Chapter 39 Violets
Violets
Anika
Battered and bleeding, Anika scrambled up the stairs toward her bedroom. While she’d dismantled Levi’s gun, hers was still in working order next to her bed. All she had to do was get there.
Mikko’s chuckle followed her up the steps, a terrible promise if he caught her.
Glass shards dug into the bottom of her feet, each step burning and leaving a trail of her blood.
Her back burned equally, more pieces embedded there.
Once she had her weapon, it wouldn’t matter; Anika wasn’t a little girl anymore, and she could hold her own.
She’d shown as much with Ivan and Dimitri and now Levi.
Men always had a way of succumbing to her.
Mikko wouldn’t be any different.
He may think he had the upper hand, his knowledge of her encompassing all the variables at play, but they still wouldn’t help him in the end.
Her sweaty palms gripped the door frame of her bedroom as she flung herself through.
Behind her, she heard the thud of his boots on the steps, his stealth abandoned in hopes of exacerbating her fear.
But she wasn’t scared, she was angry.
All her life had consisted of moments like this: constantly proving herself and fighting for what was right until she’d relinquished her morals in favor of winning.
Sometimes to tame the monster, you had to become it.
There, in the dark, she saw the glint of her safe, her salvation within reach—
Sharp pain erupted across her scalp as fingers tangled within her midnight strands and pulled. The momentum she’d built immediately shifted, the floor rushing up to meet her as Mikko threw his weight into her.
Thud!
Together they fell to the floor, the rug barely cushioning the impact.
The wind whooshed out of her lungs and for a moment, Anika contemplated if she’d be able to walk without a limp tomorrow.
That was if she made it out. With a grunt, Anika clawed at the rug, desperately trying to pull herself free of Mikko’s ironclad hold.
“Not so easy now, is it?” he breathed into her temple.
She wriggled and swung her elbows, eager to feel one of them dig into his ribs or the wound on his side. “I don’t know…what you mean,” she gasped. He swatted her arms away, treating them like more of a nuisance than a threat as he pressed her harder into the floor.
“No violets,” he flipped her around, strong legs straddling her torso, “no advantage.”
“Tell that to the blood collecting on your clothes,” she spat.
While he was swathed in shadow, she could feel the wetness clinging to his clothing and see the darker stains of his blood.
Anika remembered the way it felt when her knife had cut him, punctured his skin, and while it wouldn’t kill him, it’d make his healing process that much worse.
Her fingers curled into claws, honing them into something to be feared.
She aimed for his exposed flesh, eager to rend it from his bones.
If she could bury a digit in any of his orifices or wounds, she’d be happy.
While he may have brute force, she had pure rage.
Currently riding the high of Levi being unconscious downstairs, she vowed none of her actions would be in vain.
Not for her.
Not for her parents.
“There’s going to be more once I get done with you,” Mikko said, his eyes flashing in the low moonlight streaming in through her bedroom windows.
He caught her flailing wrists before squeezing hard to try and prevent her from continuing to attack him, but it had the opposite effect.
Anika’s adrenaline dumped into her veins with a renewed vigor.
“I hope you bleed out on these floors,” she declared between grunts.
Mikko chuckled darkly. “You and me both, malyshka.”
The scent of him this close, the notes of patchouli and oiled leather, was something she hadn’t mentally prepared for. The last time they’d been this close he’d caught her making out with Levi.
Not counting the night he’d snuck in and watched her sleep…
Her secrets were unraveling, the plans she’d curated the past couple years coming to fruition. And she was drunk on it all.
“I should’ve killed you when I had the chance,” she hissed.
“A shame honestly,” he said, releasing her wrists only to slam her against the floor. Her head cracked against it and all the air in her lungs rushed out, leaving her gasping. Reaching out, he clutched her jaw in his bloody grip.
“Look at me,” he demanded. Her mouth popped open in a small o in his clenched fingers as her cheeks squished under his strength.
“You.” A gasp. “Fucker.” A wheeze.
Blood dripped from the laceration on his cheek, a droplet of crimson splattered on her bare face. He smiled as if the sight of his blood on her skin was intoxicating to him.
Bastard.
Mikko enjoyed making others suffer no matter what lies he tried to tell himself. He was exactly like Alek.
