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Maksim stiffens beside me, his arms crossed.
“What the hell are you talking about? I’m not abandoning you,” she argues.
“I’m ordering you to.”
“No.” She lifts her chin. “I’m done taking orders from you, Uncle, and Babushka. From now on, I’ll only execute my own decisions.”
That’s my woman.
“Sasha…” he warns.
“I’m not going, Tosha. Not without you.”
He closes his eyes briefly and releases a frustrated breath. “Can’t you see that he’s using you against me?”
The he is me, in case no one noticed.
“I don’t care.” She squeezes his hand. “I’ll be fine.”
I approach them and wrap an arm around her shoulder. “I’ll take good care of my wife.”
“You motherfucking—” He lunges up to punch me, but Maksim gets to him in no time and pins him against the mattress with an elbow on his throat.
“Stop, stop it!” Sasha fruitlessly pulls on Maksim’s shoulder.
Anton’s face reddens as he hits Maksim’s arm, but the more my guard crushes his trachea, the weaker his struggle gets.
“Maks!” she shrieks, but he’s not hearing her. “Please, let him go.”
Finally, she realizes who she should be talking to and turns to me. “Tell him to stop.”
I stare down at her. “Say you’re sorry first.”
“Sorry for what?”
“For leaving me. For making me believe you were dead. I want you to say you’re fucking sorry.”
“Fuck you,” she grinds out.
I lift a shoulder as Anton’s thrashes mixed with his raw struggles for breath echo in the air.
“Maks, please,” she begs him, but he’s still not hearing her. Judging by the reddening of her brother’s face, he probably has about a minute left before he crosses to the other side. If not less.
Sasha looks at me with tears clinging to her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For ever loving a monster like you.”
My jaw clenches and I’m tempted to suffocate the fuck out of her, but I’m not sure I won’t kill her if I do that.
“Let him go, Maksim.”
My guard doesn’t seem to be listening, so I push him, destabilizing his elbow from Anton’s neck.
“I said to let him go.”
He stares at me as if he just came out of a trance, which might as well be the case.
Anton coughs, the sound raw in the giant space. Sasha sits beside him and pats his back. Her expression is that of pure horror.
Not the one I was hoping for.
I glare at Maksim. He slowly lowers his head because he knows exactly how much he fucked up.
Maybe I fucked up, too, because I’m not sure my next plan will work as I’d hoped.
15
SASHA
I’m so close to the point of eruption.
Chaotic emotions swirl through me and I want to burst into a spree of violence or release a long scream.
As long as I inflict pain on the asshole who’s gripping me by the arm and leading me through fuck knows what.
Again, I had to wear the blindfold so I don’t find out the location of where he’s keeping my brother.
My mind buzzes with the reminder that Maks could kill him at any second. Hell, if Kirill hadn’t used force earlier, I might be mourning my brother’s death as we speak.
My friend didn’t say a word to me, let alone try to explain why he’s been ignoring all of the texts I’ve been sending over the past week.
Maybe Anton was right and Maksim is blindly loyal to Kirill, and, therefore, he won’t hesitate to kill my brother if my monster of a husband gives the order.
My muscles are tense to the point of pain and I have to put up with touching the bastard despite wanting to throw him down and kick him in the nuts.
All I see is black and it’s a true translation of my current mood. The worst part about having my eyesight taken away is the heightening of my other senses.
I can hear the distant howls of the night creatures and the rustle of the leaves beneath our shoes. Even Kirill’s steady breathing sweeps through me like an irritating highlight of the sounds.
My arms erupt in goosebumps, and I want to blame that on the night chill, but if that were the case, why am I hotter than normal?
In fact, they feel like they’re disconnected from the rest of my body and living in a strange in-between. One that’s filled with Kirill’s overwhelming presence.
His scent clashes with that of the forest—woodsy, deep, and most importantly, bottomless. Like his emotions.
“Aren’t we there yet?” I ask with a brusque tone.
We’ve been going for what I’m sure is longer than half an hour—though it feels like ages.
The walk to Anton’s prison was twenty minutes. I was able to tell by calculating the time between when he put on the blindfold and after he removed it.
“So you do have a voice. And here I thought you’d lost it.”
I glare at him even through the blindfold. “You think I’m in the mood to talk to you after you made me watch my brother’s attempted murder?”
