Page 13 of Devil’s Night (The Shadows of Darkness Universe #3)

Chapter eleven

All Is Fair in Sin And War

Echo

“ E cho?”

A voice cuts through the thick silence, but it barely registers.

“Echo?”

The second time it hits harder, dragging me out of the fog. My eyes pull from the window, the glass still fogged where my breath had been resting.

“What?” The word comes rough, low, like gravel stuck in my throat.

Roman’s watching me, that unreadable look on his face. “I asked if any of our men have given you updates on Nikolai or Katya.”

Katya.

The name tastes like sin.

Heat flares low in my stomach, uninvited and impossible to ignore. My jaw clenches as the memory floods back, her trembling breath, the sharp sting of the blade between us, the way her release coated my tongue like a fucking drug.

And I didn’t want to stop.

Didn’t want to pull back. Didn’t want to let go of that knife.

I wanted to drive it in her harder, just to see if she’d still moan the way she did when I dragged it out, slow and relentless. I wanted to kiss her with blood on my hands, make her bite back another scream until she couldn’t anymore.

She should’ve been terrified.

But she wasn’t.

Her body arched into it. Into me. Her lip, already bruised from trying to silence herself, was begging to be torn free. To be sucked, bitten, claimed.

In that moment, it stopped being about control.

It became need.

Dangerous, primal, sickeningly deep need. I thought I was breaking her, showing her who held the power. But what I saw in her eyes, the way she looked at me like I was both the threat and the answer, fuck , that did something to me.

Her fear would’ve been easier to handle. Predictable.

But this?

This want, the way she opened for me, the heat rolling off her, the way her breath caught when my mouth hovered just above her skin, it’s carved into me now.

She’s carved into me.

Roman’s voice is distant now, irrelevant. All I can feel is the phantom taste of her, the burn in my veins, the growing ache between my hips every time I replay the sound she made when my hand slid between her thighs.

I didn’t want to torment her.

I wanted to fuck her until she forgot her own name.

Wanted to leave her wrecked, soaked, shaking...mine.

Katya isn’t just under my skin. She is the skin. And every second I’m not inside her feels like another slow death.

Roman’s still talking, but I’m not listening.

Because I’m already gone.

Already thinking about the next time I get her alone.

But God, when she touched me…

When her knee grazed my cock and reminded me just how easily my body betrays me, I had to silence her.

A warning. A distraction. Something to kill the heat rising far too fast.

I should’ve left. Should’ve pulled away before it got that far.

Should’ve never let it happen.

Fuck.

What the fuck was I thinking?

But then came the taste of her.

That sweet, sinful taste that hit me like a drug. Warm. Intoxicating. Coating my tongue and burning its way into my bloodstream.

Her eyes, locked on mine the whole damn time, didn’t waver.

And her nails?

Raked down my front like she owned me.

Her hips moved like she was born for it, like she knew exactly what she was doing, driving me to the brink, dragging me down with her.

And I let her.

No, I welcomed it.

Since that night, I’ve never touched myself so hard, so desperate, in the dark.

Like a fucking addict.

Fist clenched tight around my cock, trying to recall the way she sounded, the way her skin felt under my hands, the way her breath hitched when I pressed into her just enough to make her ache.

Even now, right fucking now, just the thought of her stirs something low.

Heat pooling beneath my waistband. Blood thickening. Body remembering.

She’s not even in the room and she still has this hold on me.

I bring the mug to my lips, hoping to mask the tension. “No one’s seen them,” I mumble, voice gravel-coated and tight.

“We’ve known that,” Noah replies, rubbing the exhaustion from his face.

“Our men have done what searches they can, the ones not watching the Romanov operations. Before the weekend, Katya was last seen leaving Pavlov’s.

Nikolai was tracked to his family home. His Tesla was found dumped, GPS fried, cameras wiped.

Dimitri’s already called a hit on whoever took her-”

“She could’ve run away,” I snap, harsher than intended.

“Romanovs don’t run away,” Roman sighs, voice low with finality.

“How much is Dimitri’s bounty up to?” My question cuts through the silence.

“Five million,” Noah says, tapping the end of his pencil against the edge of his laptop. “Each day that passes, the number climbs. A lot of Romanov allies invested in the union of Katya and Nikolai. No union, no empire…”

“No money,” Roman finishes with a bitter edge.

Five million.

That’s what she’s worth on paper.

But the girl I saw, the bruises on her thighs, the scars mapped across her skin, the way her ankle was already healing wrong beneath the restraints, she didn’t look like a princess.

She looked like a survivor.

A fractured, discarded thing.

Not the polished bride of a legacy empire.

“Genevieve Pavlov,” I mutter, watching both men closely. “Did either of you know what she was doing to her students?”

They share a look, unreadable and silent.

“The instructor?” Roman finally asks.

