Page 9 of Devil’s Night (The Shadows of Darkness Universe #3)

Chapter eight

Can You See Me Now?

Katya

A sharp, rhythmic pounding echoes behind my eyes, each pulse of pain like a drumbeat inside my skull.

The throb won’t let up, won't fade, it anchors me in this haze of nausea and confusion.

Rolling onto my side, I brace myself for the familiar.

The softness of silk sheets. The faint scent of lavender or rosewood candles burning on my bedside table. Warmth. Safety. Home.

But the second my palm hits cold concrete, reality slams into me.

This isn’t my room.

The air is damp, murky and thick with the scent of mildew and stone. There’s weight on my wrists, heavy and biting. Metal digs into my skin, and when I try to move, resistance jerks me backward with vicious force. Panic creeps in, slow and suffocating.

Then it all comes back.

The GPS reroute. The SUV. The knife. The rag over my mouth. The man with the ink on his wrist and blood on his hands.

A scream tears its way from my throat before I can stop it, raw and strangled. I bolt upright, pain splitting down the back of my skull, and I finally see it, stone walls on all sides, a barred window filtering in pale light from above, and a floor so clean it feels like a taunt.

Chains scrape against the concrete as I move, metal clinking like a warning bell. I glance down at the thick iron cuffs lock around my wrists, bolted to the wall like I’m some kind of rabid thing.

Still wearing the same black sweats and grey hoodie. No signs of blood or violation. But my feet, God, my feet are still crammed into my ballet shoes. The fabric is soaked through, the faint pink now a dark, rusted red. My toes throb, swollen and split.

A shallow bowl sits in the center of the room. Stainless steel, filled to the brim with water.

Like I’m a dog.

Thirst scrapes down my throat, a dry, aching canyon. I crawl toward it instinctively, desperation overriding dignity. The chains drag loudly behind me, the sound making my teeth clench.

“Don’t.”

The voice stops me cold.

I turn sharply.

Nikolai sits slumped against the far wall, his wrists shackled like mine. His shirt is torn, barely clinging to him, and his chest is streaked with deep red gashes, angry and fresh. His eyes are wide, glassy with pain and exhaustion, but still burning.

“He put something in the water,” he says, his voice hoarse. “Hoped I’d drink it.”

I stare at the bowl, then slowly lean back, retreating from it like it’s acid. My stomach knots. My mouth stays dry.

“What the hell is happening?” I whisper.

Nikolai’s laugh is humorless, cracked and sharp. He yanks against his restraints with a metallic rattle. “What the fuck does it look like? The same psychotic fuck who got Isaac? He got us too.”

I look at him again, really look. The wounds across his torso aren’t old. They’re fresh, raw, still bleeding in places. Angled like they were done with care.

"What did he do to you?" I ask, voice shaking.

Nikolai swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “After he gave me the Narcan... he found the coke in your pocket. Thought it’d be fun to watch me choke on it. Shoved it up my nose, down my throat. Then he held me down, like I was a goddamn child, asking about Isaac, about your father. My father.”

“The drugs. The laundering. The fucking hits-” My voice rises with each word until-

A sound.

We both freeze.

Boots scrape against the stone just outside the door. That sound, slow and deliberate, dragging something heavy.

We fall silent at once.

Then he appears.

The man who killed my brother. The man with the Catalyst tattoo. The one who watched me bleed and smiled.

He walks in with the kind of quiet that makes your skin crawl, not trying to intimidate, not trying to announce himself.

Just existing like he belongs here. Like this is his house, and we’re just inconvenient furniture in the basement.

A Glock is tucked casually into the waistband of his jeans. My own knife gleams at his hip. In one hand, he drags a metal chair behind him, the sound shrieking against the floor until he stops just short of the dog bowl.

He turns the chair around and sits, straddling it backwards, arms folding across the top like this is a dinner party and we’re late to the table.

“Glad to see you’re both awake,” he says, voice calm, soothing, even.

Like he didn’t just dose me, beat Nikolai, and chain us to a dungeon wall.

Like this is just the beginning.

Nikolai still won’t look up. His chin hangs low, his posture all shame and silence, like if he stays small enough, maybe the monster in the room will forget he’s there.

The monster, however, notices everything.

“I see the two of you have had time to talk,” the man drawls, his voice smooth, as if he’s discussing the weather.

My pulse quickens. “What did you do to him?” I bite out, unable to stop myself. My voice shakes with fury as my gaze locks onto his.

A smirk curls on his lips. He turns his head just enough to cast a dismissive glance in Nikolai’s direction.

“His skin was too clean,” he says coolly. “A last name like his, walking around unscathed? No. He needed a few... advancements.”

“ Advancements ?” The word stings as it leaves my tongue. I crawl forward, ignoring the way the chains tug at my wrists, the cuffs slicing into already-raw skin. “What the fuck is wrong with you-”

The slap lands like fire.

No warning. No buildup. Just heat and bone and skin.

My head snaps to the side, hair whipping across my cheek as I gasp.

A strangled yelp tears from my throat, my vision flashing white for half a second.

Stunned, I go still. My cheek pulses beneath the bloom of red-hot pain.

Fingers tremble as they reach to cradle the sting, warm spit already trickling from my lip.

Across from me, the man doesn’t flinch.

“Clearly,” he says, tone laced with amusement, “she hasn’t learned the rules yet. Has she, Nikolai?”

The silence is answer enough.

With the toe of his boot, he nudges the metal dog bowl toward me. The water inside sloshes slightly, catching the dim light.

