Page 76 of Twisted Cage

He doesn’t even need to lie to me anymore because I’m all too eager to lie to myself.

In record time he’s righted his tux like he didn’t just fuck my spirit out of my body while drinking my blood before hundreds of people.

“Now that I’ve tasted you, I’m hooked,” he whispers along the shell of my ear. “I will come for you, Pcholka. Remember that. Marry another, and I’ll come. And when I find you, I will fuck you in a pool of his blood right next to his mutilated corpse.”

Because if he can’t have me, no one else can either.

26

KONSTANTIN

I keep my eyes on the mirror, endlessly watching Roddick following close behind us, carrying Nikoletta. Deviating from the plan has an itch settling between my shoulder blades, my nerves pinging with every variation of sound and each flash of light as we make our way back toward the city.

Nikolaj left within ten minutes of emerging from St. Clair’s office, off to do the man’s bidding and climb one more rung on the secret society ladder, no doubt.

Understandable, but it left us down to two vehicles, with no choice but to have Nikoletta either leading in the first or following in the second instead of ensconced safely between the two the way I prefer.

I settled on keeping her in front of me. This way any danger would come from behind and encounter me before it could reach her. But thanks to some dipshit panicking as we approached the construction zone right after passing a vehicle with his four-way flashers on, we now lead. At least until we get through this next section and it opens back up into three lanes again.

Grigori’s phone buzzes on the mount between us. Never taking his eyes from the road, he answers with one swipe. “Talk to me.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re being followed.” Roddick’s voice holds a hard edge that has my back snapping straight.

“How many?” Grigori bites out as I reach for my gun. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of Sasha in the back seat doing the same.

“One, maybe two. Not sure just yet.”

I should have ridden in the same vehicle with her, but I knew, I just knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off her. I took enough risks tonight, marching her up to the balcony, doing my best to deliver on the fantasy she scrawled in her journal.

In the single most dangerous place imaginable. And even then, I didn’t give her the passionate fuck she lamented on in that damn diary. I toyed with her, then gave her possessive brutality, leaving my bite carved in her delicate skin. I spent the next hour watching with smug satisfaction, knowing my cum dripping from her spent cunt caused every wobble in her step thereafter.

She spent the hour glaring at me, keeping her back to the walls to hide my teeth marks.

The road opens up and Roddick punches the gas as he darts into the third lane. “Fuck. Definitely being followed. Two of them.”

The traffic fans out as cars bunched up just moments before get up to cruising speed, making it easier to spot the vehicles in question.

The problem with this particular road is, cars flow a good fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit. We’re going twenty over right now. Guardrails run along the right and cement barriers run along the left. Narrow concrete underpasses come out of nowhere in the dead of night and crop up the entire route on our way back into the city.

It’s too damn fast, with too many immovable obstacles. A battle on the road risks rolling one of us, maybe both of us, which will surely take out other cars as well.

Then it’s a matter of who makes it out of the wreckage quickest and shoots first. I don’t like the odds. Not with her life in the balance.

“Get ahead of us, Roddick.” I slide the magazine from the grip of my gun and check the bullets, although I know it’s fully loaded and ready to go.

“On it.” The thread of tension in his voice kicks my heart into a hard and heavy beat, my mind scrambling through all the scenarios.

If they sideswipe Nikoletta—nope. He’s got to get ahead of us. I won’t even consider the possibility.

If they sideswipe us—we wreck, die, and take innocent people in our vicinity with us, at worst. A gunfight at best. Either way, Nikoletta is miles ahead of us and away from the destruction.

The seconds draw out, my muscles tight, my whole body coiling into a singular focus, ready to strike. Even the most forgettable details around me. The bent corner of the speed limit sign. A missing reflector in a series of evenly spaced reflectors along the top of the guardrail. The exact quantity of stick figure kids in the family bumper sticker on the back window of the Honda we’re passing.

Gleb and Sasha sit silently in the back, guns ready in hand. Their eyes narrow as they survey every angle around us.

They’re good at their jobs. But for them, it is a job. For me, it’s my calling. Every time I’ve intercepted threats to Nikoletta’s life, the tiniest of details leading up to the battle carved themselves in my memory.

As though my mind is just waiting in anticipation of my fuckup so I can torture myself with every insignificant detail, looking for where it all went wrong until I drive myself mad or my heart stops beating.

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