Page 7 of Malevolent King

“Gino. I’m Gino, and I just want to help Sofia, that’s all. Please, she’s a good girl… she has nothing to do with people like you and me,” he called, desperate now.

“Toss the gun, Gino, and turn around if you want her to live,” Niko called back.

Watching Gino drop his only weapon was terrifying. He was so vulnerable now, and a terrible paranoia struck me. Nikolai was going to kill Gino. Gino was going to die because of me.

A whimper escaped my gag. Niko stared down at me, his magnetic silver eyes locking with mine. A long line of tears streaked from one eye, and I blinked them madly away. I was suddenly more worried about Gino than myself.

Gino had turned his back to us, and his hands visibly shook by his sides.

“What’s wrong? You don’t want me to hurt Gino?” Nikolai mocked, his beautiful mouth twisting into something ugly as he grinned.

It was bloodthirsty. He was enjoying this, I realized with a jerk.

“What would you do to save him?” he asked, sending ice down my spine. He chuckled when I muttered powerless words against my gag. He tapped the gun against my lips. “That’s right. You can’t do anything. You can’t stop me from doing whatever I want, so listen the fuck up and stop testing my patience, or you’ll be next.”

With that, he turned and leveled the gun at Gino. The weapon had a silencer fitted. The suppressed sound and the grunt Gino let out was one I knew I’d never forget.

He fell forward and I frantically tried to see where he was hit, but Niko gave me no time to figure it out. I screamed into my gag, and my throat turned raw with pain as I screamed again and again, over and over. Gino had been shot. He’d been shot because of me. I thrashed against Nikolai, feral for a second. He locked an arm around my neck, squeezing until the airflow into my panicked chest lessened.

“Calm the fuck down, or I’ll decide you’re more of a hindrance than a help as far as insurance goes. You don’t want to test me today,” he said, while black spots swam in front of my eyes.

He turned me away from the sight of Gino and dragged me toward the wall. I twisted, trying desperately to see if he was still alive, but Niko shoved me forward ruthlessly. He must know that backup would arrive at any minute. I only had to delay him a little longer, and more De Sanctis men would descend.And more would die?I tried to push that thought down, but it wouldn’t go. No, I couldn’t have more blood on my hands. I had to get away from Nikolai myself.

We made it to the wall. Nikolai would need to put the gun away to scale it. This was my chance. He kneeled on the gravel and pulled me onto his shoulders, standing effortlessly and boosting me up the wall. It was scary with my hands tied behind my back, but once on the other side, I had a shot at getting away. A strangled cry left me as he climbed the wall, his tattooed fingers gripping the plentiful handholds on the rough rock and leaving little smears of blood in their wake.

When I neared the top, he leaned forward, sending me sliding off. Terrified, I closed my eyes and fell toward the downed tree on the other side. I had no way to break my fall with my hands bound. I passed the branches with nothing more than a few scratches and kept going. Landing hard on my side, I took a second to get my bearings. Fuck, that hurt, but I’d been lucky enough not to impale myself on any particularly pointed branches. My first lucky break today. Thoughts of Gino sent fresh tears to my eyes while I staggered to my feet.

“Help! Someone help us!” a voice floated to me from over the wall when I got to my feet.

Niko paused at the top of the wall and glanced back. It was Gino. Relief crashed into me. He wasn’t too hurt to be shouting for backup.

Nikolai hesitated. Was he going to shoot him again?

I ran from the fallen tree, and panic sent me crashing through a noisy pile of leaves and crunching twigs. I sensed the moment Niko’s attention snapped back to me.

Risking one last glance behind me, I saw him abandon Gino and slip down the fallen tree, landing lithely on the same side of the wall as me. I put my head down and ran as quickly as I could with my hands bound.

My balance was off, and I wasted steps teetering to the side and twisting my body to stay upright. My back ached, and my shoulders throbbed where they were pinned behind me. Cuts burned on my cheek from the branches.

Nikolai’s thudding steps suddenly stopped behind me, but I wasn’t dumb enough to look back. I kept going. There was little to no chance I could outrun him, but every step I took carried him further from being able to hurt anyone except me.

I would never have pegged myself as the self-sacrificing type in a life-and-death situation. It was a nice thing to find out about myself today, on perhaps the last day of my life.

Maybe then you’ll finally be free.The macabre thought whispered through my head when I entered a small clearing shrouded by trees. That was not the fucked-up shit I needed to be thinking right now.

Nikolai’s hard body caught me on the right side, knocking the breath from me. His arms wrapped around me, somehow cushioning my fall. My teeth bit hard into my tongue, held awkwardly around the gag, and blood filled my mouth. We rolled, and twigs and rocks scratched me until we finally came to a stop.

He straddled me, his strong legs bracketing my waist. I arched my back to take the pressure off my wrists, but it was futile. I was trussed up and bound for display, and there was nothing I could do about it. My chest heaved from fear and exertion. Nikolai leaned across me, and my heart pounded harder at the sensation of his body against mine. The scent of him invaded my head, woodsy and masculine. It was the same scent that had haunted my dreams and nightmares in equal measure for years after we’d first met.

“You do like the hard way, don’t you,lastochka?” he murmured.

He wasn’t breathing hard. He seemed like he could make another ten sprints through the woods and not even break a sweat, while I felt like my lungs might combust.

“If you don’t stop making my day more difficult, I’ll have to teach you a lesson in a way you won’t forget, Sofia. Stop testing me.”

I let a torrent of obscenities fly against the gag, and Nikolai’s mouth quirked again with that slither of amusement.

He tugged the edge of the gag. “If I take this off, and you scream… I’ll have to think of a more permanent method for keeping you quiet. I can be imaginative, so don’t test me.” He pulled the edge of the gag off and plucked the ball of material from my mouth.

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