Page 38 of Twisted Cage

“So hot for me,” he gloats, as though he is some magnificent catch and any of us would be lucky to have his undivided attention.

Spinning in his arms, I lean back against the table’s edge and curl my fingers into his shirt, dragging him closer.

His eyebrow pitches in a smug arch as he glances down at the grip I have on him. “I knew you wouldn’t be like the others. You’re not meek, are you, Nikoletta?”

The others… the need to avenge his victims—who knows how many—takes over. Luring him in with flirtation dies as the echo of Regan’s sobs come back as though we are back in the bathroom where she scrubs herself painfully raw.

I want him exposed and vulnerable when I turn my violence on him. Dropping my hand to his waist, I flick the snap of his jeans and peel down his zipper.

With greedy eyes, he watches my hands work his jeans and underwear free, with a feigned eagerness, as though I can’t bear another minute without his cock.

Fighting the shudder of disgust, I peer up at him through my lashes and offer a smile that feels so brittle I’m sure he’ll recognize it. But basking in his own confidence, he misses the clues, the ones promising painful retribution.

Oblivious to the perfect storm of absolute rage building in me, he grips the base, his scrawny cock looking like an overcooked hot dog. One that has been nuked in the microwave just before bursting and left to cool and shrivel for hours on the counter. With an arrogant smirk tilting his lips, he thrusts his hips and smacks the pitiful-looking prick against my cheek.

A taste of the humiliation Regan had to have suffered spikes in me and his words—like the others—reminds me there are more women he’s left hollowed out and shamed, carrying stains of him they’ll never wash away.

My Romanoff blood and upbringing choose wrath. I let it sweep through me, embracing the violence, feeling more like myself than I have since I arrived.

With a jerk of my chin, I strike, sinking my teeth into the fleshy top of his thigh until the coppery taste of blood blooms on my tongue. He screams, the high-pitched sound ending on a whine before I grab ahold of his balls and dig my fingertips into where the delicate skin connects to his groin. My nails, although short, still have a bite. I grip him in my fist, digging them into the fragile area where they meet his body. The feral look I aim at his pain-filled eyes has him fighting to scramble away, but no, he won’t get off that easy.

I hear it then, a sound I can’t identify, but foreign all the same. As though the night has come to life, rippling with chaos and intent. If I want to make him pay, I have to do it now so the suffering inflicted is my trophy, and mine alone.

Elijah stumbles back, coughing and wheezing, his hands frantically pushing against mine as he fights to break my grip.

“You raped her,” I say through gritted teeth.

“No, I—she wanted—” His scream of pain cuts off his denial as I twist, sinking my nails deeper into his skin.

“She wanted?” I shove him back by his balls until he drops into the wooden chair. “Don’t you dare try to tell me she wanted it.”

“I—”

“No!” I slide my knife from my thigh, the light glinting off the blade before I press it into the skin of his neck, the pressure just enough to promise pain.

“She wanted her body to be her own,” I seethe.

“She wanted the fucking choice.” The skin on his throat splits under the pressure of the blade resting against his vulnerable skin. It takes everything in me to hold back. To keep myself from ending him quickly. Slicing into his artery is a mercy I’ll never give him.

“She wanted it to be for love.” I lean over him, his blood staining my lips, trickles of it drying where it runs down my chin. My words end in a vicious growl. In a fraction of a second, the knife at his neck is gone, flipped in my grip. I smile at him then, an evil smile that has him making one more futile attempt at lunging away.

Then everything happens at once. My ultimate power and my greatest weakness converging.

Soldiers swathed in black burst through the windows, leaving a shattered spray of glass in their wake.

The pounding footsteps of the army surrounding the building echo through the night.

The front door flies open, Konstantin’s massive height and wide, powerful shoulders dwarfing the doorway as he bursts through, guns drawn, eyes absolutely savage and locked right on me.

Pain slashes at my heart.

Every betrayal delivered by my father, Vlad, and finally, the man possessing me with his gaze alone, right at this very second, merging into a tight ball of hatred.

I channel my rage and stab my knife into the space between us. Pure instinct guiding my aim.

His eyes widen in battle between shock and terror, until shock wins, giving him one last reprieve before agony robs him of breath.

The blade drives through Elijah’s shriveled pathetic cock, before piercing clean through his balls, where it lodges with purpose and irrepressible violence in the wood under him.

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