Page 81 of Malevolent King

Was something happening? Carefully, I pushed myself to my feet and swayed. It was impossible to tell what time it was without windows or a watch. I guessed it had been a good few hours, maybe as much as five or six.

“Nikolai!” I called again toward the wall of his cell.

Another bang came from the room, like metal shifting, and the inaudible murmur of voices. Fear like nothing I’d ever felt before threatened to choke me. Who was there? Why wasn’t he answering me? Had he passed out? Whose voices were those?

I saw our entire history at that very moment.

Every single second, from the moment we’d met in the bar and he’d stolen my drink. Somehow teaching me a lesson about leaving drinks unattended at the same time as striking up a conversation. Now that I looked back on it, that had been the defining moment of my life. Everything that had happened since had been shaped by that single meeting. I’d been changed by it in a way I could never undo.

The seed of my curiosity about a dangerous man, who seemed to have limitless potential for violence, but had never hurt me, had been planted in my heart. Prom night, the race through the woods, shared hotel beds, and that terrifying moment hanging from the broken fire escape, with only Nikolai’s hand to tether me to safety, all bled into one.

The stark reality that the man who had starred in every one of those terrifying and precious memories could be lying next door, bleeding to death, or worse, already lifeless, broke something inside me.

All the fears and emotions I kept locked inside me streamed out. My hands found their way into my hair, and I pulled hard, throwing my head back and screaming. The sound echoed around and around the small cell. The sound of human misery at its purest. Terrible, pathetic, hopeless. I was all those things at that moment. I stopped caring who would hear. I didn’t care if Silvio or Franco came.

“Sofia?Lastoshka?”

I was interrupted from my blank staring contest with the wall, my throat burning. The door had been unlocked.

Nikolai and Angelo stood in the doorway.

My scream died, and my heart clenched as if Niko had reached into my chest and squeezed it. He was looking me over, checking for hurts, a worried expression tensing his face. He was still confused when I reached him. A sob on my lips, I hurtled myself into his arms. He brought his own up just in time to catch me.

“I thought you were dead. I heard them kill you,” I cried against his neck.

He was still, stunned by my show of overwrought emotion. Slowly, his hands tightened on my back, and he squeezed me carefully.

“I told you I wasn’t leaving you, prom queen. I told you I’d get you out of here, and I always keep my word.”

Angelo cleared his throat, looking nervously down the hall. “I hate to interrupt this, but we need to get out of here before Franco, Silvio, and their men get back from the hospital.”

“Right, are you okay? Have you recovered?” Niko asked, drawing back a little. His gaze fell over my nearly naked body, and he frowned.

“No. I don’t think I’m ever going to recover,” I muttered.

Niko cut my restraints, and gestured to Angelo, and my bodyguard shrugged off his suit jacket. Niko guided my arms through the sleeves. I finally took him in properly. The absolute mess of his arms broke my heart. His wrist looked nearly cut to the bone in places.

“Oh my god, your hands… isn’t it sore?” I asked dumbly and then recalled how I’d thrown myself into his arms, practically forcing him to catch me just minutes before. “I just jumped you.”

He chuckled. “Worth it. If I ever don’t want you to jump me, check for a pulse. I’m probably dead already.”

“Okay, let’s move now. We need to get going,” Angelo said, looking as jumpy as hell.

“What about Chiara?” I asked my bodyguard as we started from the cell.

“She’s outside the compound, already waiting. I just need your brother to come through.” Angelo shot Niko a hard look.

Niko only nodded and took my hand, keeping me close as we hurried silently up the hallway.

“He’ll come through. That’s the thing about Kirill, he’s boringly predictable.”

“Are we just strolling out of here? We’ll get caught,” I whispered frantically as we headed upstairs.

Angelo had his gun pulled and was looking around every corner before moving. It was still light in the house, and the sun shining in the windows made it seem like late morning. I’d slept all night.

“No, not strolling. There’s about to be a lot of commotion, and at that moment, we’ll get the fuck out of here,” Niko reassured me.

“What kind of commotion?”

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