Page 33 of Twisted Cage

KONSTANTIN

My muscles bunch and flex with tension. The desperation I’ve been clinging to every day I try to find her, slowly slides into despondency. My men notice, eyeing me more and more warily, as though I may just jam the barrel of my gun to their forehead for looking at me wrong. Nikolaj sure as hell notices. And now, it has become so noticeable, I have no choice but to acknowledge it.

Even if only to myself.

Today has been the closest we’ve come. We finally have a physical lead. Someone spotted her a couple hours west of here, just inside Pennsylvania.

Wasting no time, me, my best men, and ten of Nikolaj’s guys hit the road. Every mile closer only increases my agitation and anxiousness to hurry up and get there.

I’ll be able to touch her again. Hold her. I’ll know she is safe. That the fallout of what we did hadn’t ruined her the way I fear.

Finding her is the only absolute proof Vlad hasn’t reached her.

Because knowing what he knows now, witnessing the aftermath of when I took her virginity in the chapel above this crypt, he has no reason to keep her unsullied. With nothing to gain, she’ll be at his mercy. Any perverse hunger he’s harbored for her will now be free from what little confines bound his most vulgar desires.

Total annihilation. Her absolute ruin from his sadistic hands.

Watching her mother’s spirit die, bleeding from her bit by bit, until her copper eyes dull entirely with lifelessness, had been horrid enough.

The same dead-eyed stare in Nikoletta’s golden eyes would destroy me entirely. She believes she is just a replacement for her mother. No. What I felt for her mother was no more than someone coveting a shiny object.

One with no history, no character, no unique qualities rendering it unforgettable.

My affection for her mother had no depth. No spirit.

But my goddaughter has seeped into the marrow of my bones. My soul knows hers. Feels her warmth. Yearns for her closeness. Waits with bated breath for her sharp wit.

And shamelessly craves her fire.

So when we arrive at the hole-in-the-wall diner where Nikoletta had been “spotted” and found a brunette of the same height and body shape, almond-shaped golden eyes, and plump lips that look so much like Nikoletta’s, yet nothing like her at all, I fight the urge to destroy everything in my path.

It is all I can do to temper the violence coursing through me.

How could they possibly think this was my Nikoletta? Where is the tiny dimple at the corner of her mouth when she smiles? The high cheekbones that create a subtle shadow under the apples of her cheeks? And where is the subtle crease running vertically along her plump bottom lip?

My Pcholka’s eyebrows arch gently on her left and peak sharper on her right, as if perpetually calling you on your bullshit. Where is the freckle under her right eye? And sure, this woman technically has golden eyes. Only with streaks of bronze. But my Pcholka, her golden eyes, framed with a ring of copper, hold a kaleidoscope of amber. A shade rich and deep exploding throughout, burning with breathtaking intensity around her pupils.

Returning early this morning, I came straight here. Stalking the length of the crypt. Hunched, unable to stand at my full height here in the prison of my own making, I seethe as I tear up the narrow confines.

A roar filled with outrage and hopelessness rips from my lungs. I whirl on the bed I shared with her for one night and flip the mattress, getting no satisfaction from the way it tumbles along the rough floor.

Her journal mocks me from where it sits on the frame of the bed. I’d tucked it away, out of sight, giving myself distance from my obsessive need to read her every word.

But this morning, red-streaked pages are as close as I can be to her. I snatch it up and climb into the claw-foot tub again, a sure sign I’ve lost my fucking mind. Flipping to the second half of the journal, I seek out the next page of us.

Her next teenage fantasy.

Hey, it’s me again…

My father had another party tonight, only this one, he didn’t parade me around like a prize pony. Nope, he left me to mingle on my own. I’d find him checking on me periodically, like this was some kind of test to see if he needed to put me on a leash or if I could handle socializing myself.

I smiled until my cheeks ached. I complimented wives and gave a little extra affection to their husbands, in a charming way, of course. In a way that made them believe they held my every scrap of adoring attention. Their chests puffed up with pride at my interest.

They never once suspected my movement throughout the crowd had nothing to do with making the rounds and everything to do with watching Konstantin.

He stood taller than every other man in the room. His shoulder-length silver-streaked hair wild, yet dignified. His shrewd gaze took in everything around him, including me. My very own broody babysitter.

Fuck my life.

---