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“What the actual hell? Lan’s bleeding.”

“Aw. You worried about me? I should’ve asked Creigh to beat me up earlier.” Landon strains to place a hand on his chest. “So touched, I could cry.”

Bran glares at him, but he still tries to escape Eli’s hold. Me, on the other hand? I’m ready to rip my cousin a new one.

In the middle of me punching Lan, who’s still not resisting, and Bran arguing with Eli but still no match to escape him, a fifth presence strolls in.

Remi stares at us with dilated pupils, then blinks slowly. “Not sure what type of freak show—or kink, not shaming—you King men are into, but I have a serious question. Am I too drunk or is there actually a guy tied up in our basement?”

Bran quits struggling against my brother. “A guy is tied up in our basement?”

“Sure as fuck, and if I’m not too drunk, then I’m pretty sure it’s Nikolai Sokolov.”

“That’s the surprise I kept for you, Cray Cray.” Landon grins, all bloodied teeth, lips, and chin. “He’s your path to vengeance. Told you I had everything figured out.”

27

LIA

The thing about demons is that they’re there for life.

Every time I think I’ve left them in the twisted past where they belong, they rear their ugly heads, bent on reminding me that they exist.

That they’re here to stay.

That no matter how much I attempt to focus on my hard-earned happiness, it might be just a phase.

It’s been so many years, but the memories are as vivid as if it were last night’s dinner.

They creak and roar and splash my mind with images of pain, weakness, and shame.

Lots of shame and regrets that I can’t contain.

I pace the length of the entrance, back and forth, back and forth, like a headless chicken.

I can hear the low sound of my snapping nerves, can feel the tightness in my stomach and the chaos bashing against my skull.

On and on, it mounts and shifts until I want to scream.

It doesn’t help that Adrian had an urgent meeting and has been gone with Kolya for most of the night and morning.

Thankfully, Yan has returned. He’s currently leaning back in a chair, sipping on a glass of vodka, and watching me with an unchanged expression.

“You’re going to give yourself vertigo if you keep going at that pace,” he comments dryly.

“I shouldn’t have let her go back. Maybe we can catch them if we follow them now, and I can bring her home and tuck her close to my chest where no one can find her?”

“You’re being paranoid.”

“That’s what you said when she was kidnapped as a child.”

“She wasn’t kidnapped, since we saved her before they could get her.”

“But she was almost kidnapped.”

“You sound like Boss when he excuses his overbearing behavior. ‘I’m shielding her too much because they’d use her against me,’” he mimics Adrian’s tone.

“It’s true, though.”

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