Pyotr tumbles backward, a gurgled choke escaping him as his last breath rushes from his lungs.
His dead eyes stare blankly at me, all the violent cruelty gone from their pale blue depths.
Stooping to wipe his blade on my husband’s shirt, Michelangelo takes deep breaths, seeming hardly winded after such an intense fight.
My stomach plummets as his movement brings him within feet of me, and I can’t help myself. A soft squeak escapes me before I can stop it.
His eyes snap in my direction, their intense blue stopping my heart in its tracks.
They’re wild with bloodlust, his face tense with the instinct to deflect and attack. But it softens slightly as recognition lights his gaze.
“Come on out,” he commands, extending his hand to me, as if to pull me out if I refuse to obey.
Then several sets of feet come pounding into the room, and his attention snaps toward the doorway as he straightens.
“It took some doing, but we swept the entire property,” one man says.
I recognize him as one of the Chiaroscuro twins—something I can quickly confirm as a second man, his spitting image, steps up beside him.
Slowly, trying not to call attention to myself, I creep out from under the table to stand, wondering if I’ll have time to make a break for it before anyone notices.
“They took considerable losses. Any Bratva still alive have fled,” the first twin says, openly deferring to his older brother’s command.
“Good,” Michelangelo growls darkly. “I’m taking control of their headquarters.”
The first twin smirks. “Looks like the perfect place to get comfortable until we can reclaim our home.”
The second twin eyes the table and snags a strip of bacon with his blood-spattered fingers, not seeming to care about the gore as he takes a healthy bite. “Mmm, maple glazed. Looks like the formerPakhanhas a good chef.”
“Well, we’re in luck, brother, because he’ll be cooking for us from now on,” the first twin quips.
Horror grips me as my harsh new reality comes crashing down around my shoulders.
Their nonchalance about taking possession over my home is frightening—not just for me but all the people who live and work here.
Flashes of Pyotr and his men’s gloating conversation from last night come floating back to me.
Their amusement at killing all those innocent workers.
Their pleasure in forcing themselves upon any women they kept alive.
I wonder if that’s what I would find if I went out into the hallways of the Novikov household, and the terror that grips me at the thought roots me to the spot.
Then Michelangelo’s next words burst through me like an electric shock.
“I’m taking Pyotr’s widow as well,” he states authoritatively, raising my voice as more men enter the room.
My eyes snap in his direction as he steps toward, as if to stake his claim. I can see that familiar glint of desire—that possessive hunger I’ve seen in far too many lecherous men’s gazes.
My husband’s body hasn’t even grown cold, and Michelangelo Chiaroscuro is already making plans to claim me for his own.
I can’t count how many times I’ve hoped a day would come when someone might end my misery and kill the monster I call husband.
But in those fantasies, I never dreamed I would be trading one devil for another. And the thought of escaping one cage only to walk into another is too agonizing to bear.
I won’t survive another year like this last one.
And I refuse to just lie down and die.