“ Drink. ”

I stare at it. Something swirls beneath the surface. My own reflection ripples in the bowl, distorted and broken. I think of Nikolai’s warning. I think of his wounds. And then I think of the heat still buzzing on my cheek.

“I’m not drinking that,” I mutter.

The tension shifts instantly.

A whisper of steel brushes the back of my neck. Cold and unmistakable.

My knife.

His voice is barely audible. “It wasn’t a request, Katya.”

The tip of the blade drags along the curve of my neck, featherlight but threatening. It travels down the slope of my spine, slow and deliberate, making every hair on my body rise. I suck in a breath, my chest trembling.

“I’m not your dog,” I whisper.

He leans closer, his breath warm against my temple. “No,” he murmurs, “but you’ll still obey.”

My lips part, the heat between us thickening into something else. Something terrifying.

“If you want to cut me…” My voice is raw, reckless. “Then cut me.”

The knife digs in just enough to draw a bead of blood. But it’s not the pain that makes my skin buzz, it’s the way he watches me. The way his eyes drink me in, as if each drop of defiance only adds to his hunger.

There’s a shift in his mouth, not a smile, not quite. A pull. A curl.

Not admiration.

Possession.

Reaching for the bowl, fury burns through my veins. My fingers wrap around the rim, and with all the strength I can muster, I hurl it at him. The chains pull me back before I can follow through, but the bowl clatters to the ground, water splashing his front.

He doesn’t blink.

Rising slowly, he's like a storm cloud brewing just beyond the horizon. He’s calm, calculated, but beneath it, something simmers.

“To think,” he says, eyes flicking to Nikolai, “I was doing you a kindness.”

Then his gaze returns to me, hungry, dark, and deliberate.

“Eyes up, Nikolai,” he mutters. “You’ll want to watch this.”

Chains rattle as I’m yanked backward, my spine scraping against the cold concrete. Nails claw at the ground, shoes slip, and every inch I fight is met with brute force, each slam of my back into the floor driving the air from my lungs.

“That bowl,” he growls through clenched teeth, dragging me like a disobedient pet, “had a sleep aid in it.” His voice vibrates with irritation. “Something to help you sleep through his screams tonight.”

He glances down at his soaked shirt, drenched in the water I refused to drink. A sigh escapes him, slow and sharp.

“But since you were feeling defiant…” He clicks his tongue. “I guess you’d rather clean it up .”

A hand clamps around my throat and pins me to the cold floor, the weight of his body hovering above mine. I gasp, legs kicking uselessly beneath him. His grip is punishing, just enough pressure to blur the edge between restraint and something more dangerous.

“The more you fight, the worse it will hurt,” he warns, eyes dark as tar. His voice drops a note lower. “Stop fighting me.”

“Fuck you,” I spit, the words slipping from my lips even as my vision pulses with heat.

The slap is brutal. It doesn’t just sting, it slices. My head jerks to the side, pain blooming across my cheek like a brand.

“You really don’t know when to shut that smart little mouth, do you?” His tone is cruel, but it carries something else. A charge. A current. Something unreadable that simmers just beneath the surface.

I don’t answer. Not with words.

He jerks me up by the collar of my hoodie. I drop to my knees, forced to tilt my head up. That’s when I feel it, cold steel pressed against my temple. A tremor ripples through me.

His Glock.

He stands over me now, shirt clinging wet to his torso, his waist at eye level. Water darkens the fabric, drawing my gaze to the way it molds against his skin. My pulse skips. Not from fear. From something I don’t dare name.

“Clean it up,” he commands, pressing the gun just a little harder. “Not a drop hits the floor.”

Humiliation floods my chest, thick and bitter. He knows exactly what this is. What it feels like to kneel for him, to be forced to obey in this way. He’s reveling in it.

But my throat is raw, lips cracked. I’m thirsty. And there’s no telling when I’ll get water again.

Reaching up, my chains dragging behind me, I curl trembling fingers into his shirt. The fabric is warm, soaked with water, yes, but also with his body heat, his cologne, the sweat clinging to his skin. As I wring it out, droplets slip through my fingers and land on my tongue.

Salt. Leather. Him.

His body remains still, but I feel the way he watches me. As if every breath I take is a dance performed solely for him. His presence buzzes beneath my skin like a phantom touch.

“I said drink it, Katya .” My name in his mouth sends a shiver down my spine.

The water slides past my lips and down my throat, each drop tainted with him. I drink it. Not because I want to, but because I have to. Because I need to survive.

When the shirt yields no more, I retreat, dragging my chains with me, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. The taste of him lingers.

“ Good girl, ” he purrs, the smirk that follows aimed not at me, but at Nikolai.

I turn, heart seizing.

“Ready to play?” he says, his voice laced with cruel promise as he stalks toward Nikolai like a predator.

Nikolai shrinks against the wall, eyes wide, body trembling.

“No,” I whisper, straining against the chains. “Wait.”

My arms are useless, pinned behind me, body collapsing from exhaustion. I can’t reach him. Can’t protect him. All I can do is watch.

He unlatches Nikolai from the wall, dragging him by the hair toward the door. He pauses, just long enough to turn and look at me.

He drinks in the sight of me slumped and broken, kneeling, my breath ragged.

“Who…” I wheeze, knees giving out. “Who are you?”

His smirk cuts deep.

“You’ll know…” he says, tugging Nikolai through the doorway, “when you wake up.”

Darkness pulls me under before I can reply.