“How’s Mila?”
My eyes narrowed at the concern in Albert’s voice. “Alexei’s daughter is fine.”
Kirill was confident she didn’t ingest enough poison to be in a critical condition.
Thank fuck I called the girl a whore. Otherwise, she might not have destroyed the rest of the poison in her teacup, and I would have lost my collateral. But the thought of my revenge slipping through my fingers didn’t explain the tight sensation inside each time Mila’s look of betrayal flitted through my mind.
“You know she doesn’t belong here,” Albert said.
Darkness spilled through me. “You got a new mind-reading ability you haven’t told me about?”
“If Alexei hasn’t relented yet, he’s not going to.”
I held his gaze. I hadn’t told anyone but Kristian her papa was ready to trade himself in. The knowledge of that getting out would make me look weak, as if Mila had actually dug her Mikhailov claws into me. She hadn’t. I just wasn’t finished with her yet, and I knew if I let her go now, I would end up dragging her back to finish what we started. That felt too close to monogamy for me to stomach. Not to mention, it would probably be a much more difficult task to get her into my bed with her father’s head as a centerpiece on my table.
“We could have followed Alexander,” he told me.
“We didn’t need to follow him.”
He raised an annoying brow.
“Alexei will come to heel soon enough,” I said shortly, finished with the conversation.
“It would probably move things along if you sent him a finger or two.” He was baiting me. I wasn’t going to cut off Mila’s fingers, and Albert knew it.
“Go make yourself useful somewhere,” I said, eyes hard. “Like finding the fucking rat in my home.”
I swore, the bastard fucking smiled as he stood.
He hadn’t even stepped out of the room before we found the traitor. In fact, she threw herself at my feet and confessed in a flurry of Russian and tears. The little mouse was actually a rat. Viktor stood in the doorway. At least one of my men was making themselves useful.
I lowered my gaze to the trembling girl dripping tears to the floor. “I want names,” I said quietly. “The names of who helped you. The names of anyone who even heard a whisper of the conversation.”
“I—it was just me,” she cried.
“Look at me,” I demanded, and, rigidly, she lifted her gaze to mine. “You’re going to tell me the truth sooner or later. And the longer it takes, the more time my men will have to make good use of you.”
I really didn’t want to torture this slip of a girl, but I didn’t get to my position by being forgiving.
Anna swallowed, fighting an inward battle, and then she gave me three names. She didn’t say them with sadness or loyalty, but fear. The girl was afraid of her own shadow, so it didn’t mean much to me.
I nodded at Viktor. He grabbed the girl’s arm and dragged her from the room. Two of the men she’d named were here, the other—Abram, her papa—in Moscow.
Another annoying family affair.
Pasha wasn’t the only casualty instigated by Alexei’s hands. Abram’s uncle was killed last year in a hit-and-run. He was old enough he’d have probably died of heart failure if he got the chance.
“Find Abram,” I told Albert, who still stood by the door. “Put his son and nephew in the basement until then.”
Three hours passed, the sun high in the sky, before the four were lined up in the snow. The girl stood on the end, gaze to the ground, shaking in the basic white dress she wore every day.
“As I already told Albert, I didn’t have anything to do with it.” A drop of sweat ran down Abram’s face and glistened in the sun.
I raised a brow. “You don’t even know what you’ve been accused of, so how do you know you didn’t do it?”
“Because,” he sputtered, “I’ve been loyal to you from day one.”
“You want to know what I hate more than traitors?” I stepped closer to him, a gun lax in my hand. “Liars.”
“I’ve never lied to you.” His gaze flicked to the right exactly like a liar’s would. “Catch me in a lie, and I swear, I’ll let you shoot me in the head right here!”
“Hmm,” I drawled. “We’ll get to that.”
My eyes slid to the other two men, the son and nephew. One of them was just released from prison for raping a housewife. If I did background checks before recruiting, I wouldn’t have a single employee to my name, including myself. The men both flicked subtle glances at Abram, clearly the lackeys in his master plan.
