CHAPTER 65
Frankie
I laugh out loud.
It’s amazing what a body can do just before it dies. Like laugh.
Because I see it so clearly. In these last moments, as I teeter between life and death, the clarity is funny.
The stupidity of accepting Niko’s offer to buy me a drink. How clueless I must have been to agree to a second date. And dating him exclusively? What the fuck was I thinking?
I just fell into it. I let him buy me shit and take me places, and all the while I was telling myself that it was just some harmless fun.
I don’t even remember the first time I let him get a taste of control over me.
Or the second time. But by the time I woke up and realized he’d been stealing a little more control every day, in pieces so tiny I barely noticed, it was too late.
But that’s nothing compared to the stupidest single decision I’ve ever made in my life.
I ran away from Special K.
In the heat of the moment, I believed he couldn’t possibly protect me and his family at the same time. That the task was beyond any one man’s abilities, and even the combined skills of all five brothers.
I didn’t accept what he offered me. His protection. His care. His love.
If I could be gifted with one extra minute of life, I’d tell Special K how sorry I am. I’d tell him that I love him with everything in me, and that knowing him was the finest experience of my life.
And there it is, in sparkling clarity. The knowledge that I ran away from my shot at a happily-ever-after.
I’m about to be snuffed out. My life will come down to a total waste, to a heap of trash that a Russian mobster is about to dispose of somewhere—the lake, a back-alley dumpster, the side of a remote highway.
Ridiculous.
I laugh, again.
The sound seems to make Niko even angrier, which I didn’t think was possible. Because the dude’s been extremely angry. The bull-snorting-fire kind of angry. And it’s all been directed at me.
I’m lying on my side on the stone floor, still reeling from the last punch.
At first, I assumed my nose was running, but when I reached up to my face, I pulled back a hand smeared with bright red blood. This asshole punches hard, too, no pulling back because I’m a woman.
Not Nikolai Koslov.
I stare at the blood, fascinated, wondering if my nose is broken. Maybe my nose already looks like Special K’s. We’re a matching set! I hope he doesn’t get upset if he finds my body somewhere, and my face is no longer pretty.
He’s told me so many times that I have a beautiful face.
But hey, it won’t matter if I’m no longer drop-dead gorgeous, especially after I’ve dropped dead.
The hallway light streams into this tiny room, providing just enough illumination for me to see Niko’s expression as he hovers over me. He’s most definitely high on bloodlust, giddy with the thrill that he’ll finally get to beat me to death.
But I also see how his pupils are black and the size of bottle caps. His body trembles with pent up energy, and he’s grinding his jaw as he stares down at me. I’m thinking methamphetamines, cocaine, or Adderall. Maybe a combo pack.
He’s a man of extremes, after all.
He changes position. He’s behind me now. And this next blow is to my back. But I barely flinch.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, surprised that my voice still works at this point.
“What did you say, bitch?”
“I said that it doesn’t matter, Niko. None of it will make you a good man or take away from the good person I tried to be. I might have failed, but I sure as hell tried.”
“What the fuck are you saying?”
“You can kill me, but you’ll still be a loser and I’ll still be a winner.”
It’s Niko’s turn to laugh. “I’ve hit you so hard that you’ve got brain damage, you worthless bitch slut.” He starts pacing the room. “You’re on the floor about to die, and I’m standing upright, healthy and happy and in control.”
“You only think you’re in control,” I say. “But you’re a weak and whiny loser, and you always will be. You’re not even a man. I knew a real man once—a true hero—and compared to him, you’re just snail snot under his bootheel. You’re nothing. You’re not fit to lick his feet. You’re…”
My words end with a grunt as Niko uses his foot instead of his fist. He kicks me so hard in the stomach that all the air is forced from my lungs, and it takes a long moment before I can breathe again.
I stare at up him. Even in whatever blurry vision I have left, I can see that he’s worn out too. He leans back against a wall and sneers at me while I struggle to stand. I manage to do it, too, because if I’m going to die, I don’t want to do it in the fetal position.
I want to stand nose-to-nose with my murderer, defiant to the end.
I like to think that if he could see me, Special K would be proud of how I fought to the end. That I didn’t let Niko break me.
If Special K ever learns what happened to me, I hope he knows that I went down swingin.’