Page 24

ARSENI

M argot’s cries for help completely drown out Eve’s voice. Still, she yammers in my ear like she can’t see the lack of blood in my face, the cold sweat beading my forehead.

She talks to me like I’m fine. Like this is fine.

Like everything’s fucking fine.

“ Arseni !” Margot yells for the hundredth time. Days ago, I loved my name on her tongue. Yesterday , I loved it.

Now it’s a fucking ice pick in my ear. And Eve just. Keeps. Talking.

My eyes find Nikita across the room. Unsurprisingly, the voyeur fuck is by himself, sitting on a throne that would look like the other identical chairs if his pompous ass wasn’t attached.

He smiles and raises his glass to toast me. Even from here, I can feel his satisfaction. I can see his game.

This isn’t so he can make use of Margot. This is so he can ruin her for me.

Breaking away from him, I try to suck in air, but nothing comes. My heartbeat thuds in my ears so loud, Margot’s cries are now muted. I’m not grateful for it. I feel like I’m having a heart attack.

“Are you okay?” Eve asks, her muffled voice breaking through as she plants a gentle touch on my shoulder. “Arseni?”

I slouch forward and place my hand over my heart, it’s out of control thump assuring me it hasn’t stopped. It feels so fucking cold in here. So loud, even as my brain works tirelessly to drown it out.

Too much. It’s too much.

I grip the edge of the couch and force myself to stand on wobbly legs. I stumble toward the door like oxygen awaits on the other side, and when Luka blocks my way, I give him a shove. My gait is a lurching, uneven shuffle all the way out the door.

Once I’m in the hall, I flatten my back against the wall and suck in deep, fast, breaths until I no longer feel like I’m suffocating.

My eyes are closed, so it’s Luka’s footsteps that give away his presence, though I didn’t even need them. I knew he’d follow.

“Who is she?” he asks, his voice low. Kind. Like he’s speaking to someone fragile.

I open my eyes and wipe the sweat off my upper lip, pushing myself away from the wall just to prove I’m not too weak to stand.

“Some whore. What the fuck does it matter?”

“It matters because you were having a fucking panic attack in there. Who is she ?” His voice is harder this time, but it’s also filled with a heavy dose of concern. Not for Margot. Luka is a lot of things, but a good guy is not one of them. His concern is for me.

And I hate him for it. I fucking hate him for it.

I turn my head just so I don’t have to look at him. “Margot Stevens.”

I don’t have to see him to feel tension wrapping around his surprise. “The foster mother?”

Bringing my bottom lip into my mouth, I nod and wish I’d never told him about her. Wish he couldn’t see how screwed up I am.

But at the same time… I don’t feel disappointed that he’s here. That one person in this building knows me, just so I don’t feel alone. Even as I put Margot through hell, it’s myself I try to coddle.

She’s right. I’m a monster.

“Is this really who you want to be?” Luka asks. “I mean, Jesus Christ, Arseni, she wasn’t your real mother. She didn’t abandon you. Pick a lighter method of revenge, for fuck’s sake.”

“This wasn’t my idea.”

“Then stop it .”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” he spits. All the judgement he held back when he walked out here is in every word he speaks. But he sounds genuine too.

Margot is my past. My problem. Mine to hurt and mine to eventually kill. It doesn’t matter what arrangement I made with Nikita. If I’m as valued to him as he claims, he would step aside if I asked him to.

That’s the problem, though. I’m not worth shit.

“Because this is a test.” Finally, I meet Luka’s eyes. “Nikita wants to know I won’t let a woman make me weak.”

“So?” Luka’s nose wrinkles as he scoffs. “Fuck him. When did you start caring about this shit?”

“When did you start caring about this shit?” I counter, leaning toward him. My finger stabs the air as I talk. “Don’t you dare act like you’re some kind of saint. She’s just a whore. You’ve done worse.”

His hands raise at his sides. “So what? This isn’t about me. This?—”

“It’s always about you.” I step up to him until I have to raise my head to look into eyes brimming with self-righteous arrogance. It isn’t new. Luka is the most selfish person I know.

