16
Lucia
Damien guides me back to my new prison. Throughout the way, he stays quiet and looks ahead while I stare intently at his badly disfigured face, trying to find a glimpse of the boy I once knew.
Opening the door to my room, he gently shoves me forward.
“Wait! Don’t go just yet,” I say as he turns away. Throwing myself at him, I cling to his arm.
He stares down at me coldly. “What do you want?”
“Did we know each other seven years ago?” I ask as my desperation spikes. “Are you the same Damien who was my friend?”
Something flickers behind those ice-blue eyes. “That Damien’s dead.”
I refuse to believe him. “You and your brothers were my childhood friends, weren’t you? Is that how you know me and Callum? My brother hurt you guys all those years ago and that’s the reason you want to hurt me to punish him.”
Stepping toward me, he leans forward.
Out of instinct, I squeeze my eyes shut. Immediately, I regret my reaction to him.
Callum is the one who destroyed his perfectly handsome face. My brother is the reason he looks like a disfigured freak now. I’m the last person to act scared and disgusted at the sight of him.
“I’m sor—” Before I can apologize, he’s already turned away from me. The door slams shut behind him.
My lips quiver as my heart aches.
I can only imagine the terror and pain Damien must’ve gone through when Callum cut up his face like that. He must’ve shed so much blood. His beautiful smile is still etched in my memories.
Damien will never look in a mirror and see himself smiling again , I realize, my heart squeezing painfully. Callum robbed him of that too.
“All because of me,” I moan bitterly as tears run down my cheeks.
I think of Leon and the scar cutting across his left eye. That’s got to be Callum’s doing as well.
For the first time, I understand the reason behind their hatred for me. They think I supported Callum’s decision to hurt them and kill them.
I punch the mattress in my frustration. The truth is far from what they’re imagining. I never forgave my brother for taking them away from me.
Seven years have passed by and I still miss them every single day.
I punch the mattress over and over again, finding no means to escape the bitter emotions rising inside me.
“What did that bed do to you?” An unfamiliar female voice sounds from behind me.
Turning around, I see Lilja, Damien’s sister, standing at the threshold and leaning against the doorframe.
Quickly brushing my tears away, I straighten up.
She saunters across the room toward me. Coming to sit beside me on the edge of the bed, she hooks a finger under my chin and lifts my face to her.
“I can see why they’re going through such troubles for you,” she says in a soft voice while her dark brown eyes study me intently. Shifting closer, she moves a lock of my hair away. “Are you into women?”
“Huh?”
Leaning in, she presses her lips to mine.
I gasp from the surprise.
She sweeps her tongue along my lips before deepening the kiss.
I freeze, wondering what the hell was happening. Why the hell is she kissing me? The sharp scent of peppermint wafts into my nostrils. It’s too potent and strong to belong to either an omega or a beta.
Lilja is an alpha too , I realize with a start.
“How did that feel?” she asks, breaking away from me.
“Strange,” I whisper, meeting her gaze.
She chuckles and lets go of me, allowing me to shift away.
“Thank you for what you did back there,” I say, tasting cherry gloss on my lips. “My brother is not a nice man. I’m sorry he tried to hurt you.”
Surprise flickers through her eyes. “Really? Aren’t you sorry we stopped him from taking you away?”
“I do want to get out of here but not with my brother,” I say honestly. “My relationship with Callum isn’t...” I try to find a word that can describe it. “He doesn’t care for me. It’s just a sick kind of obsession.”
“What do you mean?”
I think of the way she’s with her brothers. They’re protective of her and adore her, but they don’t cripple her. Unlike me, Lilja was taught to fight and allowed to be strong from the time she was a child.
There’s no way she’ll understand my relationship with Callum.
“Your brother’s a crazy bastard,” she says bitterly. “My brothers were a broken mess when he was done with them. It took months for them to recover from their injuries. They weren’t the same when they returned home.”
“This was their home?” I ask, my curiosity rising.
Lilja is as lethal as her brothers but she’s not being threatening or forceful. Even her kiss was soft and gentle. Maybe she’ll give me the answers I seek and fill the gaps in my understanding.
“This has always been their home,” she says.
“I thought they were homeless,” I say in a confused tone. “They lived with my family for over three years.”
She chuckles and nods. “You don’t know a thing about them, do you?”
“They used to be homeless,” I say. “My dad let them work for us and live in our home. He tried to send them to school too but they refused.”
A loud guffaw escapes her, her brown eyes glittering with mirth. “He tried to tame a Volkov.”
