Page 103 of Twisted Cage

Fair, but let me remind you, I’m the only friend you’ve got.

DIMITRI

Hey, I’m his friend too.

RODDICK

*eyeroll emoji*

ME

Jesus Christ.

I silence my phone and slide it back in my pocket. In a matter of minutes two men here will have held my daughter before I have. Before I’ve counted her fingers and toe. Before I’ve even gotten a good look at her face, studied her tiny features, while I try to figure out who she looks more like.

I don’t know something as simple as the color of her eyes.

I’ve never seen her smile.

This suffocating loss is a black void closing in on me from every side. In the confines are the whispers of doubts I’ve carried since my father…

Nope. No. NO.

I can’t—I can’t do this. “I’m going to the den. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Grigori slides from his stool. “I’ll go with you.”

My hands shake as memories I’ve buried decades ago try to breathe to life. “No. I want to get a jump on this. The minute I have something, I want you on it. Just wait for word from me. It won’t take long.”

He lets out a low whistle. “Today is not the day, and you are not the guy.”

“No.” I glance at Nikoletta and just as I do, she turns to me, the smile on her face not reaching her eyes.

Maybe I should take comfort in the fact her skills in deception aren’t one hundred percent, but I don’t.

There’s no solace in me.

Only hate.

And more fucking hurt than I ever knew possible.

I look away first. “She doesn’t leave. Eyes on her at all times.”

33

NIKOLETTA

“Who’s the father?” Nikolaj asks, a thread of demand lacing his deep, commanding voice.

Konstantin’s hostile gaze burns over me, never relenting, until I feel like one of those dead bugs, pinned in place, under the microscope, every single nuance studied and picked apart.

Every step I take today is agony in the best way. Not that I’ll tell him that. He thinks he punished me last night… and in a way, he did, but more than that, he tapped into something I didn’t even know I had inside me.

Something I want.

Something raw and primitive.

A potent, drugging euphoria I can only find with him.

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