Page 22 of Twisted Cage

“Well, well, I have to say, Malikov, you surprise me.”

Vlad’s voice turns my blood to ice in my veins. It resurrects the suffocating darkness despite the light. He doesn’t need to lock me in rooms or tiny spaces anymore. He just needs to speak, that polished voice with a maniacal lilt has pure power over me.

I’m reduced to that stupid and scared little girl, helplessly flailing.

With one fluid motion, Konstantin shoves me behind him as he faces my brother walking down the center aisle of the church. At first glance, he looks like the ideal man—every woman’s dream. Muscular and blond, clean-cut in an impeccably tailored suit, but inside he’s an endless well of poisonous pain and greed.

“You actually fucked her. My father always said the day would come, but you know, I didn’t quite believe him.”

Konstantin says nothing. Instead, he keeps his eyes trained on my brother while he curls his palms around the guns holstered at his back.

Vlad comes to stop right before the stairs leading up to the altar. Shoulder propped against the pillar, he crosses his ankle over the other and slips his hands in his pockets.

“He’s not alone,” I whisper. Because Vlad would never be so cavalier if he were at a disadvantage. I’d be willing to bet he has an army outside and Nikolaj will be marching right into the slaughter.

“What? Nothing to say?” Vlad shakes his head, that smug grin on his pompous mouth eliciting a snarl in me. “If you don’t want to talk about it with me, maybe you’ll have something to say to him,” he says, hitching his thumb over his shoulder.

Our gazes swing to the front of the church where my father stands. The smirk on his mouth is a never-ending reminder that while he may not be quite as sinister as Vlad, they are very much the same. Where Vlad relishes the opportunity to inflict pain and torture, my father covets the show.

Maksim Romanoff would never be so casual as to lean against a pillar. No, he stands tall as he makes his way up the aisle. Careful steps—not too fast, not too slow—before coming to a smooth stop at the bottom of the stairs. His gaze lands on Konstantin’s hands and the guns he has ready there before sweeping to me.

“Nikoletta, I hoped when you managed to slip away from the watch we had on you in Paris, you were smarter than this. Such a pity. Your mother’s daughter through and through.”

And suddenly letting Konstantin hide me behind him fills me with shame.

I’m only as weak as I make myself.

So I take a step out from behind him. Followed by another.

“Nikoletta, no,” Konstantin commands me in a harsh whisper.

But I need to do this. If this comes down to a fight and we don’t have the manpower to win, I need my father to know exactly what I think of him.

“You can physically take me, but you will never possess me. Never.”

“No?” My father cocks his head and evil lurks in his gaze. “I took your mother. I possessed her. And when she betrayed me, I scooped out every last bit of humanity in her until there was nothing left to do but discard her.”

I’m shaking my head before he even finishes his words. He didn’t kill her. I was there when they pulled her body from the bottom of the cliffs. “No. Mama was sick. She killed herself.”

“But did she, child? Tell me, were you so naïve that you believed that?”

Broken and battered, I saw her. I—I meet his eyes then, the slow smile spreading over his face chilling me to the bone.

I saw exactly what he wanted me to see.

“No more.” Konstantin pulls his shoulders back and stares my father down.

“And you… did you tell her yet, Konstantin? Did you tell her the only reason you loved her was because you were in love with her mother, but her mother chose me over you?”

No.

No, it can’t be.

But I turn to him then and a flash of guilt so utterly horrifying flits through his eyes and I stumble with the truth of it.

“Pcholka,” he says, laying a gun on the altar and reaching for me.

“Is it true?” My voice is deceptively calm despite the vicious staggering pain that seizes every cell in my body. I gave myself to him and the whole time—the whole fucking time—he’s what? Been in love with my mom? Saw me as a version of her he could have?

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