The touch of his breath on my skin makes my stomach churn.
“Get your hands off me,” I say through gritted teeth, still dazed, but the adrenaline is sharpening my senses. I can barely breathe. “Silas has men surrounding?—”
“Hadmen,” he corrects me. “Past tense. They’re all dead.”
No.My stomach drops.
“And your boyfriend is on the other side of the city. Probably in a thousand pieces after the little gift I left him.” His lips graze my ear. “It’s just us now, Antonia. You and me and my men.”
What does he mean, Silas is in a thousand pieces? What was the gift he left him? Oh God, was it a bomb? Is he dead? Is Nessa?
All that fierce, feral fight in me leaks alongside a sob. No. None of this would’ve happened if it weren’t for me.
His fingers tighten on my jaw, and I grit instead of wincing from the pain. But that feral creature in me claws dangerously close, only knowing how to survive.
“Oh, and how could I forget about little Larissa,” he taunts.
Hearing her name on his lips hits me like a bullet in the chest.
I grit my teeth. “Don’t you dare touch her.”
“I won’t need to.” His voice is low and cold. “If you do as I tell you.”
My body is rigid against the wall. Every muscle locked with fear and terror.
“Although,” he adds, “I do like it when you fight me. You’re just as feral as I remember.”
I squeeze my eyes shut as the memories crash in. What he did to me, and how hard I had fought to stop him from doing it again. The taste of his blood is on my tongue, and I try to wrestle free from his grasp again, but for all my strength, he’s still much bigger than me.
“Those days I had you in the basement will seem like a picnic compared to what’s coming.” He shifts his weight, and I feel every inch of him against my body. “I have a new Hell waiting for you, Antonia. One I’ve been fantasizing about for six long years.”
He runs his nose along the shell of my ear and inhales deeply, and the revulsion that rises in me is so violent I gag.
“I want you to know that what comes next is not going to end. There is no escape this time.”
“You’re a monster,” I spit, aiming for his face, but it lands on his shoulder from this awkward angle.
“Monster.” He scoffs at the word. “Isn’t that what you used to call your husband? I assure you, I am much more creative than he ever was. He was sloppy.” Konstantin’s fingers slide from my jaw to my throat. “I, on the other hand, am very precise. And I will enjoy getting revenge on you for what you did to him.”
“This isn’t revenge for your brother. You don’t give a damn about Viktor. This is about you and your sick lust. Your thirst for blood and pain.”
He chuckles. A low, soft sound that has no humor, warmth, or humanity. My vision blurs, and my legs buckle.
“You’re right,” he says. “My brother was an idiot.”
His hand moves from my throat to my hair, and he yanks my head to the side.
“But he had good taste.”
His tongue slides down my cheek. A wet trail from my temple to my jaw. I clamp my teeth together and will myself not to scream, because if Larissa hears me, she might come looking for me.
So I choke down the revulsion and the nausea and the words I want to hurl at him.
I have to get him away from here. If I agree to go with him, he’ll leave, and Larissa, Lotti, Gia and Alexis will be safe.
I am the one he wants.
The solution is obvious.