The cool kiss of his gun beneath her chin proved her point and stilled her movements.
Desperation crept into the edges of her brain, warning sounds damn near blaring but she shoved it down.
She wasn’t thirteen anymore; she could survive this.
Resiliency was in her blood. Mikko wasn’t going to get away with this. She wouldn’t let him.
A taunt rolled off his tongue. “Fighting me only proves my point.”
“Typical that a man of your status would need such reassurances,” she fumed, whipping her head back and forth to try and break the hold he had on her face.
“The moment I walked in on you strangling Levi, I knew all I needed to.”
“And yet here I am, still breathing.” Her lips pressed into a firm line.
His muscles tensed at the insinuation, but he kept his mouth shut, content to prod her with the barrel of his gun. In his attempt to intimidate her, he’d loosened his hold, her arms wiggling free from between his thighs.
“Don’t make me regret sparing you,” Mikko murmured, the sound almost too silent for her to hear. She should’ve paused and asked what the hell he meant, but her brain was already in motion, her elbows swinging down, hard.
“Oof!” Air wheezed out of Mikko as Anika’s arm connected with his crotch. It served him right when he’d been too busy talking instead of securing her. The wound in her arm pulsed with every beat of her heart, but she pushed on.
Bucking her hips up violently, she unseated him from around her waist. Knocking the gun from his grasp, she felt like she could breathe easier when it slid across the floor.
In one final moment of retribution, she tugged at his mask.
The eye portion was askew, momentarily blinding Mikko as she scooted away and got back to her feet.
She only needed a few extra seconds to type in the code of her safe and she’d be free.
She could end it all.
Even if that wasn’t the original plan, but she’d acclimate—
Tendrils of her hair caught on his outstretched hands again as his fingertips ripped some of the strands free.
She yelped, her thoughts of freedom and retribution cut short by his relentless grip.
Mikko reeled her back, using her hair like a leash and she was a disobedient mutt, until her back collided with his chest.
His skin was hot against her sweat-soaked sleepwear, his chest heaving from the exertion.
It reminded her of the night in the maze and the one in her house where he’d tied her up: the feel of him both infuriating and intoxicating.
Even now, she couldn’t follow her brain when her heart refused to see this man as disposable.
Their ragged breaths filled the silence with his whispering against the top of her head. A shudder wove through her, her muscles tired and sore even though this was nowhere near finished. Drawing on her cardio and endurance training, Anika squirmed against his arms wrapped tightly around her.
But it didn’t matter, he drank in the fear pouring off her like an elixir.
Before she could brace, Mikko slammed both of their bodies into the nearest wall, preventing her from reaching her safe.
Her teeth rattled in her skull and her body vibrated with the impact.
His weight pushed against her, keeping her immobile to the best of his ability, but she still fought, her head lashing backward in hopes of cracking his nose and her feet kicking and swinging at his shins.
Mikko remained firm, hardly giving her an inch.
Clamping his hand onto her face, Mikko’s blood—along with Levi’s and hers—smeared onto her skin.
He forcefully brought her face inches from his, their breath mingling.
It was only then she realized he’d shed his balaclava completely.
His bare face, the cut on his cheek red and angry even in the dim light, haunted her.
“You can’t escape me, stop fighting it.”
Her brows furrowed, eyes cloaked in shadow as her mind remembered a time when blood had coated her skin; there had been a time when she grasped her mom’s face to—
Stomp!
She stamped her heel down onto his foot. The pain made him loosen his grip and she took the moment to break free again. Drying remnants of blood smudged across her face, her mind oscillating between the past and present as she landed a blow to his stab wound.
“Fuck,” he swore, leaning against the nearest wall momentarily, “that was rude.” Mikko’s growl resonated in his chest as he watched her put distance between them, too stunned to catch her again. She flipped him off before hurriedly rushing to her gun safe.
“That was even more rude,” he added as she input the code into her safe.
It beeped and flashed red.
Fuck, wrong password.
In her haste, she must’ve mistyped.
Copper bloomed along her taste buds and bile rose in the back of her throat as she caught sight of Mikko striding across the bedroom. At first, she would’ve thought he’d come for her, but he made his way to where his gun had been discarded.
Fuck, fuck!
Red flashed again.
Inhale.
Exhale.