My mind jumps from the past to the present when the dark-haired stranger shouts, “I told you not to move until I said so!”
“I did,” Trey replies, nodding. “I told Rory to sit on them until you gave us word on what you want done with them.”
His confession is like a whack to the stomach. I knew I had seen that man before. “That’s him,” I garble in Czech. “That’s the man who took Ana. Rory. He has her somewhere here. Can you find her?”
A hope the dark-haired man can understand me crashes into me when he demands Trey to watch Justine before he commences searching the compound.
With everyone’s focus devoted on him, I drop the shard of glass from my neck before bending in half to suck in the air my lungs failed to accept the past three minutes.
I’ve barely filled my lungs halfway when Trey kicks the glass I was clutching to the far corner of the room before he raises my hand to check it for damage. I thought he’d be mad about me putting his crew in danger, so you can imagine my surprise when he seems more concerned about me than anyone.
He has no reason to fret. Although the slash mark across my hand is throbbing, the scratches down my arm hurt more than my self-inflicted wound. It may be an emotional pain more than a physical one, but still, it’s there, nonetheless.
“Why are you scratched?” Trey sounds angry, but it’s scarcely noticeable through his frustration.
He’s still on a cliff edge, but instead of coercing him away from it, I join him there instead. “Rory.”
“Rory attacked you?” Justine interrogates on Trey’s behalf, speaking in my native tongue. When I timidly nod, the worry on his face augments. “Why?”
“Pokusil se me vzít místo Ana. Bojoval jsem s ním.” Guilt transcends when I mutter, “Ana nebyla dost silná na to, aby ho odradila.”
“What is she saying?” Trey’s voice isn’t as stern as it was earlier, but it is fortified with anger.
After taking a few moments to gauge how he’ll respond, Justine tells him what I said. “She said Rory scratched her when she fought him off her.” The sorrow in her eyes matches mine when she mutters, “Ana wasn’t strong enough to do the same.”
“He tried to take K first.” Although Trey sounds like he’s asking a question, he isn’t. He’s summarizing. The tick in his jaw announces this, much less the tight clench of his fists. “If she hadn’t fought him off, he would have…” He can’t work the rest of his words out of his mouth. His jaw is too firm.
From his response, anyone would think this is the first time I’ve been sexually assaulted. I wish it were, but that’s far from the truth.
Does that mean what I think it does? Did he order for me to become a whore like Achim said? Or was that another lie on a long list of many?
I was never told the identity of the man in the butler’s pantry, only that he was so angry about my deceit, I was the cause of the carnage that occurred the following morning. Our night together had tainted him so perversely, I poisoned his mind. India said that’s why he turned his gun on his family and killed his father. He was so sickened about what I had done, he wanted to die.
I wasn’t aware he had survived the six bullet wounds I counted on his torso when he laid across from me lifeless on the dining room floor. I was shipped away to face the consequences of my actions where I remained the past six years, and where I most likely will stay since I’ve once again failed.
Justine’s unique colored eyes pop open as wide as mine when Trey suddenly spins on his heels and storms out of the room. He knows the direction to take in an instant. The roar sounding down the hall is like a beacon for deranged, psychotic men determined to get vengeance. “You not only disrespected me, you disrespected myAhren!Disrespecting her warrants the punishment of death.”
My eyes drop to the floor when my race down a lengthened corridor has me stumbling onto the dark-haired man beating the living hell out of Rory. He has him pinned to the wall with one hand while his other smashes into Rory’s face on repeat.
I can’t see anything but several pairs of feet, but the crack of the man’s fists to Rory’s cheek spells out every sickening detail on what’s occurring. Even if Trey wants in on Rory’s punishment, the stranger won’t allow it. He’ll kill Rory before he will ever permit him to leave this room breathing. I guarantee it.
My theory loses steam when the faintest voice whispers, “Enough, Nikolai.” It doesn’t belong to a man. It’s the owner of Nikolai’s heart—hisAhren.
After floating my eyes up from my feet, I watch Justine enter the death-scented room with only the slightest quiver to her stride. “You taught him a lesson. He won’t defy you again.”
Confirmation she can get through to him like no one else is proven without a doubt when Nikolai’s next two hits aren’t as bone-crunching as his earlier strikes. He still pounds Rory’s face to within an inch of recognition, but even I can tell his focus is shifting, and we’re strangers. She’s calling him to her, gravitating him nearer as I instinctively navigate myself closer to Trey. Even though I’m scared as to how he’ll respond when he discovers who I am, I need answers, and he’s the only man who can give them to me.
Just as Justinewhispers, “Nikolai, I need you,” I slip my hand into the tiny slither of space between Trey and me not taken up by his balled fist.
After unclenching his hand for me, opening up to me as no one ever has, Trey peers down at me, shocked and muted. We don’t talk. I can’t even hear the words Nikolai and Justine exchange. I’m too stunned by the massive turn of events the past twenty-four hours to get my mouth to work. I am so confused, I’m beginning to wonder if Vladimir killed me and this is a whore’s fucked-up rendition of heaven.
I lose the devotion of Trey’s eyes when the thud of a lifeless man slumping to the floor booms through our ears. Nikolai has released Rory from his grasp. Shockingly, he’s still alive—just. My sky-high heart rate is too loud to hear a word Nikolai and Justine share, but that won’t stop me from saying it’s heart-clutching. There’s too much sentiment crackling between them to ignore. It’s almost as intense as the zaps darting up my arm from Trey’s simple hold. I doubt he’s a man known for his gentleness, yet he holds my hand as if it’s a delicate flower that could be crushed at any moment.
Not even thirty seconds later, Nikolai scoops Justine into his arms before he makes a beeline for the door.
Just as quickly, Trey frees my hand from his before he steps into the room.
Believing the show is over, the crowd dispels remarkedly fast. Within seconds, it’s just Trey, Nero, Rory, and me. A normal person would tell Rory to thank his lucky stars he’s still alive. I’m nothing close to ordinary. I felt the surge in Trey’s pulse before he stepped away from me, heard his mumbled comment about Rory’s punishment not being sufficient.
