Page 139 of My Dark Horse Prince

“Do you hold a grudge against them for not helping you in the famine?”

Boris and Mikhail lock eyes.

“Do you?”

“A grudge?” Boris shrugs.

“Yes,” Mikhail says. “Not only that. We’ve known each other for a long time, and our last hundred years haven’t been a walk in the park, either.”

“But who—”

The phone rings. Before he snatches it away, I see the name of the person calling.

Rukovoditel.

He who controls.

“Yes.” Mikhail’s entire body stiffens, his eyes flinty. He stands up and begins to pace again. “No.”

I strain to hear, but the volume must be set low.

“But she—” He grunts.

Boris is staring at him intently.

“Fine.” Mikhail frowns. “I said I don’t want—” His free hand tightens into a fist at his side. “Yeah.” He hands the phone to Boris.

Boris glares at him for a second before taking the phone. When he does, his expression is just as grim.

They don’t like this person, whoever it is that’s controlling them.

“No.” Boris pauses. “I agree.”

What’s going on?

“Fine.” He hangs up, and he tosses the phone to Mikhail. Then he picks up a chair, and he flips it upside down.

I expect to see something magical, but I’m disappointed.

He smashes the chair against the door frame, and it shatters more easily than I would have expected. It looked like a pretty sturdy chair. When he turns back toward me, I realize that I’m shaking. My entire body’s trembling like a leaf in a gale-force wind.

Because he’s holding the turned leg of the chair like a tiny club, and he’s advancing on me like a man with no options.

“Call your friend,” Boris says.

“Tell me you mean her no harm,” I say.

He stops, his lips compressed into a white line.

“You will kill her,” I say.

“You can’t save everyone, you know. Sometimes you have to worry about yourself first.” He reaches down faster than I can process and holds his free hand over my ankles.

There’s a quick zap, and I yelp, and then the ropes fall loose around my feet.

He’s freeing me?

“I could explain that I don’t want to do this, and that I don’t have a choice,” Boris says. “But we all have choices, and we’re about to give you one.” He flips me sideways, exposing my old injury, lifts the chunk of chair leg, and before I can even scream, slams it against my thigh, shattering the papier-mâché bone.

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