VII (Seven) Read online

  It’s almost too twisted to consider. “Needed?”

  He laughs. Then he scowls. “To keep him sane.”

  A chill runs down my spine. God, it’s like I’m hearing Robert again, hissing his insanity into my ear. I need you, Elle.

  “Did he tell you that?” I rasp hoarsely. “Did you talk to him? Before—”

  “No.” Mischa shakes his head. “He didn’t have to tell me a damn thing, Little Rose. I just know how pathetic men like him operate. How they crave a woman’s devotion. Especially someone like you, pathetic and weak. If such a creature could still see the good in them, they can justify their fucking madness. You helped him sleep at night—”

  “Don’t blame me for what he was.” I don’t realize I’ve spoken out loud until he chuckles, eyeing me with amusement.

  “Why not? You said it yourself: He never forced you. You chose to marry him. You chose to fuck him every night. You chose to give him your devotion. Don’t lie to me and say you don’t believe for a second that having you in his bed made it easier for him to do the twisted shit you know in your soul he’s capable of?”

  Maybe it did.

  “But what about you?” I say, turning the tables the only way I know how: comparing them. “If your logic holds, then where is your woman? Your excuse?”

  “She’s dead.” His mocking smile falls flat. “And I don’t need anyone to fucking justify my actions.” He shoves back from the table and advances on me too quickly to outrun. When he’s paces away, he cradles my cheek with alarming gentleness, contrasting the anger smoldering in his expression. “You can try your little tricks on me, Little Rose,” he taunts, stroking my jaw. “But I don’t believe salvation can be found in your cunt.”

  “S-stop it!” My cheeks flame. “You have a strange idea of love.”

  His concept of the emotion is much more potent than mine. To me, love is duty. Sacrifice. But he makes it sound alluring. Dangerous. Capable of shaping men, and even more fantastical: changing them.

  “And you don’t?” Frowning, he draws his hand away. I think I’ve confused him. “Don’t tell me… You never believed your fucking Winthorp was a white knight, capable of saving your soul?”

  “Of course not.” I force a laugh for good measure. He’s mocking me. He has to be.

  “You’re serious.” A shadow falls over his face. “That poor fuck. He thought you were. His wife. His love. He would have fucking begged for you—”

  “But now he’s dead,” I interject, my throat tight. “And you? Did you beg for your love?” I don’t know where the question came from—or why I’m so curious as to the answer.

  Alarm runs down my spine as his eyes narrow.

  “I didn’t,” he says in a soft, lethal tone. “Because I was a stupid fucking fool. I traded her life for another’s. And you want to know something, Little Rose?” His fingers come to trace the hollow of my throat, catching me off guard. “That person wasn’t fucking worthy.”

  I recoil and race to the other end of the room, desperate to put distance between us. Anna-Natalia, Vanya’s daughter. He’s talking about her. Traded her life, he said? I have a sinking suspicion whose life he traded it for.

  Mine.

  “Don’t blame me for what you are, either,” I hiss at the wall—but it’s more of a plea than a rebuttal. Robert’s already tainted my soul. I can’t take any more.

  More guilt.

  More pain

  More envy?

  “Oh no you don’t.” Laughing, Mischa moves to stand opposite me, refusing to be ignored. “Look at me.”

  A sliver of blond hair obscures his gaze. Only the stern set of his mouth gives me a clue as to what he’s feeling.

  “You want me to enlighten you?” he asks. “Teach you what he never did? Let’s start with the truth: All I want from you is the one thing you never gave him.” He waits, ensuring he has my full attention. Then he smiles, displaying a terrifying array of white teeth. “I want your honesty, Little Rose. Can you give me that?”

  He doesn’t seem to really want an answer. Not now anyway.

  “Let’s start with your first lesson,” he says, abruptly changing the subject. “Sit.” He nods to the chair nearest him.

  Heart in my throat, I approach it. This close, I’m aware of his scrutiny, how he eyes my quivering throat and heaving chest.

  “Twenty-four years ago, the Winthorps started a war.” He leans back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. Apparently, this story will be a long one. “Can you tell me why?”

