Page 63 of Cinder (MC Fables #2)

E lla

The darkness begins to fade, and I blink awake. The first thing I’m aware of is my cheek pressed against the cold floor and the icy sting of it on my skin. The second thing I’m made aware of is the shove of a boot in my thigh as my brother demands I wake up.

“Time to go,” he says.

I push up on my palms but the pain in my head is blinding.

Wincing, I squeeze my eyes shut and suck in a heavy breath.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Luca growls impatiently, hauling me to my feet.

I grit my teeth as pain rockets through my body. My head. My limbs. My skin. My teeth. They all hurt .

Once I’m stable on my feet, I shake his hand from my arm. “I can walk on my own.”

I glance around me. I’m still in the cellar, but the lights are off. That’s when I remember the person lying in the bed. I turn to look, but Luca stops me.

“The door is this way,” he says, shoving me forward. I catch sight of the bed, but I can’t see who is on it. I can hear breathing, but I can’t tell if it’s male or female.

“Where are we going?”

My mouth is dry. My throat sore. I don’t know what drug they gave me, but it’s slowed everything down.

“It’s time to pretty yourself up for your new husband. See, I’ve had time to think. Viktor has been very patient with me. So I am rewarding him with both my sisters.”

Luca shoves me out the door and up the stairs. I’m still dazed from whatever I was drugged with, and my body feels heavy and sluggish, my coordination non-existent.

“Now move it,” he growls.

I slip and catch my shins on the steps and fall down. But Luca hoists me to my feet like I’m a ragdoll.

“No point delaying the inevitable,” he says, pushing me up the steps and into the marble hallway leading to the foyer.

“Where is Lucretia?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be joining her very shortly. Viktor simply needed some time alone with her.”

“ No .” The word leaves me in a harsh breath .

He’s just saying it to torture me.

Lucretia is fine.

But what if she isn’t?

“I’m going to be sick,” I rasp.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Luca snaps. “It’s time for Cinderella to get ready for the ball. Your husband is expecting you all clean and shiny and wrapped in a bow. Not reeking of puke and snot.”

I have to kill him now.

Before he hands me over to Viktor.

But I’m too dizzy and nauseated.

I think about the crystal ashtray sitting on the marble side table near the stairs.

It’s my only hope.

I decide to distract him.

“He’s going to kill you,” I say.

My words echo around the cavernous foyer and bring Luca to a standstill.

He swings around. “Who?”

“Viktor,” I say.

It’s not true.

I’m going to kill him.

With the ashtray .

In the foyer.

I just need to distract him long enough for me to reach it, so I can lift it up and smash it over his skull. Over and over, until his head cracks open like a watermelon.

“I thought your enforcer was going to do that?” he says, smugly. “Instead, he ran away with his tail between his legs like a little pussy.”

I’d like to see Luca say that to Lars’s face and see how much of a pussy he is when Lars removes his face with his bare hands.

“Viktor is already tired of your games. Once you hand me over to him, he will have everything he wanted. The transport routes down the east coast. A wife who knows more about the Moretti empire than you.” The table with the crystal ashtray is behind me.

But it’s too far for me to reach. With Luca suitably distracted, I take a step back.

“He’ll kill you and take over everything. ”

Luca’s smug smile disappears.

Lost in his own narcissism, he didn’t consider this.

He was too busy amusing himself with his games to realize he was opening the door for Viktor to walk through and take over.

In his warped reality, he thought he was torturing me.

Getting his revenge on me.

And forcing Viktor to go along with it like some poor soul waiting for scraps at the dinner table .

But Viktor is a lot smarter than Luca.

He would’ve seen it as an opportunity to take over the largest organized crime syndicate in the country while Luca was distracted playing his silly games.

All he had to do was pretend like he was at the mercy of my brother. Play along with him until he was ready to strike.

And my brother was too stupid to see the opportunity he was handing him.

“You’re walking into a coup,” I say.

I don’t know if any of what I am saying is true.

But if Viktor Olicheckoff is any kind of pakhan, he will have seen this for what it is. An opportunity for a bigger slice of the pie.

I know I would.

And so would my father.

But Luca is too fucking stupid.

And no fucking leader.

“What are you talking about? The Moretti are far more powerful than the Olicheckoff.”

“They were more powerful. Until our father died and you took over.”

I take another step back.

“The Moretti are thriving under my control. ”

“If you believe that, then heaven help all of us,” I say, taking another step back until my butt hits the table. I reach behind me. “But not you, Luca. You can go to hell.”

I grab the ashtray and slam it into his head. But at the last moment, he raises his arm and is able to shield his head from the blow.

It was a long shot.

But worth a try.

Because I’m not going down without a fight.

Snarling, Luca grabs my throat and forces me against the wall, and I drop the ashtray.

“You might think you’re smarter, but I’m physically far superior,” he seethes.

His fingers tighten around my throat, cutting off my air.

Our eyes fused, I can see the hatred in his. But I won’t look away.

Let him know I never looked away in fear.

But he lets me go, and I can suddenly breathe again.

“Killing you would be too easy for you. Let Viktor have his way?—”

The doorbell cuts him off.

We both swing our heads in the direction of the door.

