Nikolai was right.
“Your dumbass brother was supposed to be here, but he’s probably balls deep in whatever pussy he can find,” she shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “You and Nikolai were supposed to die, your dad was supposed to watch before I got to have my fun with him.”
Her bright smile reaches her eyes. Her beauty is undeniable, even with the lies and deceit surrounding us.
“Since Nikolai couldn’t join us, I guess it’s just the three of us.”
She makes the mistake of taking her eyes off me, looking over at my father. Using both arms, I sweep her legs out from underneath her, sending her onto her back. She lets out a yelp as she hits the hard wood floor. Ignoring the throbbing pain in my leg, I use all my strength to lurch myself at her. She struggles to get up just as I land on her, straddling her waist. Her hand still clutches her gun and she fumbles to raise it at me. Using the palm of my hand, I smack it from her grip and tighten my grasps around her wrists.
“You were wrong to think you could double cross me,” I growl at her, slamming her arms above her head. Leaning down, I bring my mouth just barely above hers. “From the moment I saw you, I knew I’d either have to fuck you or kill you.” My lips lightly brush hers as I whisper against them. “Looks like I’ll get to do both.”
Taking me off guard, she lifts her head up slightly, pressing her lips against mine, kissing me with an urgency and coaxing my lips open with her tongue. My mind loses sight of the position I’m in, the position she has put me in. I’m wrapped up in a web of her lies, drinking her poison straight from her toxic lips.
And then she flips the script.
Drawing my lip in between her teeth, she bites down hard and draws blood as they pierce through my skin. Pleasure and pain collide, swirling together as it spreads through my body. I groan into her mouth, expecting her to let go, but she doesn’t. She bites down harder, trapping me.
“What the fuck?” I mumble against her mouth as she continues to draw blood. Trying to jerk away, I raise my body from hers and she simultaneously lifts up her knee up, driving it into my balls.
“Fuck!” I yell out as she wiggles one of her hands free and grabs ahold of my thigh. Her small hand skates across my pants until she finds the bullet wound and shoves her finger deep into it. My vision blurs for a few moments as I see stars, letting all inhibitions fly out the window and I let go of her other hand. She released her grip on my lip at some point and I fall to the floor beside her as she twists her finger in my bloody wound.
Sliding her finger out, she jumps on top of me, throwing her legs on either side and leans up past my head. Sitting back down on me, pistol in hand, she positions it directly between my eyes, pressing into my skin.
“What is it you were saying about double crossing you?”
Chapter Sixteen
Lyra
Pressing down harder, the barrel of the gun cuts into the skin on Aleksei’s forehead. My finger is on the trigger, about to fire when the door flies open, slamming into the wall. Aleksei doesn’t move an inch, but his eyes are diverted over toward the intruder. Keeping the gun to his head, I quickly turn toward the rush of cold air coming from open the door.
Nikolai stands just inside, his shoulders and chest heaving with every breath he takes as pure rage rolls off of him, slowly consuming the room.
“Get the fuck off him,” he growls, staring me down as he strides across the room.
My lips curl upwards into a smile and he stops. “Come on, Nik. You know how all of this has to end or else you wouldn’t be here,” I give him a small shrug.
He narrows his eyes at me as he clenches his jaw. “You weren’t as slick as you thought you were.”
“Or was I?” I push back, cocking my head to the side. “I do have all three of you here right now, so who’s to say that wasn’t my plan all along?”
“Lyra,” Nikolai grumbles. “This is done. Get your revenge, kill our father and go.”
Shaking my head, I purse my lips at him. “That isn’t what I came here for, your brother knows about it all. I told him everything, but I have an even better plan,” I smile, winking at him. “Let me finish these two off, and we can get out of here, just the two of us.”
I need to buy myself some time, to get this taken care of without him interfering and I can worry about him afterwards. I know Nikolai well enough to know how much he thinks with his dick instead of his mind or that shriveled up, barely beating heart in his chest.
A wave of doubt passes through me as I keep my eyes glued to his. That frigid, lifeless heart could be a problem, the downfall of my plan. It’s dark and essentially non-existent, but it’s still there and sometimes blood is thicker than water.
I need to act fast, kill them all.
“Sorry, doll, but that won’t be happening,” he murmurs as a dark shadow passes over his face and a sinister grin slowly forms.
It all happens so quickly, within a matter of seconds, before my mind can even process what’s about to happen. Nik’s fast—his movements are fluid and calculated as he swiftly reaches into the back of his pants and rips his arm back out.
My eyes follow a silver flash of metal and come face to face with the end of his pistol, staring straight into the barrel.
“See you in Hell, cunt,” he sneers and pulls the trigger without another word.
Chapter Seventeen
Aleksei
The soft sound of Nik’s gun echoes through the room as he pulls the trigger, planting a bullet in the center of Lyra’s forehead. Silently, she starts to fall forward onto me, but I shove her backwards, quickly scooting away and sitting up as she lands on her back with a thud.