  I grit my teeth. My ignorance is a toy he constantly loves to play with. “You know I don’t—”

  “But you should.” His tone softens, unnervingly quiet. “Because your mother was at the start of it.”

  I blink, unsure if he’s joking—but there is no mocking smile to temper the impact of his words.

  “Oh, don’t look so shocked.” He leans in and drags his thumb along my cheek as if savoring how my eyes widen. As I gape, he brings the digit to his mouth and flicks his tongue over it. Then he says, “I think you’ve suspected it all along, haven’t you? That she was the very first. Marnie Winthorp. She was fated to be number one.”

  Chapter 8

  I clutch the surface of the table if only to keep from reaching for the necklace hidden beneath my shirt. I know he can see it: the desperation to know more that I can’t even begin to suppress. I picture her. Marnie, beautiful Marnie. Not only was she a victim in the feud, but a cause of it? “How?”

  “It’s not what you’re thinking,” Mischa scolds. “It wasn’t some petty, romantic squabble. Your mother was meant to pay a price, Little One. A life for a life.”

  “Then how was she the first?”

  I expect him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. Instead, he extends the silence, reminding me of Robert when he hunted, patiently anticipating the moment his chosen prey would take his bait.

  So I bite. “Tell me!”

  “Fine. Your Winthorps weren’t always so high and mighty,” Mischa counters. “Years ago, they had an arrangement with the mafiya. They ran our accounts, and we protected their interests.”

  His subtle inflection betrays what he really means: that his people were muscle for Robert Sr.

  “But your husband’s father got greedy. He thought he could betray us, his allies. Your mother was meant to be his punishment. When she was taken, I’m sure they thought she was dead. So they retaliated.”

  With him and his mother? I don’t dare ask. Instead, I remember something else he told me once. Anna-Natalia was number twelve. Was Briar meant to be thirteen?

  “You said you traded one life for another,” I say cautiously. From his expression, I can’t anticipate his reaction. I have no choice but to forge on. “Mine? Briar’s? For Anna—”

  “You were never a damn factor in any of this,” he says, reminding me of my fate: a decoy. How ironic that in both my encounters with him, I was always standing in for someone else. “It was always about Briar.”

  But he’s lying.

  “So then why didn’t you go after her? In the woods,” I say. “Don’t lie to me by claiming it never happened. I know what I saw.”

  It wasn’t a vivid dream after all. Briar was in those woods—and once again, he saved me.

  Something flits across his gaze too quickly to name. “I miscalculated,” he says finally and I flinch, caught off guard by the truth. “I thought that you might mean more to him.”

  “Either way, you killed him.”

  “But if I didn’t?”

  My stomach drops as Mischa turns from me, his voice a thoughtful murmur.

  “If he lived. Would that make you turn against him, your precious husband? Knowing that he would have let you die as a sacrifice?”

  “No.” I’m as surprised by the admission as he seems to be. He whips around, eyeing me with predatory focus. “If Robert chose his sister over me…it would have been him being selfless.”

  Briar didn’t carry his secrets. She couldn’t
warm his bed.

  She never carried his seed.

  “Selfless?” Mischa’s thumb grazes my cheek and I jump. He’s frowning again. Confused? “To let you die for him?”

  “No.” I shrug him off. “Because he would have finally let me go—”

  “Mischa?”

  We both turn to the doorway and find Vanya standing there.

  Warily, his gaze darts between the two of us. “Your…input is needed,” he says, wording the phrase carefully.

  To hide something, I suspect.

  From me.

  “You can speak freely, Ivan,” Mischa says. He passes me and enters the hall with his mentor on his heels. “It’s not like Little Rose has a family to run to, should she escape.”

  I grit my teeth against a reply. Instead, I stand and pad after him, straining my ears for more. Maybe there’s a reason Robert never enlightened me more than he needed to. Knowledge is addicting. It’s power. Already, I’m seeing slight nuances in a different light.

  Everything seems clearer, and maybe, deep down, I’m…relieved? Briar thought Robert would trade her for me. Is that why she used me as her own decoy? In the end, he proved her wrong.