Usually, one of his guards would appear and open it, because heaven forbid Luca do something so menial as answering a door. But when no one comes, he impatiently stalks across the foyer to the front door and opens it.

There is no one on the other side.

Not even one of his men.

Which is odd, because I know there are many of them crawling around outside.

But there is a box sitting on the doorstep.

“Oh, a present,” he says, picking it up.

This is why Luca isn’t going to live long. I mean, I’m eventually going to kill him. But if I didn’t, this behavior right here is why he is not long for this Earth.

I hope it’s a bomb and it blows your face into a million pieces.

But he’s too ignorant and reckless to even consider anyone could get through his army of men who patrol the grounds. He’s so entitled, he can’t see past his own privileges and relies too much on others keeping him alive.

He lifts the box and rattles it about, and I can hear there is something heavy inside.

I take a cautionary step backward. If it is a bomb, it will probably take me out too.

Oblivious to the danger, Luca swings the door closed and begins to walk back toward me carrying his present, but stops when the first drop of blood splashes against his feet.

He frowns and places the box on the floor to rip it open. “What in the—oh, my God. ”

He rears back, his mouth twisted in horror. His face drains of color, and he shoves his hand into his mouth to stop himself from vomiting.

I step forward to peer inside the box.

Inside is Viktor Olicheckoff’s severed head. His bulging eyes stare lifelessly up at me and his fat, sluggish tongue hangs limp out of the side of his mouth. Blood drips from the meaty tendrils of flesh hanging from his neck and coagulates in the bottom of the box.

I should be alarmed.

Frightened, even.

Instead, I smile, then spit on the dead man’s face.

Suddenly the lights go out and the house is shrouded in darkness, except for the moonlight pouring in through the sky dome above the staircase.

“George, Lorenzo, Olaf,” Luca calls to his bodyguards. “Come here, I need you.”

But here is no reply.

We are surrounded in silence and shadows.

“Where the hell are my bodyguards?” Luca yells, with a mix of fear and impatience.

In the silence that follows, something falls against the floor in the shadows. Luca panics. He knows something is coming. I can feel it too.

“Hello, Luca.” Lars’s voice echoes throughout the foyer .

Goosebumps spread like wildfire across my skin at the sound of his voice as it echoes through the darkness. I scan the foyer for him. But there are too many shadows.

Luca grabs me and shoves a gun into my ribs. “You come near me, and I’ll kill her.”

“Move away from her,” Lars warns.

But Luca presses his gun deeper into my ribs. “And have you kill me? No, she can stay right here.”

“Make no mistake, Luca, I am going to kill you. What you need to ask yourself is if you want it to be quick and painless, or drawn out and excruciating.”

Luca looks around nervously, narrowing his eyes to search the shadows. “You lay a finger on me, and she dies, do you understand me?” He tries to sound brave but fails. He’s terrified. I can feel his hand trembling as he holds his gun against me.

“Pull that trigger and I will make sure your last moments on earth are the most agonizing thing you’ve ever known.”

“She’ll be dead before you can get to me.”

“Are you sure about that?”

The voice comes from right behind us. Luca swings us around, and we come face to face with Lars who looks like a giant Viking in the ribbon of light beaming down on him from the sky dome. He looks vicious. No, he looks terrifying. Almost inhuman in the white light.

He’s holding his broadsword and slowly raises the tip of the blade to Luca’s chin. “Now for the last fucking time, let her go.”

My heart jumps into my throat. His voice is terrifying. His eyes demonic as he towers above us.

Luca doesn’t know what to do. He’s not just trembling, he’s shaking all over.

Quickly removing the gun from my ribs, he points it at Lars. But Lars’s expression doesn’t change. He is unfazed. Possessed by the power radiating around him. His black eyes gleaming in the white light like two shiny black stones.

“Fuck you, asshole,” Luca spits. “You can’t have her.”

Fear rockets through me because I know he’s going to shoot him.

But before he can pull the trigger, Lars swings his sword and takes Luca’s hand off with the blade, sending both his hand and the gun to the floor.

“No, fuck you,” Lars says. “She’s mine, and I don’t fucking share.”

Luca drops to his knees, clutching his wrist and hollering. Spit sprays from his mouth and he starts to blubber. “You cut off my hand, you sonofabitch, you cut off my hand!”

Blood squirts across the white marble floor. Arterial spray.

“Call an ambulance.” He grips his wrist, trying to stem the blood flow. “Ella, call a fucking ambulance.”

Sweat beads his brow and the color drains from his face. He’s getting weak. Dying .

He collapses to the floor, and as I watch, I think about every time he laid a finger on me. A punch in the stomach here. A slap to the ground there. The twist of my wrist until it burned so bad, I cried out and begged him to stop.

I bend down to pick up the gun.

I think about him pinning me to the bed and slicing open my thigh and the horrific pain that followed.

I grip the gun tighter.

I think about him wrapping his hands around my throat and calling me a whore.

“I want you to know something.” I raise the gun. “You will be forgotten, Luca. And while you are rotting in the ground, I will be ruling this kingdom, and no one is ever going to mention your name again.”

He lets out a cry. “Sister?—”

But I aim the gun at his head.

And I pull the trigger.