Page 51 of Cruel Promise

“Yes.”

“Is she hurt?”

“Yes.”

Dimitri blinks. “Ah. Ok, so that didn’t help my point. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’re both powerful men who can benefit from working together. If you kill me, it’ll only create a shitstorm you won’t be able to come back from, and you know it, which is why you haven’t shot me. You could have done that the second you walked into my club.” He stands up and claps his hand on my shoulder. I fight everything inside me to not brush it off. “We need each other, Nik.”

Fuck him. He’s right. I reached out to him in the first place because I know I can expand my business even more with him helping. While I do love bloodshed, I don’t love endless war.

“No more games,” I say through gritted teeth.

He holds his hands up in surrender. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

I let out a quick breath and walk away. “It’s Nikolai,” I say over my shoulder.

He laughs.

AVA

It takes me the entire day to finally work up the courage to look at my face in the mirror.

And it’s an ugly sight.

Red, blotchy, and bruised. I barely look like myself. It’s ironic—my father sold me because he thought I was pretty enough to make him a lot of money. But now I’m not pretty.

I’m far, far from it.

I wonder if I’ll scar like Nikolai. Wouldn’t that be poetic?

I start the bath and strip off my clothes. All I want is to hide.

Nikolai bursts into my room and stops when he sees me in the bathroom. Naked.

I gasp before I cover my arms over myself though it doesn’t really hide anything. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s dinner time, and you weren’t coming down.”

“Oh. I wanted to take a bath instead.”

He starts to walk toward me, and every step is loud in the quiet room. “I can see that.” He doesn’t stop until he’s right before me.

“I just want to take a bath,” I whisper. “Please.”

“I won’t stop you.”

I turn my gaze away back to the mirror. “Are you happy?”

“About what?”

“My face. It’s my punishment for leaving you.”

His inhales and exhales fill up the air. It’s like I can feel him breathing over my skin. “No, I’m not happy. I hate that those fucking men hurt you.”

I shiver at the aggressiveness in his voice. “I’m ugly. You don’t have a pretty wife anymore.”

He places his fingers gently under my chin and turns my eyes up to meet his. “You’re beautiful.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

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