“So you didn’t have anything to do with poisoning the Mikhailov collateral in my home?”
“What!” Abram had the audacity to act shocked. “Of course not!”
A dark chuckle escaped me. “Your acting skills could use some work.”
“I don’t know how I got wrapped up in the middle of this, but if it was the whore beside me who gave you our names, you should know, she’s just trying to take us down with her.”
“You mean, your daughter,” I corrected, gaze flicking to the girl who held her arm to her stomach like it needed support.
“She isn’t my daughter,” he spat. “Especially after this.”
I ignored the words. “Do you beat your daughter often?”
Something in my eyes made him lie again. “Nyet. She’s just a slut who likes it rough.”
I let the ridiculousness of his statement fill the air for a moment. My boots crunched in the snow as I walked toward the girl and stopped in front of her.
“Are you? A slut who likes it rough?”
She didn’t lift her eyes as she shook her head. Her papa’s face reddened, and then he kicked her leg, spitting an enraged accusation at her. With a whimper, she dropped to the ground. A hot rush of irritation expanded inside me. I kicked Abram’s knee so hard a crack sounded, and as he fell, my boot slammed into his face, planting him on his back in the snow. He groaned, blood spurting from his nose.
“If you do that to your daughter in front of me,” I growled, “I’d hate to see what you do to her behind closed doors.”
“I don’t do nothing to the girl!”
He’d just admitted his guilt with the double negative. I was growing a little more furious each second I continued to employ this man.
I lowered to my haunches in front of the girl who sat on her knees in the snow. “Who gave you the poison?”
Tears running down her cheeks, she flicked a frightful gaze to her papa for direction. She was terrified of him even now, with death on the horizon. Abram watched her with cruel eyes and a hand on his bleeding face.
“I—I did it alone,” she stammered.
“See! I told you.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Albert growled.
After putting my gun in my waistband, I ripped the girl’s dress open. Buttons fell to the snow. She sobbed, probably with the belief she’d be gang-raped to death. Her lack of bra wasn’t the most obvious sight. An assortment of old and fresh bruises covered her torso. One of her ribs looked inflamed, most likely broken, and bite marks marred her small breasts, some deep enough to be open wounds.
She might have been involved with the poisoning, but, clearly, she didn’t have much of a choice. Having been the underdog many, many years ago at my own mother’s hands, one could say I had a soft spot for the situation.
“Go,” I told her.
Her eyes lifted to mine, confusion within. After a second of staring at me, she stood, pulled her dress closed, and ran to the house.
“What the fuck?” Abram snarled. “She did this!”
I rose to my full height.
“She’s a whore! A lying whore!”
I aimed my gun at Abram’s head.
“Wait—” He didn’t get to finish whatever lie he was about to spew.
One after another, three pops cut through the air like a knife.
clinomania
(n.) an excessive desire to stay in bed
I thought Yulia was a bad maid, but that was before I had her as a nurse. She plumped the pillow beneath my head like she was beating a lump of dough and pulled a piece of my hair in the mix.
With a resentful glance, I shied away from her. “Thank you, but my pillow is fine.”
She raised a brow before sliding a mischievous look away to mess with the tray of food at my bedside.
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
She ignored me and made a show of adding sugar to my tea. As if I’d ever drink tea again.
I’d stayed in bed for two days, and with each second that passed, I grew sicker of it. The only thing that kept me here was the knowledge someone in this house hated me so much they’d poisoned me. And then, my thoughts chanted I was an awful person for what happened to Adrik and that I deserved it.
My mind was a terrible place.
Yesterday, Kirill deemed me as good as new. Ronan, however, hadn’t shown his face since he carried me to my room and stripped me naked. I didn’t know what I expected. Certainly not an apology for what happened. But a simple, “Glad to see you’re not dead,” would be nice. He hadn’t even sent me a misogynistic note threatening me to eat.
