Page 97 of Darkest Desire

“You just told me your husband spanks you and you like it and yet, you’re going to ask me if Nico hurtsme?”

“Fair enough,” she says, raising her hands in surrender.

“And no. Nico doesn’t beat me. He’s only spanked me a couple of times. I didn’t exactly like it but… I didn’t hate it either. So…”

“Maybe we have something in common.”

I scrunch up my face. “Eww! That’s not something I want in common with you, Nat.”

She laughs for the first time since we’ve been taken. It’s a beautiful sound. A sound of hope. “I get it. You know, despite the circumstances we’re in, it’s just nice to talk with you like this. We rarely did it back when we lived together.”

“And now our husbands hate each other. They’ll never let us see each other again if we make it through this. Mikhail will continue to try to kill Nico and Nico will do the same to Mikahil and we’ll get caught in the crosshairs.”

She holds her hand out to me. “I know. But we’ll try to make it work. Let’s promise each other that. No matter how our husbands act, we will always try to be there for each other.”

I stare at her hand for a long moment before I place my own hand in hers. “Ok. I promise.”

We share a smile but it doesn’t last long before we hear footsteps approaching the door. We let each other go. This is it.

We hunker down on either side of the door, trying to stay out of sight. The door opens. No one comes in though. We wait, wondering what the men see.

Then finally, one of the men steps into the room.

Natalya jumps onto his back before he can react and I kick him in the balls, knocking him to the ground. A quick look shows that he’s by himself.

It’s not Liam, I notice. One of his lackeys.

I kick the gun out of his hand and pick it up, aiming it at his head.

“Wait,” he says, holding his hands up as Natalya comes to stand beside me. “Don’t do this.”

“Sasha, hand me the gun,” she murmurs.

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

“Only in self-defense. Never purposefully.”

I tighten my grip on the gun. “Well I have. And I need to kill him before he makes a move.”

I think back to Alek strapped to Nico’s table in Nico’s torture dungeon. I was so scared then.

I’m not scared now.

My fingers find the trigger and I press down. The bullet goes straight through his head, knocking him to his back. Blood splatters the wall behind him.

“They’ll hear that,” Natalya says. “We have to move. Now.” She grabs my hand and hauls me out of the basement. I keep the gun gripped in my hand.

We make it back up to the main portion of the nightclub where we find two men running in our direction. They stop when I raise my gun.

“What is happening?” Liam asks, coming into view. He has a lazy handsome way about him. “Ah, Sasha. Did you kil my man down below? Interesting. Didn’t know that either of you girls had that in you.”

“We’re not girls,” I snarl. “We’re women.”

He raises his hands in mock surrender. “My apologies. But you’re not going anywhere. I need you two to drive your husbands mad. If you leave, then I have no leverage.” He nods at his men to approach us.

That’s when I fire off my gun. I hit one right in the chest while the other one raises his gun and fires. The bullet lands in my leg, knocking me to the ground.

“Sasha!” Natalya screams.