Page 63 of Malevolent King

“Kevin Costner lives on the West Coast, so yeah, big guy.”

“Costner’s too damn old for you,” Angelo growled at his girlfriend.

“And you aren’t?” Chiara giggled.

I knew this dance, and I wasn’t about to sit around and witness the foreplay. I took the tray out of Angelo’s hands. “I’ll handle this. You two go get a room, preferably one I can’t hear you from.”

I went back into Nikolai’s room with the tray. He was grinning at Angelo and Chiara.

“Young love, it warms the cockles of my cold, dead heart. Just like you do, prom queen.”

I moved to his side, hyperaware of his gaze on the side of my face. After last night, I should probably feel more embarrassed, but I didn’t. There was an absence of shame inside me as I picked up the small pieces of sandwich that Carmella had prepared.

“I suppose I should explain about last night.” I reached out and fed him a piece of sandwich.

“If you want to.”

He was watching me steadily, his eyes never leaving me. That look felt like an arm around my shoulder.

“Apparently, I’m going to be engaged again soon. I think I might be already.” The words embarrassed me for some reason. I couldn’t meet Nikolai’s eyes. I felt weak and useless, like a pathetic little girl who played at being strong but in the end, just shut up and followed her father’s orders. I felt unworthy of Niko’s praising words. I knew nothing about courage or breaking cages, not compared to him.

“Is that right?” he mused softly.

“The head of the Moroni family in New York. You probably know him.”

Nikolai nodded. “I do. He’s old and cruel if you’re wondering. Dumb as well.”

I nodded, looking down. Tears threatened to fall, and I fought them back.

I fed Nikolai quickly, and he didn’t push me to talk.

“Viktor wanted me to get engaged once. I was twenty, and her name was Tatiana. She lived in Moscow, and her father was one of the biggest human traffickers in Eastern Europe. I forgot all about her until now,” he said, his tone musing.

I risked a glance at him. The thought of him getting engaged bothered me more than it should have.“You didn’t want to marry her? Was she beautiful?” I heard myself ask.What the hell?

“The answer to both those questions is the same,” he said, and his lip ticked up into a smirk. “No, because she wasn’t you.”

I froze with my hand in mid-air, holding the coffee cup. It shook with some repressed emotion threatening to burst out. Coffee spilt on my hand and Niko’s leg.

“Shit, that’s hot,” I said, and grabbed a napkin to dab at his leg. “What happened?”

“Let’s see,” he said, blowing out a breath. “I’d only been in Russia six months, and I’d met you a couple of months before that. When Viktor mentioned the match, I told him I wasn’t interested. He could have forced me, however, so I made sure he couldn’t.”

“What did you do?”

“I crept into Tatiana’s house at night and killed her father in cold blood. His second-in-command, too. The family had an heir I didn’t know about, a man about my age, off in a Siberian work camp, so I couldn’t get to him. They covered up the murder, but I still went to prison for four years there for some crap they made up. If you think the NYPD is corrupt, they have nothing on Moscow. Last I heard, their entire operation was failing under the new leadership of the son. I can’t say I was sad about that. I don’t know what happened to Tatiana. Honestly, I didn’t care enough to find out. I came back to New York as soon as I was released, just in time to find out about Kirill’s happy engagement news… to you.”

His story stole my breath. I pushed away from his probing gray look. I couldn’t stand it. Every inch of my skin that his gaze touched, throbbed.

I stood and put some distance between us, turning to the side as I folded and unfolded the cover of the tray.“So, you didn’t forget about me.”

I really thought he had. After prom night and the things that had passed between us in the dark, I had expected more from Nikolai. When he’d failed to return for me, I’d known then that his promises and possessive words had been a passing whim for him. I hadn’t been surprised when I thought he’d lost interest. Why wouldn’t he? Who would ever care that much about me?

Nikolai was silent, and I couldn’t look at him. I was suddenly scared to see the truth in his eyes. The truth that his interest in me had passed and was only rekindling now as a means to an end. I didn’t think I could manage if it was.

There was a soft clinking sound behind me as Nikolai shifted in his handcuffs. I hated to see him in them. I felt like my world had been turned upside down, and I couldn’t find which way was up.

“Look at me, Sofia.”

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