“I know it is. Which is why it irks me that I had to leave my wife naked in our bed to have to deal with you.”
“You son of a—”
“Uh uh,” I say, walking aimlessly around the room. “I don’t want to have to break your jaw before we have a conversation. Be good.”
“What did you do to my daughter?”
“Please. Let’s not pretend you give a shit about her now. How’s your other one? Enjoying her freedom?”
Face growing red, he points a finger in my direction. “You leave Anya out of this! Your problem is with me.”
The hypocrisy makes my blood boil. Once again, he’ll fight for Anya, but not for my wife.
I approach his desk, looking him in the eye. “My God. You’re such an idiot you don’t even realize you’re leading me straight to her.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
I don’t even bother to explain. Before Victoria, a night like this would’ve given me that adrenaline rush I’ve been living on for most of my life. But now? I meant what I said when I told him I’d rather be at home, next to my naked wife. Or rather balls-deep in her pretty cunt.
Muffled, high-pitched voices break through the silence of the house, followed by loud thumps and the sound of broken glass. I look up at the ceiling, pressing my lips into a thin line. Nikolai looks too, realizing what’s happening.
“No,” he says, supporting himself with his hands on the desk before rounding it. “No! You leave them the fuck alone!”
I step away, only to grab him by his nape, twisting his arm at his back, shoving his face into the desk.
“This is what’s going to happen, Nikolai. Your daughter and your wife are going on the market tonight, because you no longer exist. You’re a ghost. A shell of a man. I already took everything that you were away from you. What, you thought I’d let it go, that I’ve taken enough? No, no, no. You know better. And if you don’t, well, you should’ve.”
“H-Hate you,” he wheezes. “She’ll hate you if you do this.”
Pulling his head back, I slam it into the table harder.
“She already hates me. It wouldn’t change a damn thing. Catch up.”
I release him and he wheezes, still bent over the table. The screaming subsides, a sign that Anya and Nikolai’s wife were taken outside. Officially, my job here is done. Our lawyers took care of the hotels being passed on to someone else in our network. His money is gone—we emptied his accounts a while ago, leaving him with nothing to his name. Now everyone he’s ever known is gone, too.
And soon, so will this house. Because I’ll burn it.
“We’re done here,” I say to Ivan, loud enough that Nikolai hears there’s nothing else I want from him, other than his life. For that, I’ll have to wait a bit more, otherwise everything I’ve just done won’t have any real impact. It won’t say “don’t fuck with us.”
I turn to him. “The next time you see me, be prepared to choke on your own fucking blood.”
I leave the room, then the house, and step back outside. Victoria’s sister and mother stand in front of the estate in their nightgowns, faces flushed from the fight, streaked with tears. It’s fucking brutal how I took them out of their beds, but it had to be done this way, otherwise Nikolai would’ve never believed it.
“Get them into the car,” I say to no one in particular. “Ivan?”
“Yeah.”
“Hold off on burning down the house for a few more days. And make sure the word doesn’t get out about this yet. I’m taking my wife out tomorrow, and I don’t want her to be upset.”
More like, I don’t want her to find out. Because what the world will know versus what I’ve actually done will be two very different stories. And if she hears the wrong thing… then Nikolai will be right. My wife will never so much as look me in the eye ever again. I can’t allow that.
I enter the car Anya and her mom were shoved into. Both trembling, watching me with pure terror in their eyes. Part of mefeels sorry for them—the women are almost always innocent in our world. Sold to criminals as wives without ever having a say in it. Which is why another part of me is glad they’re feeling what my wife must have felt when I took her.
I take two blankets from the passenger seat and give one to each of them.
“I apologize for taking you out like this, but it was the only way.”
Neither says a word, their hands interlaced. I shift my eyes to their faces, to the many questions in their eyes they don’t dare ask. They must think I’m the fucking devil.
