I narrow my eyes as figures appear in the distance. Some of Aleksei’s men, I think, standing in a circle.
“Where are we going?” I ask. “What are those men doing?”
He doesn’t answer me, just holds my hand tighter like he’s daring me to run. Once we get closer, the men turn to us, parting enough for me to see what was hiding behind them.
No, not what, but who.
A man. On the ground. Hand and feet zip-tied in front of him. Bloodied. Bruised. Barely conscious.
My pulse spikes. “What is this, Aleksei?”
“This,” he says, mouth twisting into something cruel, “is the man who drugged you.”
I take a step back, sucking in a sharp inhale. “No. No, Aleksei, I can’t…I can’t be here. I can’t be seeing this. Do you understand me?”
His fingers wrap around my jaw, his mouth nearing mine, his breath warm and calm. Too calm.
“Youwillsee it. Because I want you to understand what happens when someone dares to hurt what’s mine. And youaremine, Fiona. Whatever twisted form this takes, you are a Marinova now. I willneverlet anyone hurt you again.”
He lowers me onto a stone bench, and I don’t even notice it until the cold bite hits my thighs. His hand cups my cheek as his gaze sucks me in. There’s something terrifying in it, but something protective too.
Then he makes it worse and kisses the top of my head with a gentleness that feels like it belongs to someone else. The tenderness clashes so violently with everything I know him to be, it leaves me breathless. It’s like being touched by two men at once—the monster and the guardian—and I don’t know which one to fear more.
“Please,” I whisper. “Let the court handle him. I’m begging you.”
He leans in, gaze unreadable. “You’re in my courtroom now, Ms. Prosecutor.”
As he steps toward the man, my clasp tightens on the edge of the bench, fingers digging into the cold surface.
He seizes the man by his hair, jerking his bloodied face upward into the fading light. The man can barely lift his head on his own. One eye is swollen shut, the other wide with terror. A deep gash splits his cheek open, bleeding freely down his jaw. His cries are broken, soaked in the kind of fear that only comes when death feels close enough to taste.
“I’m sorry,” he sobs. “Please. P-p-p-please don’t kill me.”
Aleksei keeps hold of the man’s hair, his voice almost gentle, but threaded with a fury so sharp it slices straight through me. “When I’m done with you, ublyudok, you will beg to die.”
His hand moves to his waistband, drawing out something that flashes silver before I register what it is.
A blade. Long. Curved. Gleaming like something unholy in his hand.
I go still. No part of me wants to see what comes next. But when I start to turn away, his voice lashes the air like a whip.
“No.”
My breath catches.
“You will watch, moya ptichka. You will remember. This is your husband. This is what he does for you.”
For a moment, our eyes collide, and I’m hit with the terrifying truth.
This is his promise. This is the real Aleksei. The murderer, the torturer, the bloodthirsty villain in every one of the fairy tales I read as a child.
When he slashes across the man’s forehead, it happens so fast, I almost miss it…until blood starts to spill like tears that will never dry. The man shrieks, the sound twisting into something inhuman.
I jolt, my fingernails scraping against the rough stone of the seat beneath me. I want to close my eyes and vanish. But I can’t. He won’t let me.
And some twisted part of me doesn’t want to.
The second cut is slower. It carves down the man’s arm, skin peeling back like paper too thin to hold shape. Crimson floods down his side, soaking his shirt. He howls, his legs jerk, body writhing like a wounded animal caught in a trap.
