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Wincing, I got hold of a piece of glass and right when Boris grabbed me by my hair, I struck.
I smashed the glass into his thigh. The shard looked like a toothpick pinned into the trunk of an oak. He barely registered the injury.
A hand clamped around my neck.
“Suka!” Boris pushed me up against the wall. “When I say drink, you will fucking drink.”
I was powerless as he forced the drink down my throat and began feeling me up, laughing. Mikhail just stood by, pulling from his cigar.
My dress was soaked but that wasn’t what made me shiver. It was Boris’ meaty hand going toward my dress, cupping my breast to the point of pain. Mikhail’s hand joined him, hurting me. With great effort, I turned my head over my shoulder and screamed.
The sound got muffled when Boris placed the bottle against my lips again, and more vodka poured into my mouth, burning my throat.
I tried to kick him but he laughed at my pathetic attempt. Nothing seemed to phase the asshole.
Then his hand went to the front of his pants. I froze. My mind raced with terror. I’d imagined my death countless times. The place, the date, who would be with me, how I would feel. In none of those scenarios had I pleaded or cried. I’d always imagined I would be like one of the heroines in my novels; strong, courageous, and badass. In real life, tears sprang into my eyes. This was worse than death.
“No! Please, no!” Apparently, I wasn’t above begging either.
The sound of Boris’ zipper sliding open made me gag. The hate faded into the background. It got overpowered by nausea and fear. Sheer knee-buckling fear.
I knew what was coming next, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.
— Mary Shelley
Frankenstein’s monster wasn’t born, he was created.
— Kristoff Romanov
7
KRISTOFF
The house was filled with Bratva high society, which didn’t differ all that much from regular Russian high society.
I should have been studying each and every one of them, making small talk, learning whichpakhanwas supported by whom, and which ones they would stab in the back. And I would have, if my mind hadn’t been preoccupied with a damn letter I received an hour earlier. It was Inessa’s “if you’re reading this, I’m dead” letter. Who even wrote those things, except in movies? What bothered me wasn’t the fact that she was dead, but the ticking time bomb of a daughter she’d left in my lap.
Blyat!No good deed ever went unpunished. I should have known, suspected something was off when she tried to pawn Katya’s visit off as something positive. I needed sunshine in my life, my ass.
Katya’s mom had left her daughter in my care, knowing she wouldn’t make it. During the process of ensuring her daughter was safe, the cunning woman had possibly fucked up my future.
Viking stood beside me, looking grim. He had a soft spot for moms, probably because his own was a horrible excuse for a human being.
“Does the girl know?” Viking asked. His eyes blazed with anger.
“That her mother’s dead, or the fucked-up way she was killed?”
“Either.”
I shook my head.
“And the other thing her mother mentioned in the letter?” Viking asked. “Are you going to tell her about that?”
“No.”
It had been Inessa's dying wish to keep that specific earth-shattering news from her daughter. I couldn’t care less about her damn wish, except that in this case, it suited my agenda. There was a wildness, a gusto for life inside Katya. Something that could get her killed if she went poking in the wrong places.