Sitting on the floor, I stare in disbelief at her still warm corpse and my brother on the opposite end of the barrel. This is the way it had to end, I know that deep down, but the shock factor of everything is real.
“You good?” Nikolai asks, nodding at me.
Looking down at my thigh, my eyes find the bullet hole through the tear in my bloodstained pants. Clenching my thigh muscle, I can feel the bullet situated inside. “I gotta get this shit out,” I tell Nikolai, ignoring his question.
“We’ll get it,” he assures me, “but first, what are we going to do with him?” I follow his gaze over to our father, still sitting on the chair awkwardly hunched over. It takes a moment for my mind to process everything and to remember that Lyra shot him in the stomach.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Roughly running my hand through my hair, I hold the top of my head and close my eyes for a moment. Caught up in how quickly everything went down, I had forgotten this was even about my father or the fact that he was sitting in this very room, still alive.
I look up at Nikolai who is watching me, his expression grim as he waits for me to respond. Shaking off the unwanted feelings of betrayal and shock, I clear my throat. “Is he still alive?”
Nikolai glances over at our father before looking back at me, giving me a swift nod, rolling his eyes.
“I’ll take care of it,” he stops me as I start to move to get up. Resting my back against the wall, I watch as Nikolai walks over to our father sitting in the chair. Reaching down, he taps the top of his head with the silencer attached to the barrel of his gun.
“Rise and shine, daddy,” Nikolai mocks as our father looks up at him. “Damn, you don’t look so good.”
My father looks over at me and directs his eyes back at Nikolai before opening his mouth to speak. Nik’s forefinger twitches, lightly pulling the trigger and plants a bullet right between his eyes.
“Sweet dreams, daddy,” he smiles as our father bends forward with his head hanging down between his knees. Blood surfaces from the hole in his head and droplets begin to hit the wooden floor in a slow and steady pattern.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Nikolai stares down at me with a frown as I watch the crimson liquid collect on the floor beneath our father’s head.
Drip.
&
nbsp; “Aleksei,” he demands my attention.
Drip.
“Aleksei,” Nikolai says louder.
Drip.
“Aleksei!” He barks, gaining my attention as he stands rigidly, staring at me with hardened eyes and his arms crossed over his chest. “I need to get a first aid kit and shit, so stay put.”
Closing my eyes, I rest the back of my head against the wall and listen to him rushing around the house, rummaging through different cabinets until he finds what he’s looking for. The faucet turns on for a moment before his footsteps grow closer, echoing throughout the silent room.
“Aleksei,” he shakes my shoulder lightly as he crouches down beside me. Opening my eyes, I look down at all of the supplies he found for a makeshift bandage and am mildly impressed with everything he was able to collect.
Sitting down on the floor next to me, he tears my pant leg where the bullet hit me and opens a bottle of vodka, quickly splashing my wound with it. I inhale sharply, wincing as my flesh burns from the clear liquid. Looking down, I watch as Nikolai grabs a pair of tweezers and positions them over the open hole and glances up at me. His eyes meet mine and I give him a curt nod, giving him the ‘okay’ to begin.
My jaw clenches and my eyes pinch shut as a flash of white-hot piercing pain erupts from my leg, hitting every nerve ending in sight as Nikolai digs into my flesh and muscle fishing for the bullet. He moves quickly and diligently with the precision and skill of a talented surgeon. Wiggling the tweezers back and forth, the bullet pops free from my muscle and instant relief from the decreased pressure overrides the pain.
Nikolai pulls out the tweezers and bullet, dropping them to the ground and splashes the vodka back across my leg. Air escapes my lips in a hiss as the stinging, throbbing pain hits me.
“You know who she was, right?” Nikolai looks at me as he preps the bandage.
I nod. “She explained everything; why she was here, who she was. You were right,” I admit.
Taking the homemade bandage, he places it over the open hole with extra gauze from the first aid kit. “I didn’t want to be right, but she was throwing out red flags left and right. I just found out everything about her right before I came here,” he confesses. “I came to tell you before she got to you, and well…” His voice trails off.
Nothing else needs to be said.
The two of us know the truth and the dead bodies say the rest.
Nikolai helps me up after securing the bandage and makes sure I’m steady on my feet before releasing me. “I just need to make a phone call and then we’ll get out of here and get that shit properly taken care of, okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” I mumble as I test my leg, easing my weight onto that foot. A sharp pain shoots through my thigh in protest, but I start to walk, ignoring the throbbing pain. Nikolai watches me for a moment before walking over to our father as I slowly circle Lyra.
How could someone like myself be such a fool?
I always keep my guard up, yet this woman lying by my feet in a pool of her own blood somehow got through. She penetrated the thick walls that grew around my heart and made herself at home. But my heart was never her home, it was a place for her to hide, to plot and plan the demise of my family. She decorated her hideout with lies and deceit and I believed all of the bullshit she spewed.
For once, I had felt something for someone.
For once, I had imagined a future that wasn’t confined to solidarity.
She did me fucking dirty.
And I fell right into her trap.