Once again, it seemed I wasn’t a part of his thoughts, while he kept popping into my mind like a game of Whac-A-Mole—especially after he looked me in the eye and told me his mother drove him into a river when he was eight. I said I wouldn’t sympathize with him, but it was hard when he threw his tragic past in my face. I prayed Ronan wouldn’t talk about being an orphan living on the streets. Otherwise, I may as well just tie my hair back in preparation for signing over my soul.
When Yulia lifted a spoonful of soup to my mouth, I turned my head away in exasperation. She’d taken this nursing routine above and beyond just to irritate me. I wasn’t a paraplegic. In fact, the only thing I would die from at this moment was her attention.
The spoon tipped slightly—Yulia might be an old maid, but her hands never shook—and a drip of hot soup spilled onto my T-shirt. I grumbled, “Seriousl—?” The word was cut short by her shoving the spoon into my mouth.
I spit it out with venom. Nonchalantly, she pulled the spoon away to fill it again. I threw the comforter back and jumped out of bed, shooting her a scowl.
“You must eat, devushka.”
“I told you, I’m not hungry. And I’m not staying in that ridiculously comfortable bed anymore. Point me in the direction of the dungeon. I’ll room there for the rest of my stay.” I was The Princess and the Pea. Except the pea was the twisted dejection I was almost killed and then promptly forgotten by a man who fingered me on a secret camera and sent the video to my papa. Gen-Zs wouldn’t know romance if it hit them with a bus.
“You act like someone has forced you to pout for two days.”
I was not pouting. “Would you go traipsing about a house occupied by someone who wants to kill you?”
“I excel at many things, but God did not create me to be nurse.”
“No kidding.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I do not wish to nurse you while you sulk, so I tell you, the men who tried to kill you are dead.”
I swallowed. “Dead?”
“Mertvy.” Dead. Picking up the bowl of soup, she said, “I had to wash their brains off the drive.” Then she sipped her spoonful like a lady.
Blood growing cold, I managed to say, “Lovely.”
She shrugged. “It is job.”
I rubbed my arm to quell the goose bumps that rose, as well as another disturbing sensation: a lightness, a deranged contentment Ronan had killed those men.
Like everything else, feelings were backward in this place. It would be my normal to fight them, to force them to be something they weren’t, but a part of me didn’t have the energy. Another part of me, the one I forced into tight clothes and the desire for acceptance, didn’t want to be normal anymore.
Touching the heart-shaped stone in my ear, the other in D’yavol’s possession, I finally understood Gianna’s words.
In this world, things weren’t black and white.
I preferred yellow anyway.
Tuning Yulia out as she stomped at some poor creature scurrying across the floor, I absently walked into the doorless bathroom. I took a shower, and I didn’t feel anything but curiosity. A tone-deaf curiosity that bloomed with the memory of rainbow-colored vomit, unrealized Russian words, and men lying dead in the snow.
The house after dark held a certain charm, like the haunting creak of a door in the night, a sudden breath of air extinguishing a candle’s flame, and the sensation of being watched through the cracks in the walls. I was grossly exaggerating the situation—regarding the first two at least—though knowing a devil lurked around any corner amplified every little sound, and it didn’t help I stood in his bedroom.
It was undeniably his. His smell was everywhere, and the sheets were black. I shouldn’t be in here, but its secrets drew me in from the hall after I wandered the mansion for an hour.
Even though it was the worst idea I’d ever had, just like Moscow, I wanted to delve into the dark alleys of Ronan’s mind. And finding something to help me escape wouldn’t hurt. A phone, the internet, a Ouija board—anything to contact the outside world.
Going through his nightstand drawers, I examined their contents and dropped a pack of condoms like a hot potato. I was surprised Ronan wrapped it up, expecting him to want to spawn his demons into the world every time he conned a woman into his bed. Although, that would be true of the man I thought he was, and not so much the man I was getting to know one breakfast at a time.
