Page 19 of Tarnished Queen

Nikolai cares about the baby. Not me.

He’s loyal to his Bratva. Not me.

Since I met him, Nikolai Zhukova has become one of the most important people in my life. Somewhere along the line, I convinced myself that feeling was mutual.

But it can’t be. Not if one mistake is enough for him to toss me aside forever.

“Maybe it won’t be forever,” I whisper, swirling my finger in the plush carpet. I’ve been leaning against the side of the bed, staring at the door for… I don’t even know how long. Without a television, a book, or even a sketchpad to distract me, I’ve taken to drawing simple designs in the carpet.

“But will he forgive me before I lose it and start draining my own blood for paint?”

I meant it as a joke, but it feels a bit too plausible to be funny. I have to get out of here.

I told Nikolai I’d cooperate with him if he took care of Elise, but he isn’t going to take care of her. He’s going to let her wander around the city by herself or die in a gutter or, maybe the worst of all, end up back with our mom just to spite me.

So I can’t sit here and wait for him to come around and decide he forgives me.

I need a plan.

I push myself to my feet, grabbing the bed for stability as the blood rushes back to my head. Then I search the room for a weapon. Something sharp or heavy that I can use to fight my way out of this room.

Unsurprisingly, there’s nothing. Every drawer and closet is empty. Unless I want to rip a sconce off the wall and wield it like a battering ram, I’m shit out of luck.

At the exact moment that I have that realization, I hear footsteps in the hallway.

I feel like a helpless rabbit, ears perked towards the noise, ready to flee at the first sign of trouble. Except there’s nowhere to flee. Even if my instincts are screaming at me to take flight, fight is my only option.

A key slides into the door. I position myself in front of it, legs spread and partially bent, hands up to… I don’t know, even. Defend myself? To fight him off?

Fighting Nikolai with my bare hands would be like trying to wrestle the wind out of a tornado, but I’m short on time and options and common sense.

The second the door opens, I take a deep breath and then sprint forward with my arms outstretched.

I expect my palms to meet the warm flesh of his body.

Instead, I hit metal.

It’s a metal tray, to be precise. And as I collide with it, all the food resting on it squishes onto Nikolai’s broad chest with a wetslopnoise.

He doesn’t even so much as stumble. He just looks down at me in disgust.

“Fucking hell, Belle.”

“Food?” I’m so surprised by the humane gesture that I forget about trying to escape the room just long enough for Nikolai to close the door behind him and set the tray down.

Half of the contents are smeared across his shirt, but there’s still a dinner roll and a cluster of grapes that escaped mostly unscathed. Like a starving animal, I lunge for the bread and then back away out of his reach once more.

“It was dinner, before you tried to… escape?” He says it like he genuinely isn’t sure of my intentions. “Was that your attempt to escape?”

“I didn’t have a lot of time to come up with something else, asshole.”

“You’ve been in here for three hours and that’s the best you could come up with?”

I blink in surprise. “It’s only been three hours?”

Nikolai drops the tray on the bedside table and then assesses the sloppy mess on the front of his shirt. He flicks a smear of mashed potatoes onto the floor before he grabs the hem and, in one fluid motion, pulls the clothing off over his head.

The last few hours have been a nonstop nightmare. A top-to-bottom disaster that saw me delirious with relief, beyond reason with lust, and smashing down into rock bottom.

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