Page 23 of Born in Depravity

MIKHAIL

I watchedas my brother touched little Catalina, a surge of envy working through me.

Of course Damien wouldn’t have let her go without marking her in some way, and touching her so intimately was it.

I didn’t know why I insisted on staying behind when they both approached her. Perhaps there was still a conscience somewhere in this dark hole I called a heart, because I knew, even without looking at her, that she was too good for me and my brothers.

It wasn’t going to stop us from taking and keeping her for our own.

In fact, it might just make us want her more.

I didn’t know what it was about this girl that got my stomach all tied up in knots and my lungs constricting, making it so fucking hard to breathe.

From the moment she showed her face to us, her fate was sealed.

She had been our obsession.

Our every thought.

I’d spent years calculating how I would get Angelo’s greatest treasure out from under his nose. The bastard didn’t make it easy. He had been running away from us for the past thirteen years, and when we finally got the location, little Catalina decided to run away from home, making this so fucking easy, I could have laughed.

Nikolay came out of the gas station, a bright package of what looked like candy in his hand, just as Catalina moved to the diner next door. A rundown place with customers consisting of runaways, lowlifes, and truckers.

I ignored the twinge in my heart that said to go to her, to fucking cut off the hands of anyone who would be stupid enough to touch what was mine, and stayed where I stood.

Nikolay and Damien walked over to me.

Nikolay smiled, baring his teeth, satisfied that he had been close to her. I shook my head at him, and he slapped me on the back. “Fuck me, but the girl is like a sacrificial lamb to the Big Bad Wolf.”

“Big badwolves,” Damien corrected, and Nikolay, like the twisted fucker that he was, laughed.

“What’s the plan?” I asked them.

“What plan? How hard do you think it is to snatch up one little innocent?” Nikolay asked, a mean glint to his eyes.

“In broad daylight? I thought we weren’t trying to draw attention to ourselves.”

“Okay, so we make sure there are no witnesses around when we take her.”

I shook my head, and Nikolay laughed again. “Come on, I’m fucking hungry, and I bet there’s something delicious in that little diner.”

Without waiting for a reply, Nikolay headed toward the diner Catalina had disappeared into. Something told me he wasn’t talking about the food.

Damien and I followed him in, at a much slower pace.

The bastard was damn eager.

I should probably tell him to tone it down, but our revenge was fucking twenty years in the making.

* * *

The bell dingedwhen Damien and I entered, drawing the attention of the waitress at a nearby table. I ignored the look she shot our way and moved to the table Nikolay had already picked out for us.

It was a booth away from the window, and two tables from where Catalina sat, completely oblivious to the monsters lurking nearby. I took the seat facing her.

Nikolay had picked the seat with his back to her, though I knew he was aware of her every little movement.

She shone in this dingy place like a star during a blackout.

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