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From where she is still standing by the now closed door, Alina stares at the five of us with wide gray eyes. I give her a blood-soaked smile before slowly turning my head back so that I’m facing Mikhail. His cousins tighten their grip on me.
“Is that really how you want to start this negotiation?” I ask, locking eyes with Mikhail.
“This isn’t a negotiation,” he snarls. “This is an execution.”
“Seeing as I’m the one with the leverage, I highly doubt that.”
Anton shoots me a mocking look from where he is standing next to his brother, and then wiggles the phone he took from me. “You mean this?”
“Yes.” I slide my gaze back to Mikhail. “If I release that video, it will spread through the entire criminal underworld within a matter of hours. Who do you think will hire you then, Petrov? After they’ve seen you kneel and grovel like a little bitch? Like our little bitch.”
Fury flares in Mikhail’s blue eyes, burning like hellfire. Squeezing his hands into fists, he jerks his chin at his cousins before stalking down the hall. The twins drag me with them as they follow, hauling me into their elegant white kitchen. I let them.
“Releasing that video will be difficult without your phone,” Anton points out as he follows behind us.
They walk me over to their marble-topped kitchen island when Mikhail snaps his fingers and points to it. Then he turns to grab something from another counter.
The distinct ringing of steel fills the air as Mikhail slides out a meat cleaver before turning back to me. Konstantin and Maksim adjust their grip and then move my arms so that they’re holding my hands and forearms on the counter.
Fury still burns in Mikhail’s eyes as he flashes me a grin tinted with a bit of insanity. “And it will be very difficult to release the video without hands.”
I snicker, which only seems to make Mikhail even more furious.
“Wait,” a soft but very distressed voice calls from the doorway. “This is too far. Please, Mikhail, you’re taking this too far.”
Surprise flickers through my chest as I turn my head to look at Alina, who is shaking her head at her brothers. My little doe is… trying to save me? Now that I didn’t see coming.
“Are you worried about me, little doe?” I tease.
Her gaze snaps to me, and she crosses her arms over her chest in a way that manages to look both stubborn and cute at the same time. “No.” She shoots me a glare. “I’m worried about your psycho brothers hurting my brothers in retaliation.”
A slow smile, one that is more threat than anything else, spreads across my lips. “Would you look at that? There is at least one intelligent person here who is capable of analyzing actions and consequences. Maybe there’s hope for your family yet.”
Alina blinks and then frowns, as if she’s not sure whether to be flattered or insulted.
“You—” Mikhail begins, but I cut him off.
“Just because you are incapable of thinking more than one step ahead at a time doesn’t mean the rest of us are,” I say as I turn back to face him. “I have already uploaded the video. It’s set to auto release. So unless I walk out of here in the next…” I make a show of turning to look at the clock above the stove, “ten minutes, the video will be released and everyone will know what a pathetic little bitch you are.”
Deafening silence descends over the pristine kitchen.
Mikhail flexes his fingers repeatedly on the handle of the meat cleaver, and he clenches his jaw so hard that I’m certain he’s about to dislocate it.
I just hold his stare with a smirk on my face, daring him to do it.
Another snarl rips from his throat.
Then he tosses the meat cleaver down into the sink behind him with an angry clanking sound, and then jerks his chin at his cousins. They immediately release me and step back.
Straightening from the countertop, I roll my shoulders back while running my tongue over my split lip. It has already started to knit itself together and is no longer bleeding. But based on the metallic taste in my mouth, I’m pretty sure there is still blood on my teeth. I leave it there as I turn back to Mikhail.
“And now you’ve finally caught up with the reality of your situation,” I taunt. “I knew you would get there in the end.”
“What the fuck do you want, Hunter?” he snaps back, but then he betrays himself when his gaze darts to the clock.
“If you hadn’t wasted so much time trying to threaten me, we wouldn’t be on such a tight schedule now, would we?”
He bares his teeth at me, but all he says is, “Just spit it out.”
