Page 129 of Cruel Promise

“My plan?” He rolls his neck around like he’s stretching and not like he just had my father killed. “My plan is to humiliate Nikolai like he humiliated me. Taking his wife will do that to him. So, I’m going to give him a call, and we’ll wait for him to show.” He dials Nikolai’s number and puts it on speaker.

“Dimitri,” my husband’s voice rings out.

“Listen, I’m gonna keep this short. I have your wife. Come to my club. See you when you get here.” He hangs up before Nikolai gets a chance to say anything else. “See? Simple.”

“You’re deranged,” I say.

He points at me. “You might not want to say that to a man who just had your father shot in the head. Don’t insult me, Ava.”

“I don’t have to play by your rules. By anyone’s rules. You and Nikolai and the rest of the Bratva think you own everything. But you don’t.”

He whistles as he walks over to me. Not once does he touch me, though. “Your first lesson: We do own this city. We run it. We’re gods, your husband and me. And gods don’t take too kindly to being made a fool.” He backs away, and I can breathe again.

Dimitri motions at my father’s body. “Take him away. I’m getting tired of looking at him. He’ll soon start to stink up the place.”

The two guards scoop my father up; one places his hands under my father’s arms and the other one under his feet. I watch them take him out of the club. Who knows what’s going to happen to him? Honestly, I don’t really care. He can rot in a gutter for what he did to my mom and me.

“No love lost for daddy?”

I only glare at Dimitri.

“Touchy,” he mutters.

Nikolai bursts into the club, his gun raised. Dimitri grabs me, placing me between him and my husband.

“Coward,” I hiss.

“Just trying to survive the night.”

Nik hesitates when he sees me and lowers his gun. “Let her go, Dimitri.”

“Oh, I will. I have no intention of hurting her.”

“Then why did you kidnap her?”

“That’s rich since you forced her to marry you.”

“Dimitri,” Nik growls.

“Fine, fine. I’ll let her go just as soon as you get on your knees and beg for your life.”

“I will not.”

Dimitri shrugs, holding me closer to his body. It’s not sexual. It’s purely strategy. “Fine. Then you’ll never get your wife back.”

That changes something inside Nikolai. He looks at me, and for once, his eyes are open and afraid. I’ve never seen my husband look so afraid before. He is only human after all.

“Ava,” he says.

I can’t tell him what to do. Sure, I could beg him to do what Dimitri wants, but I can’t make Nikolai do anything he doesn’t want to do. He has to make the decision to be a better man of his own accord.

“What will it be, Nik?” Dimitri asks.

Nikolai doesn’t take his eyes off me. Not even as he drops his gun to the ground. Not even as he kneels before us and surrenders.

“Beg,” Dimitri snarls.

“I will not,” Nik repeats. “But I will let you kill me. If it means you’ll let Ava go, you can kill me, Dimitri. You can end this right here.”

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