Page 101 of Twisted Cage

Grigori chokes on his coffee.

GRIGORI

WHAAAAATTTTTTT?

DIMITRI

What do you mean they’re not twins? And who’s getting pregnant again?

GRIGORI

Nikoletta.

DIMITRI

Wait—so Nikoletta has a baby? Where? So, basically, Konstantin’s now, I don’t know, kinda like a grandpa?

Grigori snorts and it’s the closest I’ve come to snapping his neck yet.

GRIGORI

Lexi is Konstantin’s daughter.

A crack echoes across the room where Dimitri’s phone hits the floor. He scrambles to pick it up, and his face goes from flushed to gray in seconds, a particular shade I’ve only ever seen in the men I’m torturing, during the last moment of peak pain before their body goes into shock and I kill them.

DIMITRI

None of this makes any sense. Konstantin and Faith. And where’s Nikoletta’s baby. How the fuck—what am I missing?

GRIGORI

Brain cells. The answer is brain cells.

I had to hand it to Grigori, he had natural comedic timing. Someone needs to put this poor kid out of his misery before his head explodes.

ME

Nikoletta is Lexi’s mother. I’m Lexi’s father.

DIMITRI

But that’s not possible.

GRIGORI

Christ, dimwit. What’s his motivation to lie? What do you mean it’s not possible? They’re not blood-related, asshat.

ME

I’m going to need you both to shut the fuck up.

DIMITRI: So wait, you fucked your goddaughter?

I don’t respond. Instead, I glance up and wait for him to meet my eyes. When he does, whatever he sees has him taking a step back.

Good.

RODDICK

---