“Volkov?”
She lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Right. I forgot you know nothing about us. Well, we’re the Volkovs. Our family descended from a guild of Russian assassins that used to work for the czar a long, long time ago.”
I blink, taking in the information she casually gave out.
“One of our ancestors moved to this part of the world and continued the family tradition,” says Lilja. “The boys are trained from a very young age. They’re taught to kill from instinct alone. When they turn fifteen, they’re thrown out into the world without any family support. They must live and survive on the streets using the skills they acquired. That’s the rule. It makes sure the weak are weeded out and only the strong allowed to become part of the Volkov pack.”
Lilja’s words explain the ancient manor and all the paintings and historical artifacts dotting the place. I stay silent for a while as the truth about Damien, Leon, and Mikhail’s origins slowly sinks into me.
Damien, Leon, and Mikhail aren’t dead. They’re alive and far stronger than I could’ve ever imagined. They’re assassins , my mind repeats.
“Your family tradition is extreme,” I whisper.
“Yep. They have to be,” Lilja says with a nod. “Look what happened to my brothers. They got too lax when they started living with your family and paid the price for it. How else could a weasel like your brother hurt them?”
“Damien was already a killer when I met him?”
“Yep. He made his first kill at the age of thirteen.”
Shock flickers through me. “Damien and his brothers used to be so nice to me,” I say, reminiscing those sweet, warm days. “I could never imagine them to be assassins and killers.”
“They hid it from you,” she says with a shrug. “They didn’t want to scare you.”
“Why not?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes. “They were living a safe and warm life in your house. Why would they mess with you and risk being thrown back to the streets?”
“I thought they liked me,” I say, dipping my head. Have I been stupid all along? Did they treat me nicely just for a place in my home?
“They did,” Lilja says with a nod. “They let it become their weakness. They trusted you to protect them from your brother. You betrayed them that night.”
“I didn’t!” I cry out. “My dad got into a horrible accident that night too. Callum used my distraction to hurt them. I spent the next few years trying to find them but I had no luck.”
Lilja becomes silent as I tell her my side of the story.
“Callum stopped me from going outside after that,” I say. “His guards followed me wherever I went. They reported my location to him at all times. I couldn’t meet my friends without him knowing. He threatened my closest friends to break all ties with me. Over time, I lost contact with everyone I knew at school. He turned me into a prisoner in our home.”
“You could’ve protested.”
“I tried. Trust me, I tried,” I say as bitterness washes over me. “He always held my dad or one of the staff members hostage to make me obey him. He’d hurt them to punish me. I can’t stand anyone getting hurt because of me. He even threatened to kill Dad if I left home.”
“What’s wrong with him? How can he hurt his own father?”
“Callum is obsessed with keeping me chained to him. He tries to pass it off as being protective of me but Callum simply wants to own me.”
A thoughtful expression comes over her as she curls a lock of pink hair around her finger. “Your brother is an asshole, then.”
A dry chuckle escapes me. “That’s an understatement.”
“And now, you’re a prisoner here.”
“I need to get out of here,” I say desperately. “Callum will hurt Dad to punish me. I need to get him out of that house soon.”
“How will you manage that on your own?”
“I don’t know what to do yet,” I confess. “I can figure it out later. For now, I need to find a way to escape this place. Can you help me?”
She gestures toward the doorway. “I can leave that door open. The rest is up to you.”
“Really?” A hopeful grin spreads over my lips. “You’ll do that for me?”
She nods.
“Thank you! I think I can slip out through the entrance hall. The way was confusing but I think I can figure it out.”
“My brothers won’t spare you if you get caught, though,” she says in a grim tone. “Are you ready to risk it?”
“They’ve already hurt me enough,” I say through a choked throat. “They can’t do anything worse to me.”
“They could kill you.”
Her casual tone raises the sparse hair on my arm.
“I need to try,” I say, despite being aware of the risk. “My dad’s not safe with Callum. There’s no one to protect him. I won’t be able to forgive myself if something happened to him.”
The easy expression on her pretty face vanishes. “You’re going to regret it. My brothers won’t forgive you for your betrayal.”
At this point, my entire life seems like a series of regrets. My brother is a predator and the boys I loved so much have turned into monsters.
Apart from my life, there’s nothing else left for me to lose.
When I look up, Lilja has already walked out of the room. The door stays open just as she promised me.
I don’t want to be a captive anymore. This is my last chance to take control of my life and I’m going to take it despite the risks.
Getting up from the bed, I step through the door.