His jaw slowly unclenches, softening his features. “You’re right.”

No .

My fists tighten, my jaw tics. Anger roars so hot, it heats my sweat as I will him to sneer. To spit back. To prove everything about him I’ve come to believe.

I hate you.

Goddamn it, I hate you.

“I dragged you into my world because I was selfish and alone.” He places his hands on my arms. “There are so many instances where I thought I was helping you, when really, all I wanted was to mold you to be like me. I made you a killer when you could’ve been anything. But you do not have to?—”

“That’s what you think you did to me?” I yank from his hands as I step back. “You think I’ve been angry about?—”

“I know exactly what you’re angry about… None of it happened the way you think it did, Arseni. I didn’t choose her over you.”

I rip my head away and scoff, but all my derision does is put a light Band-Aid over the wound from his betrayal.

Scars burn on my body, some permanent, some just a memory. Two weeks I spent in captivity while protecting Luka from the same fate. No matter how much our enemies tortured me, I could never have given him up.

Instead of coming for me, he ran off with his girlfriend. He chose to save her instead.

“I didn’t know ,” he goes on, his face twisting desperately. “I had no idea they’d taken you. If I had?—”

“Get out.” Not my voice. Nikita’s.

Luka and I turn to look toward the playroom entrance where he stands. “You’ve upset my partner.” He gestures to me. “And you’re tainting my guests’ fun. Get the fuck out of my house . Tell my nephew I said hi.”

Luka glares at Nikita but doesn’t respond. When he turns to me, he nods to the door. “Come with me.”

“No.”

“Arseni, the sick fuck doesn’t give a shit about you. Walk away with me, right now. Come on.” He tries to grab my arm, but I pull away. One glance at Nikita tells me it isn’t enough.

I wrap my fingers into a fist and slam it into Luka’s jaw, sending him stumbling backward before I shove him to the ground.

His lanky body hits with a grunt.

Towering over him for once, I ram my shoe into his ribs, once twice three times before moving my aim lower down his side.

“Fuck, Arseni, stop,” Luka growls, his body naturally curling against the blows. He could stop me easily if he wanted. Instead, he just fucking lies there like a helpless bitch.

Fight back , you pussy , I want to snarl but don’t with Nikita standing there.

He doesn’t.

He won’t.

And I truly wish I didn’t care.

When I’m done, I turn away from him like he means nothing to me and storm toward Nikita.

My hands shake with rage, and I’m banking on him thinking it’s directed toward Luka.

In truth, this is the first time I haven’t wanted to hurt Luka.

It’s the first time he’s told me to walk away that I wish I could. If Margot didn’t need me, I might.

When I’m a foot from Nikita, I stop and stare, my face feeling hard as a rock. “Partners, right?” I ask, managing to hold most of my sarcasm back.

Nikita nods but doesn’t give me a patronizing smile like he normally might.

I reach into his suit jacket and pull his knife from its sheath. Holding it up for him to see, I flick open the blade. “No more tests.”

He doesn’t respond, but I don’t wait for him to. I stomp back into the playroom where Margot has gone silent. There’s a man between her legs who’s leaned over so he can lick her tits like a fucking pervert with a death wish.

I step behind him to grant it, jerking him up by his hair before plunging the knife into his back. He yells but is silenced with three stabs in a row, quick jerks of my arm allowing nothing but gurgled protests to come from him.

I could stop there, but I don’t. The knife enters his back at odd, frenzied angles like I’m carving a pumpkin on LSD. It isn’t until I get tired of holding his lifeless body up that I finally drop him, along with the knife.

The room has silenced. Even the music has been turned off.

Margot has her face turned away from me as I cut the cords suspending her, and she still doesn’t look at me when I cradle her in my arms and carry her from the room. Every other set of eyes follows me to the door.

I pass Nikita without a word and step over the blood Luka spilled on the floor. He’s nowhere in sight. Margot shakes in my arms as I carry her up the stairs to the room I’m occupying. She doesn’t say a word, and I start to wonder if she’ll ever speak to me again.

I wouldn’t blame her. Like I said… I don’t give second chances.

I’d be a hypocrite to ask for one.