Aside from the unsettling prophylactics, all I found were a couple of cigars, his tidy scrawl in Russian on some papers I was annoyed I couldn’t read, and other junk that would serve me no purpose.
After stealing one of his razors from the bathroom fit for a king, I opened his closet door and moved inside. It was meticulously organized: expensive boots in a line, rows upon rows of luxury black suits, and shelves of sparkling cufflinks and watches.
A safe sat in the corner. I wiggled the locked handle. The keypad required a numerical code for access, so I typed, “6-6-6.” The light blinked red, and the metal box let out an angry beep.
“What are you doing, kotyonok?”
I jumped back, a shiver scattering through me. Slowly, I turned to see Ronan leaning against the doorframe. The sight of him made my heart do an awkward palpitation as curiosity expanded once again.
My fingers tightened around his razor. “Looking for your staircase to hell.”
He chuckled softly. “You’re not going to find it in here. I keep it in the basement.”
Something synonymous with amusement started in my stomach, but I tamped it down. I may have decided to let twisted feelings run their course but laughing with my kidnapper in his closet would just be crazy.
Ronan’s eyes slid to the razor in my hand before he moved into the closet too, and even though it was the size of a child’s bedroom, the space could now rival a cardboard box.
I took a step back and watched him warily as he removed his suit jacket. My throat felt tight when he pulled a handgun from his person and set it on a shelf. The pistol simply sat there, a few feet away.
If I had the chance to reach for it, would I? If I didn’t, was I a product of my own enslavement? Of my papa’s death?
On edge and entranced by that murderous piece of metal, I almost jumped when he spoke, his tone dryly amused. “You’re not thinking about shooting me, are you?”
Eyes sliding to his, I grasped onto the first response that popped into my mind. “Depends. Would you die, or does it take a stake through the heart? I don’t want to waste my time.”
“A bullet hasn’t killed me yet, but there’s always a first time for everything.”
It wasn’t a surprise Ronan didn’t fear dying. Even in death, he’d probably sit on a throne made of skulls and lord over all the other sinners. Though, the idea of this man, so alive and virile, ceasing to exist seeme
d to be impossible and . . . strange.
“Would you cry for me, kotyonok?” His dark gaze consumed me as he unbuttoned his shirt cuffs, and, somehow, the memory of his thumb wiping away my tears was so tangible, I felt the caress on my cheek like he’d touched me.
The walls closed in with each second of uncertain silence, tighter and tighter, until I decided to escape his presence. Only, when I moved by him, he grabbed my wrist.
“I didn’t say you could go.” The low words stroked the side of my neck, and an ember of heat stirred to life in my belly.
I tugged against his grip, so, of course, he pulled me closer. My bare feet touched his boots, breasts pressed against his hard chest. Heat washed through my body, vibrating wherever it met his, and I turned my head to avoid as much contact as possible. He could probably feel my racing heartbeat; the thrum that battled morality and temptation.
“I was just poisoned,” I said, my throat thick. “Maybe you can manhandle me later.”
I felt his smile. “Yulia says you’ve been doing paganistic rituals in your room.”
It was called yoga, but he knew that.
“She lies,” I managed to say, though as the knowledge he’d been keeping up on me sank in, complacency relaxed any resistance inside.
My body grew lax against his, and he took advantage of it, edging me backward until the backs of my thighs pressed against his dresser. I was trapped between two immovable objects, one devastating me with so much male heat my thoughts slowed and stalled. Now I was just a girl with a razor in hand, and he was just a man I once had feelings for.
I gripped the edge of the dresser with my free hand to steady myself. He released my wrist, and my breath grew erratic as his fingers skimmed down the outsides of my thighs until they reached the hem of my dress. The motion was slow, so charged I wasn’t sure I could speak or if I would even be heard over the electricity in the air. The mere expectation of his touch struck a match in every nerve ending.
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