Page 30 of The Game

“Promise to sleep, okay?”

I nod, but he just quirks his brow, and my hands fiddle across the back of his neck. He knows I’m nervous to be alone. He knows everything about me before I can even speak it into existence. Instead of it being weird or strange, it’s kind of nice. I don’t have to hide anything from him, because he can see right through me anyways.

He has from the beginning, and I was just the typical prep school bitch without even realizing that’s what I had become. Maybe…maybe that aspect of being here is a good thing, a blessing in disguise; I have a more profound empathy for others, yet I also realize the extent of my own privilege. Teddy is just my foil, my opposite, the one who makes those differences stand out in stark contrast.

He gently lays me down, pulling back the comforter so I can tuck my legs under it. As soon as my head hits the cool pillow, and the thick blankets encase me, I know I’ll be a goner. He leans over me, fists pressed on either side of my body as his eyes search mine and linger on the fist-sized bruise blooming across my cheek. Something akin to anger flits there in his gaze, but it’s not toward me. I seem to know what he’s going to say before he does.

“Didn’t like seeing you that way earlier. Not one fucking bit,” he says, snorting softly as he tears his eyes from mine and his jaw shifts. A sudden wave of tears threatens to consume me. He sighs, then hangs his head, tendrils of black hair falling in spikes across his shadowed face. It strikes me then, how beautiful he is, from the inside out, and I want to know more. I want to knowhim, his story, why he’s here. Not for my own edification, but to just know something deep and intrinsic about this man who’s become the most important person in my life aside from my twins.

No matter what happens beyond the here and the now, I am so, so grateful for him.

“I know…I know they’re gonna want their chances to get their revenge when all this is done, Alice,” he says, his voice gravelly and low. My chest seizes, and he flicks his eyes up to mine, his aura suddenly changing to something disturbing. “But…please don’t forget all I’ve seen through the years, what I just saw him do to you.”

He swallows hard, and when he speaks again, it is just a whisper of a moth’s wings against my cheek.

“If there’s one thing I’ll ever beg of you, it’s that you let me help.”

CHAPTER17

Maksim Volkov

“What do you see?” The harried voice of Tristan is easily deciphered from Jameson’s. Jameson is patient, methodical, a man after my own heart—if I fucking had one. Tristan cares too much, too deeply. Caring is dangerous. Leading with emotions does no good, especially in these situations. So I snort at his question as I descend the stairs, Liam flanking my left, Feliks on my right. As if I need fucking body guards. All I’d need to murder every patron in this shithole is five minutes and a pair of tweezers.

Would I be merciful enough to be quick, though?

No. Torture is the only thing that makes mefeelanymore. Not my cunt of a fiancée. Not my future. Not the empire I run or the very few friendships I put any effort into keeping up.

Only watching the life seep out of another’s eyes can bring me that overpowering sense of euphoria I constantly crave.

So when my beloved cousins all but begged me to find their little plaything, I’d given it some thought before agreeing. Intel has pointed me in this direction anyways concerning Violet’s whereabouts. The decision was then simple, for I never do anything for others that they themselves can do.

If they want that little slut back so badly, they should’ve just kept her chained in their home. The image that conjures up in my mind brings the faintest grin of blissful ecstasy to my face. Natalia looks like shit in cuffs. Her fake tits are so ballooned that the soft black ropes I knot her in lose their luster. I was gifted a spoiled bitch, albeit one that can take it as hard as I can give it. She’s hopelessly addicted to my cock, but the amount of times I’ve held a knife in my palm and imagined sinking it into her throat rivals the feel of her cunt tenfold.

“I see nothing you do not see,” I hiss into the hidden speaker in my dress jacket sleeve. Feet gracing the landing, my eyes sweep the wide, circular area. Women in cages line the path to the circus floor, a macabre, sinister place full of so much evil it oozes from the floorboards and calms my dead heart.

Marching forward, none of the women do so much as raise my heart rate by a single beat. My tastes are refined, particular, and no woman has ever met those demands, and I doubt any ever will.

Coming to a pause before the floor, I straighten my jacket out, tugging down once on the lapels. The risers are filled with men in business suits of varying prices, but I know mine is more expensive than all combined. Sitting in fancy chairs around their own small tables, the men drink and chat idly, eyes glinting in excitement. Tonight promises and boasts of special magical talents, and I am the patron who has paid to dine upon her flesh afterward.

Not in the literal sense, though I do like to bite.

“Where is this fucker?” I say to Feliks in Russian. Standing still as a statue by my side, he makes no indication he’s heard me until he snorts.

“There, boss.”

Raising one tattooed finger, my eyes follow his line of sight and fall upon a paunchy old man. He’s speaking with a group of men, mouth filled with an unidentifiable appetizer as a few pieces escape and plummet to the ground. My fists clench at the sight as disgust flows through my veins.

Attempting to distract myself, my eyes sweep through the area again, looking for any woman who resembles Alice. Part of me thinks she did this on purpose, was really just a good fucking actress, like my dear Natalia. But my cousins vehemently deny that logic, along with Fordson.

He’s lucky he is the only man I will ever listen to, and only for one very specific reason we vowed to never speak of beyond the day it happened.

Taking a breath, I straighten my tie, nothing if not perfection, always. Stepping forward into the halo of light, his head snaps in my direction, but my eyes stray to the ring and beyond, a flash of the most brilliant flaming hair fluttering before disappearing through a doorway. It’s such a pure shade it cannot have come from a bottle, and beauty in nature of that magnitude should be treasured, kept locked away safely so humanity cannot ruin it.

“Ahh,private, Mr. Volkov.”

My lip twitches as he attempts to speak Russian, and my eyes drag back to meet his exuberant face. My awe and wonder of that long, orange hair is suddenly replaced by rage—enough so that the urge to snap this motherfucker’s neck for interrupting my euphoric thoughts is so strong that I feel Liam’s heavy hand on my shoulder.

“We do not wish to speak. Show us our seats and leave us the fuck alone,” Liam growls. His beady eyes are not shocked at Liam’s surliness, which immediately puts me on high alert. The quiet fury that flashes in his eyes is soon replaced by faux meekness, and my smile grows.

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