  And she finally won the only game that mattered.

  “There was a complication,” Vanya says, drawing my attention back to him. He and Mischa are paces ahead, navigating a section of the house I don’t recognize. It’s darker, the walls plainer and less ornate. Somewhere I suspect they utilize for business over leisure. “Nikolaus hasn’t let your treatment of his son go uncontested. He’s been spreading rumors to other members of the syndicate, the fucking worm.”

  “Rumors?” Mischa questions, but I can’t help feeling that he sounds disinterested. Distracted. I’m not the only one haunted by our last conversation, it seems. “Rumors like his son being a fucking traitor who deserved to be gutted?”

  “No.” Vanya looks back as if remembering my presence. “Rumors that you…”

  “I told you, Vanya,” Mischa scolds. “You can speak freely around her.”

  He sounds so damn smug. Whatever the topic of this conversation is, I suspect that it revolves around me.

  “Fine. That prick has been saying that you’re too busy fucking Robert Winthorp’s leftovers to properly lead. It’s gotten the others talking. Some are grumbling that Sergei might be more level-headed—”

  “Is that so?” Mischa laughs, stroking his chin. “Maybe it’s time to pay Nikolaus a visit? Perhaps later. But for now…”

  We round a corner, coming to a narrow room that must be at the very back of the house. Blinds shroud the windows, choking off most natural light. I can only make out the shrouded shapes of various objects. Boxes? Furniture?

  “I want to show Little Rose what her life is worth,” Mischa declares. He flicks a light switch, flooding the room with the glow from a single lightbulb dangling overhead.

  This space might have been a study once, like the one he has upstairs. Now, it’s a storeroom containing the mysterious cardboard boxes I spotted in the very first place he kept me after my capture. After approaching one, he pries the lid open and grasps one of the items within.

  “Look,” he commands, holding it out to me. “Your husband dealt in flesh. But this is what I deal in.”

  Butterflies squirm to life in my stomach. I don’t know what to expect. Cocaine like the awful packets Nicolai possessed? Bloodied coins?

  Anything but a long, black object. Its infamous shape leaves no question as to what it is.

  “Guns?” I whisper.

  According to him, my husband made his fortune on the literal backs of others. How fitting that Mischa trades in violence.

  “So unimpressed,” he muses as he returns the gun to the box and closes the lid. Is he disappointed? When he captures my chin in his grip, I can’t tell. He merely observes me, hunting for secrets within my skin. “The way you act when I say his fucking name…” He chuckles, but there’s a harshness to the sound that steals my breath away. “It’s like he had you in a fucking cage. But I don’t believe that.” His nostrils flare as he leans in close. “He kept you so fucking pampered a handful of diamonds wouldn’t faze you.”

  The sound of a throat being cleared makes me jump, and Mischa turns away from me as if realizing Vanya is even there.

  “I’m going to track down Nikolaus,” Vanya says, his tone gruff. “Before that bastard can spread more lies. In fact, I think you let him off too easy the last time. If his son traded with Winthorp’s, who’s to say the father didn’t, too?”

  Mischa’s eyes narrow into lethal slits. “Who’s to say.”

  “Then let me handle this.” Vanya turns and exits the room.

  I make the mistake of thinking we’re through and start after him, desperate to retreat to quiet again. Robert, bathe me in gold? Maybe. Gold chains. Golden cuffs. Golden bars over every window.

  “Oh no you don’t.”

  I stifle a gasp as Mischa grabs my other arm before I can slip past him.

  “I want to know,” he snarls against the back of my throat. “I want to know more.”

  About Robert.

  “Why?” My voice comes out pained. Afraid? “He’s dead—”

  “So you keep saying. But he’s alive and well in here, Little Rose. Isn’t he?” He grips my skull between his hands, applying just a taste of the brute strength he’s capable of. “He didn’t give you a fucking ring and yet he was willing to kill for you. He hid you. He beat you. Scarred you. Raped you. And yet, every time I’m fucking inside you, I know he’s there.”

