Page 46 of Wicked Vow

My knuckles are stiff and sore from hitting Erik’s face, and I can feel the drying blood crusting on my skin, but all of it fades in comparison to the lingering sensation of Natalia’s lips on mine, her hands on me, and her body underneath mine.

I’d comesoclose to having her again. The worst thing about tonight isn’t that I might die, but that I might die having had that snatched away on the very cusp.

Natalia.I close my eyes, thinking of her, picturing her just as I saw her before Viktor’s security grabbed me–soft and yielding underneath me, her face so full of desire that I knew I wasn’t imagining it.

She’d been willing to hear me out. Willing to listen, to at least let me speak. All I can hope now, as I’m dragged out of the club, is that she believed me.

If I’m going to die, I want to do it thinking that she believed me.

That she might even have considered forgiving me.

The guards aren’t gentle. Far from it. They drag me past the dancers and customers, and I catch a glimpse of Erik out of the corner of my eye, being helped down a hallway by two other bouncers. It takes everything in me not to try to wrench away and go after him again–after all, if tonight’s my last night, I’d rather take him down with me.

I’d been so fucking close. If Natalia hadn’t stopped me–

But if she hadn’t, I might not have gotten the chance to say anything at all. To kiss her again, touch her again–

It was worth it. Surely she won’t let him get near her again, not after this–

That’s the worst thought of all–that I might die, and she might fall intohisfucking arms. That alone is enough to make me murderously angry all over again, but I’m already outside by then, being shoved into a dark-tinted SUV by the none-too-gentle hands of the security that grabbed me.

What was she even doing in that room with him? Dancing for him? Who the fuck does he think he is?

I’m aware that I should be thinking of what I’m going to do when I get to Viktor, what I’m going to say to him–if I even get a chance to see him. There’s every chance that he won’t appear at all, that some lackey of his will put a bullet in my brain, and that will be it. That he won’t even deign to make an appearance to see the man who so carelessly flouted his orders.

As if he wouldn’t have done the same, if it were Caterina.

I can’t think of anything other than Natalia, though–the way she’d arched beneath me on that stage, her hands in my hair and on my skin, the way she was so ready to let me have her all over again. The way I couldfeelin her body that she’d been missing me, longing for me,cravingme in the same way I have her.

She’s all I’ll think of, in the last moments, regardless of whether or not I have any right to at all.

She’s all I think of for the entire ride to Viktor’s compound.

The door jerks open as the car comes to a stop, and one of the guards reaches in, grabbing me and hauling me out with the same lack of grace as before. “Come on,” he barks, shoving me forwards as one of the others grabs my wrists, restraining them behind me with zip-tie cuffs. “Mr. Andreyev is waiting.”

So he is going to deign to make an appearance.There’s a clear threat behind the words, but I ignore it. There’s nothing that Viktor can do to me that I haven’t been prepared for him to do since I came back to New York, nothing that I haven’t prepared myself for the possibility of.

The only thing I hadn’t prepared myself for was dying with regrets. I’d never been a man who thought I had any–but then I failed to protect my family, and I blamed Natalia for it. A failure and a mistake, and I regret them both.

There’s nothing I can do about it any longer, though. Whatever chance I might have had to make it up to Natalia, I used up tonight. I likely won’t get another.

I’m marched into another chilly, blank concrete room. This time, I’m uncuffed, and my hands are yanked up above my head, restrained to a ring hanging from the ceiling. It’s nothing unfamiliar to me–I’ve been on the other side of this plenty of times. Most men would feel terror, but I feel nothing except a blank void. I know what’s coming, and I’ve been ready for it for a long time. A man like me doesn’t live so long without coming to terms with the possibility of a painful end.

The man trussing me up tests it, then turns on his heel and leaves me there without a word, stalking out and closing the door heavily behind him.

I can’t be sure how much time passes before the door opens again, and Viktor strides in, shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows and a grim expression on his face. For a moment, I think it’s just him, but then two other men walk in behind him, huge, muscled guards that I’m very sure are here to get their hands dirty so that Viktor won’t have to. From the look of them, he’s favoring a punishment that will take strength over dexterity, so I’m at least reassured it won’t be a slow and exacting torture.

“How long have we known each other?” Viktor asks coolly as he walks into the room and stops a foot or so away from me.

I say nothing. Not because I think it will help my case–I’m very sure that whatever Viktor intends for me is going to happen regardless of what I say or don’t say–but because I’m not really in the mood for the conversation that I’m guessing he wants to have.

Viktor lets out a long-suffering sigh and nods to the man on his right.

The man takes two strides forwards, and almost before I can see him swing, I feel his fist connect squarely with my gut, knocking the air out of me as I swing backward. For a moment, there’s nothing but the absence of air, overwhelming even any sensation of pain as I swing back towards them, and the man steps back.

“Now,” Viktor says, his face impassive. “I’ll ask again. How long have we known each other, Mikhail?”

A petty part of me wants to continue to refuse to answer, but I know that’s not in my best interests. I’ve been on the other side of this often enough to know that if there’s a certain script in his mind for how this is going to go, I’m going to stay alive and conscious until I give him the answers. I’m resigned to the fact that I’m going to die–maybe even painfully–but I don’t want to be pummeled for a question as stupid as that.

---