“Yes,” I push, jaw tight.

“She’s got a record,” he admits. “Did time in a Russian penitentiary for smuggling. Caught selling a few of her students off to Dimitri. Burned down her family’s home in her teens.

Rumor has it, she killed three before she was seventeen.

That’s how she got noticed by the Romanovs.

It's why they let her train their women and the daughters of their associates.”

“And no one ever thought to ask what that training looked like?” My voice lowers, sharp and unflinching. “Did you know she was beating the girls? Mutilating them?”

“How the fuck would we know that?” Noah snaps, frustrated.

I lean back, forcing my spine straight even though the tension coils deep.

“Rumors,” I mutter, though I know they’re more than that.

Roman shrugs. “So what? All pieces of the same rotten puzzle. If Pavlov laid into them, that’s one less problem for us down the line.

You’ve seen it. The overdoses. The weapons.

The children trained like dogs. Wherever Katya is right now, my hope is that she’s in a shallow grave.

One I can piss on as I send Dimitri the footage-”

The mug shatters in my hand before I even realize I’ve clenched it.

Glass explodes across the table, slicing through skin like paper.

“Fuck.” Blood pools fast, a dark red line racing down my wrist. My breath catches, sharp and ragged.

Roman startles. “What the hell, man?”

Gripping my wrist, I glance at the lesion. Deep. Clean. Sharp. I yank my tie free and start wrapping it tight.

“I’m fine,” I mutter, voice flat, jaw locked.

Roman takes a cautious step forward.

“Echo-”

“I said I’m fine,” I snap, cutting him off, voice dark enough to end the conversation.

Let them think it was an accident.

Let them believe it was anger.

But they don’t know the truth.

It wasn’t the bounty. Or the mission.

It was the image of her in a grave.

And the way my entire body revolted against it.

Roman and Noah hesitate at the door, lingering just long enough to make me wonder if they sense what’s shifting beneath the surface. But eventually, the door clicks shut, and the silence that follows feels heavier than it should.

Lowering myself into the chair behind my desk, I let the weight of the room settle around me. It’s too quiet now, just the faint hum of the building and the slow burn crawling beneath my skin. My hand moves before I can stop it, dragging my phone from my pocket.

I don’t check texts. I don’t respond to emails. Opening the security feed, I hover over the camera app. One tap and the screen blooms to life, pulling up the basement.

And there she is.

Katya.

The hoodie’s gone, tossed to the floor like it never mattered.

What’s left clings to her body, tight black fabric stretched across her chest, exposing just enough to set my jaw.

The tank top reveals too much, and yet not enough.

Every curve, every bruise, every scar is on display, and I can’t fucking look away.

She’s hunched over, tearing the shredded remains of her hoodie into strips. Her fingers work with a strange kind of rage, methodical and silent as she wraps the fabric around her raw, bleeding feet. Even half-starved, she moves with purpose, refusing to fold.

And still, it’s not her that makes the anger rise.

It’s him.

Nikolai sits too close, leaning in, whispering low in her ear like he’s earned the right. His hand grazes her thigh. Her body tenses, but she doesn’t move away.

My stomach tightens.

I unmute the feed, needing to know, needing to hear what he’s saying to her. The words spill out in thick Russian, sharp and fast. Their voices blend together, a conversation meant to shut me out completely.

It’s the way he looks at her, bruised and bitter, but still full of something dangerous, that makes my hand shake. She cups his face like she pities him. Like he deserves her sympathy.

Like I’m the fucking monster.

Nikolai leans forward, eyes narrowing as something shifts in his tone.

“If I’m going to die,” he snaps, “I should at least know if your dirty cunt was worth it.”

I stop breathing.

Katya tries to respond, but he’s already moving. One hand curls into her hair, yanking her closer until their foreheads nearly touch. The chains rattle violently as he drags her between his legs, wrapping them around her hips like she belongs there.

The chair beneath me screeches across the floor as I bolt upright, the back of it slamming into the windowpane behind me. My heart thunders, but my eyes don’t leave the screen.

He’s holding her still. His hand travels under her shirt. She flinches, eyes wide, body twisting as she tries to get away.

And he laughs.

“Now you’re afraid, Katya?”

There’s nothing left in him but madness. Hunger. Desperation.

She’s exhausted. Dehydrated. Barely able to stand. And yet, she still fights him, still finds the strength to resist.

He is unrecognizable now. No longer a prisoner, but a creature, feral and collapsing in on himself. A monster of my own making.

Maybe I should let him do it.

Let it spiral. Let them destroy each other and call it justice.

But then I see her face, see the fear flash across it, and everything in me locks into place.

Katya isn’t his to torment. Not his to humiliate. Not his to put his hands on.

She’s mine.

And I’ll tear this place apart before I let anyone else touch what belongs to me.