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“I listen,” he says with a smirk, grabbing the handcuffs attached to a chain running through the ring. “It’s a spot your brother uses for keeping a prisoner out of the way until he can get around to torturing information out of them.”
“They’ll come looking for you here, then.” I stare at him as he cuffs my wrists, wincing at the cold feel of the metal, my stomach lurching as he cuts away the plastic ties, and I feel the sharp slide of the blade against my skin.
“No, they won’t,” Adrik says with satisfaction. “He won’t expect me to come here. Whichever of them comes looking for you—or both—they’ll expect me to take you somewhere farther away. Somewhere that will be harder to find.”
“Nikolai and Theo are both smarter than you think,” I spit at him, and he laughs.
“Toosmart. Smart enough that they won’t look right in front of their faces.” He steps back, contemplating me. “So. What should I do with you first?”
“Let me go.” I glare up at him, and he chuckles darkly.
“That I won’t do.”
I don’t miss the way he sayswon’t, and notcan’t. He reaches out, trailing his fingers over my cheek—and then he rears back, slapping me hard.
My head jerks to one side, and then the other when he repeats the motion on the other side of my face. He slaps me twice more, until my face is burning and throbbing and my ears are ringing, and then he grabs my chin, holding my jaw painfully tight as he looks down into my eyes with his piercing blue gaze.
Once upon a time, I loved him looking at me. I loved his eyes. I was falling for everything about him, the way an innocent, foolish girl does with her first crush.
Her firsteverything.
I didn’t see the darkness inside of him. At least with Theo, I knew it was a possibility. But with Adrik, somehow, this feels so much worse.
“That was for refusing to run away with me,” he hisses. “And for refusing to fuck me, when I came up to your room in Ireland, and for slappingmein the alleyway.”
He grabs my hair, wrenching my head back as he shoves his fingers into my mouth. “How do you like this, littleshlyukha?Would you prefer my cock?” His fingers thrust over my tongue, a crude mimicking of what he’s done with my mouth in the past. His fingers taste like iron and stale cum, and I gag as he pushes them to the back of my throat, my eyes tearing up.
“No?” Adrik smirks. “That is for my humiliation in front of yourder’moof a husband. And this—”
He grabs my hair, forcing me to my knees in front of him. His face is swollen, his expression hitching with pain, but it doesn’t stop him. “This is for coming on thatsvoloch’sfucking cock.”
I know there’s no escaping this. And in this moment, as I never have before, I simply wish it would all end.
I wishIcould end.
Theo
“Fuck,” Finn breathes as he hears me ask where Adrik is. “He’s got a guard on him. The outbuilding at the back of the property. He’s supposed to be cuffed, and I’ve got men watching him, but—”
He looks at me with the same tense expression that I can feel frozen on my face. The only person other than Nikolai who has reason to want to take Marika away is Adrik. And Nikolai would have marched her out of my house before she got out of the living room if that’s the route he’d wanted to go.
“It’s got to be him.” I’m already striding away from the house, Finn on my heels. “We’ll go and see.”
We’re halfway to the outbuilding before I see guards coming towards us. My gut clenches as I see the looks on their faces—they’re expecting punishment, and they’ll get it.Careful of your temper, I remind myself, cognizant of the havoc it’s wrought already. “Don’t hurt them too badly,” I tell Finn. “But have them confined while we deal with this.” I don’t need to question them to know Adrik is gone, and Finn is more than capable of handling tracking him.
What I need to do is go and talk to Nikolai.
It’s the last fucking thing I want to do. He’s the last man on the green earth that I ever want to ask for help with anything, especially now—but Marika’s life is more important than my pride. Seeing her safe, after what’s happened and the part I’ve played in it, is more important than anything else could be.
“Find out where he’s taken her,” I growl at Finn. “I’ll be at the Vasilev estate. Come straight there when you have anything.”
Finn nods. “Will do, boss.”
I have no doubt that he’ll take care of it. I turn to go back to the garage, foregoing a driver. I don’t want to waste the time calling one, when I could be on the road quicker by myself.
As soon as I’m behind the wheel, I call Nikolai.
“McNeil?” The surprise in his voice is palpable. “What the fuck do—”
