Page 7 of Kings of Cruelty

Tears roll down my cheeks because I can’t have anything that I want right now. I’m going to be stuck in a hospital bed, alone and in pain, trying to come to terms with the fact that Konstantin, Nikolai, and Yuri managed to get me knocked up within a few short months.

Yuri.

It’s not that I want him there, exactly, even though he’d been the first of them I’d connected with. But I’m abruptly worried that he didn’t survive the fight that had landed me here to begin with. “Is Yuri okay?” I rasp out.

Konstantin and Nikolai exchange a glance.

“You don’t need to see him,” Nikolai answers with a scowl. “Never again.”

I don’t understand, but before anyone can explain it to me, a burly man in a black uniform barges into the room.

“Out! All of you!” he barks. “Or I’ll call the cops and have them remove you.”

I whimper, desperate for someone to stay.

“Kyran and I were leaving anyway. Konstantin, Nikolai, if you want us to pick up food for you, please text me,” Silvano says. He takes Kyran’s hand and starts moving to the door, but Kyran digs his feet in.

“No, Silvano. If somebody is staying with her?—”

“He threw the punch,” Nikolai interrupts, pointing at Kyran.

Kyran glares at him. “I’m her fucking brother, not her—” He cuts himself off, but I know what he was going to say.

Rapist.

And fuck, aren’t both Konstantin and Nikolai exactly that? They’re more, too, though—and I don’t know when that happened. I don’t understand.

“Please,” I beg, and the guard turns to look at me. “Not all of them.”

I’m crying harder, and the man softens.

“One more incident, and Iwillcall the police,” he warns. “You can have one of them.”

Nikolai looks like he’d rather cut off his own hand than say it, but he grits out, “Konstantin should stay. He’s…” He doesn’t seem like he knows how to describe Konstantin’s relationship to me.

Hell, I don’t either.

Konstantin looks to me, his eyes soft. “Who would you like, Sierrochka? I will respect your decision.”

There’s another sharp pang that I’m not sure has anything to do with my injury, but everything to do with my heart. I want Yuri, but he’s not here, and Konstantin and Nikolai are apparently furious at him for reasons I don’t understand.

I take a deep breath and regret it instantly. I want my fucking mother. She’d never understand, but she would let me cry and hold my hand and maybe she’d even sympathize with me instead of blaming me.

God, my family is so fucked up.

Kyran and Silvano have departed, leaving Konstantin and Nikolai behind.

“Ma’am?” the guard prompts.

“Sorry,” I tell Nikolai, who nods. He looks resigned, like he’d already been expecting it, and he leaves the room with the guard on his heels. But he’s been acting so strange with me lately, and Konstantin is the most stable of the three of them.

I look at Konstantin, but I don’t know what to say to him.

Konstantin pulls a chair up next to the hospital bed, then takes hold of my hand again. He lifts it up to kiss it, and another flutter of warmth goes through me.

“Sierrochka. When I saw you get shot…” He lets out a deep sigh. “You don’t need to worry. Everybody involved is…gone, or being punished.”

Punished. I don’t think I want to know what that means. It turns my stomach.

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