Page 19 of Twisted Cage

After what she suffered last night, after being so fucking brave facing her biggest fear, what choice do I have?

Taking her hand, I guide her out of the crypts, along the long hall that will take us to the heavy wood doors leading to the vestibule. The tension simmering between us slips away as she takes in the stained glass, ornate woodwork, and brass grates along the stairs leading up to the old cathedral.

She’s all delicate touches and gasps of delight, closing her eyes as she inhales the scent of a long, unique history.

Maksim’s decision to baptize her here stunned everyone. We’d been in New York for the better part of a month while he secured alliances throughout the boroughs of the city. He always gravitated to more lavish spectacles, but when Nikoletta’s mother suggested St. Patrick’s Cathedral in midtown Manhattan, he immediately turned it down.

Instead, he favored something more personal. Closer to the part of the city that welcomed immigrants. The place where the foundation for alliances and power soared.

I’ll never forget that day. For once, we could focus on the family since we didn’t have to manage security in the middle of a global tourist attraction. Maksim’s wife and Vlad’s mother, Elena, had not intruded yet on the day, and Maksim carried a smile that reminded me of the boy I knew all those years before.

For just a few hours, I was able to pretend we were those friends again, that he hadn’t bound the woman I loved to him as he married another. I pushed all worry about the way he pitted his sons against one another out of my mind and focused on Nikoletta.

With confirmation from Dmitri that they have the entrances covered, I usher Nikoletta through the heavy wooden doors into the cathedral. My past and present collide with each step deeper into the place we began, and of late, our sanctuary. Right away, her gaze sweeps up stained glass windows spearing into the domed ceiling overhead.

Her gasp of delight draws a genuine smile from me. I slide my hands in my pockets and hang back a few steps, watching her every move. The way she’s light on the balls of her feet as she flits through the pews, running her fingers over the aged wood with a content sigh on her lips.

I can’t tear my gaze from the way she wraps her arms around the column and laughs at just how big they are and how impossible they are to encompass.

“It’s stunning. I never want to leave.” Her cheeks flush as she makes her way to the altar and for a moment, I’m reluctant to follow to the place where I held her tiny body in my hands so long ago.

But Nikoletta has never been one to let me retreat into the shadows. Running toward me, she takes my hand and drags me along as she jogs up the stairs and stops at the altar draped in purple.

She bends down and lifts the fabric and her eyebrows bunch. “It’s a table.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Yes, but a marble one.”

She gives me a shove that does absolutely nothing to move me. “Show me where you stood.”

I shift into place, to the right of the altar, the toe of my shoe resting along the edge of the marble leg just like it did then. The awe fills me once again at being trusted with something so precious, so vulnerable.

I struggle to clear my thick throat. “You looking to recreate a photo or something, Pcholka?”

“Or something…” she trails off. The gleam in her eyes promises something I’m definitely not going to like.

Trailing her fingers along the fabric, she works her way toward me. When she reaches my side, she plants her palms on the altar and lifts herself onto the surface. Before I can do much more than suck in a gulp of air, she’s sliding before me, right between my legs.

“So you held me, right about here.”

The skirt of her dress settles barely past her hips, revealing her smooth thighs. There on the outside of her right leg, bruises from my fingertips from the night before.

The buzzing in my head grows and I can’t tear my gaze from the spot where I’ve marked her.

I can’t touch her.

Can’t even consider touching her right now with the raw replay in my head. “Cut it out.”

I take one step back, then another, leaving her alone on the altar under the massive cross suspended from the arched ceilings.

My sins are too many to count, but this was the one fucking thing I had that I could cling to. The good deed I could take with me in death to find some sort of forgiveness.

She raises her palms in surrender, the move so unlike her I flinch at the sight. “I’m running out of time, Kostya.”

“You’ll be with your brother. You’ll be fine.”

“Not if Vlad manages to get to me and if he does, I’ll wish for the dark again.” She gulps and the color drains from her face. “Because he’s promised me to Ivan Petrov.”

It’s as though the confession was meant for this place. This very spot where I promised to do anything to protect her. Where we’re both closest to God and the power of his protection.

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