Page 49 of Cruel Promise

“Jason, go,” I repeat. “Just go.”

He turns and runs away. I let out a breath of relief. Good. At least there don’t have to be anymore dead bodies tonight.

Nikolai turns to me. “He was smart.”

“You didn’t have to threaten him. He did nothing wrong.”

“He did nothing wrong? He was talking like he owned you.”

I can’t help the scoff that escapes me. “You talk like you own me all the time.”

“That’s because I do.”

His words settle over me, turning my skin cold. Nikolai does own me. He did, in fact, buy me.

But he doesn’t love me because love is not possessiveness. It’s not about controlling another person.

“I will keep trying to escape,” I say. “Because I cannot be with someone who doesn’t respect me.”

“I saved your life.”

“You ruined my life,” I hiss.

His eyes widen like he’s actually surprised. I guess in Nikolai’s mind, he didn’t do anything wrong by taking me from my father. He thought he was saving me from my father who was going to give me to someone else if Nikolai didn’t take the offer.

He even physically saved me from the men attacking me.

But Nikolai didn’treallysave me. Because nothing can save me from him.

“You can’t actually tell me you like that boy,” he says.

“He was my friend. He may have … betrayed me tonight, but he doesn’t deserve to die for it.”

Nikolai goes quiet. “How did he betray you?”

“No. I’m not going to tell you just so you have an excuse to kill him. Let’s just go home. I’m tired of looking at those … dead bodies.” A gasp escapes me as the events of the night hit me. Never before have I truly seen a dead body.

I saw my mom shot, but my father made me leave the apartment before I really saw her die.

A sob hits me as I bend over. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. All I feel is fear.

Nikolai pulls me back into his arms and keeps them there as I cry. The pain doesn’t leave me, not even when the tears stop. But Nikolai lets me go, and I follow him to his car and get in because I’m too weak and tired and scared to try running from him tonight.

I thought Dimitri would help me. He didn’t. I thought Jason would help me. He didn’t. My own father never helped me.

All I have is Nikolai, and that thought makes me so sad that all I feel is numbness.

“Good to see you back home,” Edmund says once I step through the front door. His smile doesn’t comfort me. It’s all just fake. If he truly wanted to help me, he would have.

I stare at Edmund until his smile disappears and Nikolai gently pulls me away.

Once again, Nikolai puts me back in my room, but this time, he doesn’t stay to talk with me or have a strangely sexually charged moment with me. No. He just shuts the door on me. I hear his footsteps walk down the hallway to his own room—the room I’m not allowed into.

The only saving grace is that the door isn’t locked.

I’m amazed Nikolai hasn’t forced me to stay locked within this room. I could leave again if I wanted to. Is this his way of testing me?

My tiredness wins out, and I fall back onto the bed, letting sleep overtake me.

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