights in the man’s surprised eyes as he glances between us.
“I told you she’s mine.” I crouch down in front of him, eyes on the rusted clamps I’ve grown fond of using to keep my subjects bound. The trick is to get them pinned nice and tight, the disk pressing into their hands and the tops of their feet until the first couple of bones snap. They get real compliant then. Eager to keep still so they don’t cause more pain.
“Why clamps?”
Her voice just beyond my shoulder sends chills racing over my skin. Then I feel the heat of her as she steps closer, her skirt brushing my bare arm.
“Because I have about twenty twists of motivation before they go clean through their hand. I have yet to find one who can hold out that long, but I haven’t lost hope. Maybe he’s the one?”
She scoffs behind me. “The way he whined like a little bitch when his jaw snapped? I doubt it.”
The guy jerks his hips in the chair, another burst of life—but we’ll take care of that soon enough.
Need courses through me with her so close. I swear I can feel her heart racing next to me and as much as I want to hold on to the hate, I want something else so much more. I reach back and wind my arm around her leg, pulling her up next to me.
Once she’s there, I hold his gaze as I wind my hand under her skirt and around her thigh. But it’s not enough. Nothing is ever enough with her.
With my other hand, I lift her skirt with a look of deadly warning for our little friend. “If your eyes drop below her neck, I’ll hand the fuckers to you. Got me?”
His eyelids sink shut as he jerks his head in agreement.
Tipping my head back, I glance up at her. “Don’t look away from him for a second. If he dares look at what’s mine, he pays for it.”
Her fingers dig hard into my shoulder with her frantic nod.
“If he’d had his way,” I say before sinking my teeth into her thigh. “Lexi never would have known the comfort of being tucked to her mother’s breast again.”
A savage growl rips from her throat as I peel her skirt up even higher. “Now tell me, Pcholka, how are you going to make him pay for it?”
Her body jerks above me as I land another bite, this one just inches from my faded name on her thigh.
His howl of pain swiftly follows, and I can’t wait to see her brand of justice.
I swipe my tongue over my teeth marks on her skin and check out her handiwork. “Oh, very nice, my feral little goddaughter.” Her knife sticks vertically out of his trapezius muscle between his neck and shoulder. “Tell me, why there?”
“He’s too free to move with the clamps. But he’ll think about every little shift if it means flexing a muscle with a blade sticking out of it.”
“Nice.” I pass her the serrated knife I’ve laid on the floor next to me.
“Our enemy is smart. He made sure every order came through one man.” I cup the man’s kneecap now, digging my fingers around the edges, adding pressure until his agony-filled shouts fill the air. “This fucker right here.”
I look up at my girl and find her eyes blazing, an almost deranged edge to her smile. With a savage jerk, his kneecap dislodges, turning his shout to a scream.
Her teeth sink into her bottom lip, her fingers diving into my hair as she watches him suffer.
With another vicious swing, she sends the serrated blade deep into the same muscle on the opposite side.
The pathetic sounds coming from him fade to the background. I tip my head back and study the ferocious mother she’s become. “Have you thought about how you’ll kill him?”
She slants a hot look down at me. “You’re going to let me?”
I cluck my tongue and shake my head. “Does anyone let you do anything, Pcholka? Or do you just do it, consequences be damned?”
“Kostya, I?—”
“You’re Lexi’s mother. You have a stake in this.”
“Is that it? Is that all I am to you now? Lexi’s mother?”
“What do you want from me?”
Her wounded look slides away and she lets out a sultry laugh. “That’s a loaded question, Kostya. Make sure you’re ready for the answer.”
“Try me.”
She grabs my hair and drags my head back until I’m forced onto my ass and crab-walking backward on my hands. When my back hits the steel beam, she lets me go and drags her flouncy skirt up to her waist, my naked pussy on full display.
I hate her.
I keep telling myself that.
But the more I do, the more I think I just hate how much I still want her.
And right now, delivering justice to the man who almost made our little girl an orphan, I want to love her.
She hooks her thigh over my shoulder, her pussy just inches from my face.
I suck in a harsh breath and close my eyes, savoring the scent of her arousal. Then she curls her hand around the beam and settles her other thigh over my other shoulder until she’s straddling my face. My heart takes off until it might just tear out of my body.
Her hot, wet pussy brushes my mouth and pushes me right over the edge of sanity.
I’ll hate her again when we walk out that door.
With an angry growl of pure self-loathing, I grip her ass in my hands and bury my mouth in her slick heat. I suck at her clit, nibbling, biting, before dragging my tongue along the length of her slit and working my way back, then doing it all over again.
I need her tighter to me. I need her to suffocate me with her pillowy soft skin and make me forget all the ways she destroyed my heart.
Smoothing my hands over her legs, I guide them around my head and pole crossing her ankles until I’m locked in the prison of her thighs.
I rock her against my savage mouth, her harsh breaths turning into deep groans, until her spine snaps straight and she comes, her pussy drenching me with her release until it drips down my chin.
This is my cage. My own vile hell.
Where the woman I love is now my fucking enemy.
This is the all-consuming distraction neither of us can afford.
I have to see her like this. I need to see her unfocused sultry stare as she comes down from her release.
Tipping my head back against the beam, I catch sight of the door opening out of the corner of my eye.
And Nikolaj’s shocked face exploding into disbelieving fury.
The crack of a bullet explodes through the air, turning her whimpers of pure bliss to twisted, bitter agony ringing in my ears.
Thank you so much for reading Konstantin and Nikoletta’s savage beginnings in Twisted Cage. I hope you loved every dip, curve, and loop in their roller coaster!