Page 3 of Wicked Vow

“Go in the bedroom,” I snap, nodding toward the door, and Mikhail smirks.

“I knew you’d come around,kotenok,” he purrs, his eyes raking over my body. “You should shower first, too, though.”

“I plan on it. But you won’t be getting laid tonight.” I glare at him, lifting the gun. “Go get on the fucking bed, and stop with the commentary.”

Mikhail chuckles under his breath, but he does as I say. The rush of power I feel as he walks to the bed is almost intoxicating, and I wonder if this is how he felt with me–if it’s wrong for me to feel this way. If the pleasure I’m getting from turning the tables on him means I, too, am the sort of person I never thought I would be.

Maybe I’ve been that all along.I helped Max and Levin kill my father’s men. I helped them and Sasha escape. I didn’t scruple at anything that needed to be done.

It’s possible that he and I aren’t really so different after all.

I don’t have time to think that over, though. I follow him as he goes to the bed, and I keep the gun against the side of his head as I reach up to cuff one of his hands.

“Leaving one free? Very considerate of you,” Mikhail says, smirking, and I glare at him.

“It’s not so you can jerk your fucking cock,” I spit. “It’s so you can make the phone call I need you to make.” I reach down to where he’d left his pants discarded on the floor earlier, fishing out his phone, and hand it to him. “Don’t even think about calling someone to get you out of this, either. Call whoever it is that can get a clean passport for Ruby and me, and IDs. One word that sounds like it’s anyone else, and–”

“You’ll shoot me. I’ve got it by now,” Mikhail says sarcastically, snatching the phone from me.

I listen carefully as he makes the call. It’s risky. If he did call someone to help him, I might be in more danger than I was before. But something tells me, from the way Mikhail kept to himself as he’d stalked me, that he hasn’t let anyone in on this. And even now, as furious as he is with me, I don’t think he’d let anyone else touch or hurt me.

Especially not now that he knows the truth.

When he’s finished making the arrangements, he hands me the phone back. “You’re going to regret this,” he says, hissing the words through clenched teeth. “Meeting with Viktor isn’t going to go the way you think it is. He’s not going to help you. He’s going to helpme, and then you–”

“Will regret it? What about the baby?” I smile condescendingly down at him. “It’s my problem whether Viktor will want to see me or not. You just need to take the steps I tell you to take, and I’ll worry about the rest from there.”

I cuff his other hand as he glares up at me, and only then do I finally lower the gun. “We’ll see how you feel on the other side of all of this,” I tell him, setting the gun and the phone well out of his reach, before turning back to face the nude man now cuffed to his own bed.

“It’s time for the predator to understand how it feels to be the prey.”

Mikhail

It’s impossible to sort through everything that I’m feeling at the moment.

I’m fucking furious with her, for one. The humiliation of being held at gunpoint by my own captive, forced to follow her instructions, and now ending up cuffed to the bed is unthinkable–not to mention how furious I am with her still for going through my things, finding the photo, anddaringto question me about it.Daringto pity me, when it was her family who destroyed mine in the first place.

There are other feelings in there, too, though. Deep down, I can’t help but be impressed with her. She’s been smart, tough, and feisty since the moment I met her, all qualities that made the games I played with her so much more delightful than if she’d been a weeping, shrinking violet of a woman, begging for me to let her go. But tonight showed that she’s resourceful, too.

She’s trying to beat me at my own game, and for the first time, I’m not altogether sure that she might not succeed. And then–there’s the matter of the baby.

I hadn’t believed her. It had seemed insane. I’d had an instant flashback to pinning her to the bed, fucking her roughly as I’d told her how I wanted to make her have my child–but had I meant it? In the moment, it had been a fantasy, a kink–a power trip, if anything, but now–

The thought of having a child in the world,mychild, is terrifying. In an instant, I’d felt the urge to forget everything I’d planned for Natalia, to let my feelings for her change completely, just as I had the day we’d come back from the dance store when she’d told that stupid lie and I’d first had that feeling.

Knowing she’s pregnant makes me want to protect her, keep her safe from anyone and anything that might harm her or our child, and that’s in direct conflict with everything else I feel about her right now. It’s the most confusing thing I’ve ever experienced.

She’sthe most confusing woman I’ve ever known. I never knew it was possible to hate someone so much–and yet, at the same time–

I push the thought out of my head as Natalia sets the gun and phone far out of my reach, trying to focus on what makes sense. She was my enemy before, and she’s only amplified that by what she’s done tonight.

“You better hope I don’t figure out a way to get out of these,” I snap at her as she backs away. “You might think I won’t hurt you, but what are you willing to bet on that?”

Natalia doesn’t speak, and I rake my gaze down her, letting all of the things that I can think of to do to her show in my eyes. “You’ve fucked up,” I tell her, my voice low and rasping. “Viktor isn’t going to help you. And once we’re there, he’s going to help me make sure you pay for what you’ve done here.”

I run my tongue over my lower lip, leering at her. “I wasn’t entirely serious when I said I might ask for you for my reward, but now I think I will. I was going to just let him kill you–but I think tonight has changed things. I think I’m going to enjoy planning how you’re going to apologize to me,thoroughly, for this fucking bullshit tonight.”

“I don’t think so.” Natalia smiles pleasantly at me, and the coolness of her gaze is so infuriating that it takes everything in me not to lash out, jerking against the cuffs in a useless effort to get to her. It’s pointless, and I know it–and I don’t want to give her the satisfaction.

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