Page 48 of Wicked Vow

“Please,” I croak out, my eyes opening as I look at Viktor, and I see a look of surprise cross his face. Another punch lands in my gut, but he holds up a hand, and the men back off without question. “Please.”

“Interesting.” Viktor looks at me appraisingly. “Mikhail Kasilov, begging me. I never thought I’d see the day when you begged for anything. Are my men that good?”

“No,” I rasp, panting for breath as I look at him. “But I love Natalia. And I want to see her again.”

Viktor stares at me for a moment, startled. I can tell that I’ve caught him off guard, and I cling to that, as the chance I might have to get out of here–temporarily, if nothing else. In this moment, I’d take even a chance to talk to her one more time. Anything to not have that moment in the club be the last one between us.

“Youloveher?” He looks at me disbelievingly. “I think we have a very different concept of what love is.”

“I want to talk to her one more time. At least that. Please.”

Viktor frowns. “Why? And don’t say that you love her. I’m not sure that you could convince me of that after what I know you did to her.”

“I shouldn’t have done that. I was wrong–mistaken, caught up in revenge.” The words spill out between gasping breaths, and suddenly I’m every man that I’ve ever trussed up like this, on the edge of oblivion, begging for a little more time, for one last thing, for whatever it is that they want most. The irony of it is not lost on me in the slightest. “I told her that, but I didn’t have time to explain. I didn’t see what I was doing until it was too late–I need to talk to her. To see her. To say–”

“That you love her.” Viktor shakes his head. “Youwanther, because she’s out of your reach. That’s all this is. The last, pathetic begging of a condemned man.”

“Iloveher,” I insist through gritted teeth. “She’s like no other woman I’ve ever met. She’s the only woman in the world who has ever been a match for me. Who has everstood upto me. The only woman who has ever been everything I could need and more–brave, tough, intelligent, and beautiful. And I need her to know, before I die–that I see it. That I know what a mistake I made.”

I look at him, trying to breathe deeply through the waves of pain, to say what I need to say while Viktor is listening for a moment. “I was still a part of your Bratva when you married Caterina. I know that you know what it’s like to be a man who can’t earn the love of the woman you want–who is, at his core, a man that she isn’t sure she can love. So of all men, you should understand how I feel now.”

“It’s not the same.” Viktor looks at me, his expression is hard and cold, unflinching. “Caterina and I had a difference of values, which we eventually reconciled. I would never have done the things to her that you did to Natalia.”

“I want to speak to her once more. Please.” I suck in another breath, feeling my ribs protest. “That’s all. Then you can kill me, if that’s what you think you need to do. But I don’t want that conversation in the club, with the stench of that man still in the room, on her, to be the last one I have. Let me tell her goodbye properly.”

It’s the best I can do, I know. It’s not enough, but it will have to be. And I’m not even certain that will soften Viktor enough for him not to simply put an end to me here and now.

A beat passes, and another. I feel myself tense, waiting for Viktor’s hand to go to where I know his gun must be, waiting for the click that signals that I have only seconds left to live–and then nothing.

But instead, I see his face relax slightly, and he nods.

“One last conversation, then,” he says. “I’ll have Levin bring her here.”

Viktor gestures to the two men to walk out first. And then, without another word, he follows them, leaving me there in the darkness.

Natalia

Two of the security guards wait, eyes politely averted, as I make myself decent again. I tug my skirt back down around my thighs, feeling my face burn hot at the memory of what Mikhail and I were doing only a few moments ago.

What was I thinking?

It had felt instinctual, impossible to fight. All it had taken were his hands on me, his mouth on mine, and I’d been lost. It had felt as if every moment since the last time he’d touched me and this one had just been spent waiting for him to be close to me again, like two magnets who should repel one another and yet are dragged together anyway.

“Ms. Obelensky?” One of the guards speaks, clearing his throat. “Mr. Andreyev had Mr. Sorev taken to his office. Would you like to see him?”

Erik. Fuck.I rub one hand over my face, realizing that in the last few moments, I’d managed to almost completely forget about him. I’d been too caught up in whether or not Mikhail had been about to fuck me on the stage–which he’d been very close to doing, and I’d been very close to allowing.

I’dwantedhim to. It had felt like an unstoppable craving, a need that only he could have sated, a wildfire burning through my veins. It’s turned into a hollow ache now, and I want to ask if Mikhail is alright and what’s going to happen to him, but I know that they won’t have any answers for me. I’m almost certain I know, anyway, and it makes me feel frantic with worry.

I don’t have any way of getting to him, though. I don’t know where he is, where Viktor has had him taken. Not long from now, Viktor could be questioning him, torturing him,killinghim, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

You shouldn’t care. Didn’t he keep you captive? Hurt you? Torment you? You should be glad that Viktor is giving him a taste of his own medicine.

But I don’t feel that way. I don’t want him hurt. I don’t want him dead. And as for the rest–why Idowanthim–I don’t have the presence of mind just now to try to figure it out.

All I know is what I felt–and ashamedly, that I want to feel it again.

“Yes,” I manage, pushing myself up from the stage and nodding at the security guards with as much dignity as I can still muster. “I’d like to see him.”

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