  “And if he is?” I spit, exasperated. When he doesn’t answer, I can’t help scoffing. “What do you want from me?”

  His grip tightens, and the room blurs as he drags me into a corner and shoves me against the wall. He gives me no time to regain my bearings. Hot fingers slide around to my front, wrenching at the fastenings of my jeans. Too hard. The clasp breaks, opening me up to a ruthless assault. Then he palms me completely, groaning at the feel.

  His hand is too rough. Raw. My breath catches, chest heaving, as individual fingers writhe against my flesh, wringing sounds I don’t even recognize from my throat.

  “Ride me,” Mischa grates into the nape of my neck. “Fuck. Do it.”

  His index finger parts my folds, flicking in a sinful downward motion. It’s like my spine is on a puppet string, controlled by that single, callous touch. Again. Harder. Deeper.

  My hips start to rock in time with each motion and he grunts in approval.

  But it’s still not enough.

  Suddenly, his hand withdraws only to tug on my arm, wrenching me around to face him. Shadows exaggerate the amber gaze I’ve come to fear. A million hidden emotions lurk within it. Demanding things from me. Craving.

  But he never says what out loud. He strips me bare instead, shoving his hands beneath my jeans, opening me up to the cock he’s palming with trembling fingers. When I start to look down, he grabs my chin, forcing it up. Forcing me to watch him. How his eyes narrow when he sinks into me. The way his nostrils flare with my scent. How he groans at the sinful fit.

  His eyelids flutter as he begins to move, thrusting deep. Hard.

  Too deep.

  “Don’t,” he warns when my gaze starts to drift. “Look at me. You fucking—” A harsh buck of his hips makes me whine, which almost drowns him out. “Look. At. Me.”

  Our gazes reconnect and it’s like he’s in my head more than my body. Boring in too roughly to stop. Showing no mercy. No sanity.

  Just taking more. More. More.

  My teeth clench around a hollow moan. My knees are jelly, leaving my arms no choice but to grab him for stability. My face aims for his shoulder. I need to hide my gasps. My searing cheeks inflamed with shame for how my body grips him. I need to smother the things I shouldn’t feel.

  “No.” He tilts his head, jarring our noses together. Our mouths. Nipping teeth capture my bottom lip, holding me captive. His eyes are hollow, devouring mine. Something flashes acro
ss each fiery iris, gone in an instant. “You’ve never been this wet for him,” he insists between harsh, laving strokes of his tongue. “This loud. Fuck, you’re whining for me.” His eyes close as he savors the high-pitched cries rolling off my tongue.

  God, he’s moving faster. Harder. I can’t breathe.

  “You’ve never needed him like this. Have you?” A brutal thrust makes my vision blur.

  Need?

  “You were made for this,” he tells me. “For me.” He bucks forward, twitching, straining, spilling.

  My thoughts fade. The world spins and spins, and for a split second, my body is the center of the universe. The orgasm slams into me so hard that I can feel the Earth fucking move.

  I regain clarity on my hands and knees, gasping on dusty, still air and masculine musk. He’s behind me, hunched over my shuddering frame.

  “Even now, he’s still there,” Mischa accuses, nipping at my collar with punishing jabs of his teeth. “Still inside you. Still owning you. I could fuck you for hours and I still couldn’t drive him out.”

  He stands, staggering to find his balance. In seconds, he’s redressed, heading for the door.

  To leave.

  To brood.

  Alone.

  But something holds him back, making him pause over the threshold.

  “Tell me something,” he demands, sounding ragged. Empty. Soulless. “If I offered you your freedom. Money. Your fucking soul. Would you ever, for a second, feel for me what you felt for him?”

  What I felt for Robert? My blood runs cold, erasing the aftermath of my climax. I shiver at the thought of it, and nothing could disguise the horror that racks my voice. “N-no.”

  He laughs, even as his eyes darken, sending a chill down my spine. “Why am I not surprised?” He leaves, slamming the door after him.

  Angry?

  If I felt for him what I felt for Robert…

  It would be easier to bear him, certainly.

  Because I’d feel nothing.

  Chapter 9