Looking down at her, there’s something beautiful, majestic even, about how good death looks on her. Her face remains flawless, like a sculpture handcrafted by a meticulous artist with her ink colored silk hair splayed around her head. Small streaks of blood run across her skin from the open hole in the center of her forehead with a bullet lodged deep within her brain.
Death was always sitting at the head of the table, waiting to sit down for dinner with each and every one of us. I was supposed to make her dinner reservation for her, but Lyra decided her own fate and made that call the moment she chose to cross us.
I understood her need for revenge and what she needed to do to accomplish that; the lies, the manipulation, I understood it all. She did everything right and everything that I would have done.
What I don’t understand is me and how someone like myself could fuck up like this. She could have destroyed everything that we had built with Arnold and I might have been the one to let her.
Lyra fucked with my head.
She fucked me up.
And no one fucks me up.
My mind vaguely registers Nikolai as he paces the room, talking on the phone to the cleaning crew. Walking to the door, I don’t look back at him and slip out before he notices. He can handle this and get this mess taken care of. Pulling out my phone, I look around, expecting to be on a busy street and remember I’m in the middle of fucking nowhere. Shoving my phone back into my pocket, I stride over to my car and get the hell away from this place as quickly as possible.
Speeding down the backroads, I don’t stop driving until I reach the city. Pulling the car over onto the side of the street, I slam it in park and get out, leaving the keys inside since I won’t be needing the car anymore. I walk down the busy sidewalk, holding my hand out until I’m finally able to hail a cab.
“Good evening, Sir. Where will you be headed to tonight?” The driver asks as I slide into the back seat.
Adjusting myself in the seat, I grab my phone and unlock it. “The airport,” I reply gruffly to the man.
“Very well,” he concurs, pulling back onto the New York street.
Scrolling through my contacts, I find his code name and press call. It only rings twice before he quickly answers.
“Aleksei,” his deep voice comes through the speaker. “Everything has been taken care of, I presume?”
“Yes,” I admit, not going into details. “Nikolai was handling the rest.”
He clears his throat quietly. “I’m aware,” he pauses. “I was also informed that the girl is no longer a problem.”
“Did you know?” I ask him in a hushed voice.
“Of course not,” he barks. “Do you think I would bring someone in that could jeopardize everything? I knew of her ties to the family, but I was not aware that she was his daughter and that she had other intentions.”
He was the one who brought her in in the first place.
How can I even believe a word he says anymore?
“What is this really about Aleksei?” Arnold demands. “We discuss these situations at our meetings.”
Taking a deep breath, I slowly exhale, collecting myself. “I’ll be needing to take some time off.”
Arnold sighs. “Take as much time as you need. I don’t need any explanation, but I do need you to know that you will be coming back.”
Like a goddamn puppet, I’m always under his control.
“It won’t be long,” I assure him. “I just need some time to clear my head.”
“Like I said, take your time. You’re not of value to me if you’re not on top of things,” Arnold reminds me. “We’ll be in touch.”
He ends the call before I get a chance to but grants me the solidarity that I crave and need right now. Before I realize it, we’re only a few blocks away from the airport and I have nothing planned. Searching on my phone, I find a flight to St. John in the Caribbean where I own a beachfront condo and book it. It’s not an ideal place for absolute seclusion. Nikolai is the only one who knows of the property, but knowing his nosy ass, he’ll come looking for me.
The cab pulls up in front of the airport and I shove him a hundred-dollar bill and exit without another word. Glancing down at my watch, I make a mental note of the short amount of time I have to make my flight. Without any luggage, I should make it in time.
Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I open it and stare blankly at the screen. Nikolai should know that I’ll be back. I should give him a heads up this time.
But this isn’t about him.
This is about me.
This is about her.
Locking the screen on my phone, I chuck it into the trash can by the front entrance and make my way into the airport without so much as a second glance back at everything I’m leaving behind. All that matters now is putting as much distance between myself and this place as possible.
My brother was always right and after Lyra, it was clear. I’m not like everyone else. Happiness with someone else will never be mine. For the rest of my days, the only happiness I’ll ever know is the blood on my hands.
About C.M. Radcliff
C.M. Radcliff lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two demon children. Known as the Psycho Queen, she speaks fluent sarcasm, dark humor, and has the mouth of a sailor. If she isn't reading or writing, she's probably on an adventure with her little family.
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Sin Keeper
Michelle Brown
Blurb
The first day at a new school should have been the worst thing to happen to me.
It wasn’t.
There I met them both.
One shouldn’t have piqued my interest and the other was perfect. One thing lead to another and now we all have our secrets.
The thing about secrets is, like sins they never stay hidden.
My secrets, those could destroy everything.
Chapter One
Jasmine
Secrets are a powerful thing. The ability to destroy someone lies in just a few whispered words. My secret has the power to ruin his world, mine, and theirs, all in one swift motion. So tell me, can I trust you won't tell anyone? Probably not, but I'm going to tell you anyway. To do that, I have to start at the beginning.
Forbidden: A Romance Anthology Page 21