Page 85 of Malevolent King

Swearing wildly, he tried to reach for the gun at the same time as I did, his hand coming close to my face. I bit it, his blood filling my mouth. He cursed savagely and rolled away, gripping his hand, two fingers exposed to the bone.

I’d learned at a young age that when fighting for your life, there was no such thing as a fair fight. They were all dogfights, no matter what anyone liked to imagine. If you couldn’t get your hands dirty, you didn’t live to see another day.

I crawled for the gun as Idiot One reached me. His kick to my side whited out my vision for a few seconds. I rolled to my side, trying to shake the dizziness behind my eyes as I blinked at him.

He stepped over me and picked up the gun.“So, you are as mad as they say you are. You’re just not as good. Disappointing, Chernov. I’d been expecting more.” He pointed the gun at me.

“Yeah, well, never buy hype. You’ll always be disappointed. When you only get excellent reviews, people doubt the veracity of your claims,” I muttered, sinking my hand into the tiny gravel and sand topping on the ground of the fancy driveway.

I peered up at the man who thought he was about to kill me. “And I never get any bad ones, so it’s a tough one.”

“Why’s that?” Idiot One asked, seeming to enjoy being in a powerful position for once, and milking it for all it was worth. He was truly worthy of his name.

“Because they’re dead,” I said, looking him in the eye as I threw my handful of sand and grit at his face.

He cursed, jerking the gun away to cover his eyes as I twisted and pulled the knife from the pocket I’d tucked it in. With the first stab, I pinned his foot to the ground. He screamed and fell, his weight pulling the knife free. I clawed my way up his body, using my knife like an ice pick sinking into a mountain. He shot wildly downwards, but I was too close to him, and he couldn’t see well. By the time I reached his face, red, with streaming eyes, I’d pinned his hand to the ground with the knife and taken the gun back.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered as I put it to his temple. “I promised to skin you before killing you. I’m afraid I don’t have time for it. I suppose you’ll be another faceless, feeble stat in my kill count.” With a vicious grin, I pulled the trigger.

When his brains splattered to the ground, relief and a profoundly deep sense of peace filled me.

Sofia was right, after all. I wasn’t normal. There was a darkness inside me that only violence could quench and a beast that demanded sacrifice. Today, for her, I let him free.

Rolling up, I noted the injuries to my body in a detached way. I looked around, making sure everyone was down where I needed them. Idiot One’s wild shots had wasted the rest of the ammo, and I couldn’t afford to spend time looking for another gun.

Silvio was getting away and taking Sofia with him.

I couldn’t waste one more second. Pulling the knife from Idiot One’s hand, I ran down the driveway.

25

SOFIA

As the car rolled down the road toward the gates, I stared frantically out the window at Nikolai fighting for his life.

“Don’t worry, cousin, those are my best men. They won’t let him get away this time.” Silvio laughed. “Though I am sorry not to kill him myself. Just imagine what my father and yours will think. They’ll call me a hero for stopping the violent criminal supposed to be serving his time here who decided instead to go on a killing spree.”

I turned and stared at Silvio, hatred pouring from me. He’d lowered his gun, and without thinking for my safety, I flew at him. Landing half across him, I tore at his face as he tried to beat me off with one hand. The pistol whipped my cheek, but I didn’t give up. I sank a finger into one of his eyes, and he let out a vicious command to his driver to stop.

As his driver scrambled out of the car, there was an odd, suppressed shake, and suddenly, all the alarms on the property blared.

“What the fuck was that?” Silvio muttered as his driver pulled me out of the car, trying to rip me off his pathetic boss.

I knew exactly what it was. Nikolai’s little homemade bomb finally blowing beneath the ground. It didn’t sound as small as he’d made out.

Silvio followed me out of the car as I spun out of the driver’s arms and staggered back. I was cut and bruised, worried and at the end of my sanity. I had nothing to lose.

“Sofia, you need to calm down, or I’ll shoot you right here and tell your father it was Chernov,” Silvio warned me.

I shook my head, hysteria bubbling up my throat. “No. I won’t. I won’t go quietly with a man like you.”

“A man like me? And yet, you’d let that Moscow gutter rat fuck you? You have some twisted standards.”

“Nikolai is ten times the man you are.”

“If you mean he’s killed ten times the men that I have, I agree. The man is one body short of a serial killer.”

“I don’t care. To me, he’s better than you. He’s better than Antonio and Franco, and all of them. He’s a man in a way you’ll never be.”

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