Page 22 of Reign of Four

I see Ezra wrapped up in tousled sheets, an inked arm thrown over his eyes as he sleeps through the afternoon. Andrei sitting beside me at dinner, a possessive palm on my thigh as he traces promises of our future into my skin. Mikhail’s wicked smile as he follows me across the estate, his footfalls echoing behind me as we play a game of cat and mouse, wherein the predator always tastes its prey.

I don’t regret a second of it, but I wish I did. My heart aches at how seven—not one or two—but seven days have come and gone, and I’m still here. A small, naïve part of me still believes they’re coming to rescue me, while the other, louder part believes I made the entire love affair up. It was, after all, only a week or two that we were all together.

As if that could become forever.

I look into Liam’s crystal blue eyes and miss Andrei’s ocean—all-consuming, unapologetically strong, possessive as it washes over me again and again, claiming me as his.

Liam could never compare to any of them, much as he tries.

“Even if I lived a thousand lifetimes,” I finally admit, “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Except, maybe, what comes next.

Liam’s mouth curls into a scowl so deep that I wouldn’t be surprised if it hurt. “You belong to me. You always have. You’d be giving them something you have no right to.”

I rise from my seat slowly, pulling myself to my full height. A mafia princess doesn’t own a single part of herself. Not her name. Or her personality. Least of all, her body. All of it belongs to whichever man happens to be in power at the time, whether that be her father, her brother or her husband.

But unlike a princess, a queen owns every part of herself. She can give pieces away as she pleases in little glimpses as gifts to those she trusts, or in their entirety as she overwhelms those she loves with nothing but her.

Liam deserves neither the pieces of me nor the whole, and I’m tired of wasting my time with a lesser man than me.

I turn to face him, delicately cupping his jaw in my palm, and truly look at him. All of him—every single line of frustration and desire rippling across his face—and savor the taste of it. Let his frustration fuel my own anger and resentment.

I’m going to need every last drop to break free tonight.

I press my manicured nails into the soft skin of Liam’s cheek, admiring the scarlet polish against his skin. The knife is in his pocket, just like it always is, and if I can grab it, I could sink it into the flesh right here.

I glance down to check for it, satisfied to catch its outline in his front left pocket, and take note of the growing bulge beneath Liam’s belt. If I’m going to strike, it’ll need to be while he’s distracted.

Tonight’s my first chance. My only chance. If I fuck this up, he’ll lock me up in that concrete prison downstairs, for good this time, and only take me out when he wants to play.

Turning my grip into a softer caress, I force a smile on my lips. “Tonight, I’m yours.”

A flicker of uncertainty in Liam’s eyes shoots a bolt of nerves through my system. Although his performance as pakhan begs otherwise, he’s not stupid. I’ll need to be careful with how I play this and only strike when he’s truly, one thousand percent unguarded. Go straight for the jugular. Or that artery in the thigh. Something irreparable. Something accessible.

I bite my lip, knowing that I could go for a very specific piece of him that I can get between my teeth later tonight, but grow nauseous at the thought.

Liam kisses me, smudging my lipstick as he forces his tongue past the seam, and presses me against the vanity, knocking over perfume bottles and skin products in his pursuit to claim my mouth. I cling to his shoulders as my heart kicks into overdrive, panicking that he wants to do this—to fuck me—right fucking now. I grab his thigh, my palm skirting the edge of the knife, and he groans deep in his chest.

He mistakes my fumble for the knife as encouragement, my skittering pulse for excitement instead of nerves.

“Later, love, I promise.” There’s an ache in his voice that I can feel in the hard press of his cock against my stomach. “I’ll give you everything, everything, Valentina, and finally put a baby inside you, make you mine again—” He pulls away, and the liquid fire in his eyes is a promise of pain. He’ll take me hard enough to bruise, to ache, to ruin.

To break my heart when my men, the ones I’d choose a thousand times, don’t come to my rescue.

I gave my three men every power card I had in my hand. Everything I’ve learned over the past seven days. Coordinates. A fucking map not only to this place but to every single location Liam plans to hit on his crusade to overtake the city. I gave them Riot, the one man actually sticking up for me in this fucking nightmare house. I’m more vulnerable than ever, and they haven’t fucking rescued me. They haven’t even tried.

I slip off the vanity and straighten my dress as Liam tries to remove the smudge of lipstick from his lips. The knife is hard to see around the bulge in Liam’s pants, but I know it’s there. I know I can grab it when the time comes to use it. If Andrei, Ezra, and Mikhail don’t arrive in time to save me tonight, I’ll have to make good on my word and save myself.

I’ve counted ninety-nine tears since I woke up in the basement. I won’t count any more—even if I have to shove a knife down Liam’s throat as the last one falls.

By the time Liam escorts me downstairs and seats me at the dining room table, Riot has returned to his post, hovering near the back of my chair as the remaining dinner guests file into the room. I’d say his timing was planned, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it. I have no clue where he went today, or if he succeeded in finding Andrei and the others. He seemed confident that he could—I didn’t bother asking why—so I took him at his word.

I stare into the face shields of every other guard in the room, trying to picture the men hidden behind them. Is the stockier one behind my grandmother Ezra in disguise? The tall, lean one hovering near the door, Mikhail?

Will Andrei walk intothe room pretending to be an invited guest, or will he come rushing in, guns blazing?

An icy shiver runs down my spine.

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