Page 16 of His Prince (Unexpectedly Twisted #2)

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MIKHAIL

A ngel passed out after I fucked that tight little hole in the shower. And now he’s pressed up against me, his vanilla-scented skin, his slow breathing, his thick head of hair tickling my chest.

He took me so well, his body just accepting me, sucking me in.

I stare at the ceiling, listening to the rain hitting the windows and the scratch of the tree outside hitting the pane of glass. Angel huffs and wiggles closer to me, almost on top of me now.

So different from Katarina. She was never a cuddler.

And neither am I. And yet, here I am.

I let my hand slide up against his back, bumping across the notches of his spine before coming to a stop at the nape of his neck.

He doesn’t realize he’s sleeping against me. That he has the past few nights, wiggling over until he’s right on top of me.

I tell myself I hate it.

I’m not sure I believe it anymore .

He’s messed up my entire life, and here he is, looking innocent as fuck, lying on me in the middle of the night.

The rain picks up, and I sigh, letting my hand slide through his hair, the soft strands slipping between my fingers as a creak sounds outside the door.

My ears cling to it, listening as it moves.

For a moment, I start to panic, my mind conjuring up visions of a pale and ghostly Katarina staring at me from the lawn, but then I dismiss it. No way. No fucking way are ghosts real.

But then I hear it, a tapping sound in the walls. Rats, I believe Angel said.

I’m not sure rats sound like that.

A squirrel perhaps?

I hold my breath, my ears straining, but then it stops, just the sound of the rain hitting the window filling the room.

I’m sure I was imagining it, but still, I find myself awake for far too long, my ears picking up on every sound until I finally let myself fall asleep.

And it’s there that I see visions of her, coming back to haunt me.

They only dissipate when Angel squirms above me and sighs sweetly.

A light in the shadows of my mind.

Angel is still on me when my eyes open, blinking in the dim light piercing through the window shades.

I shift slightly and Angel murmurs against my neck, his body entirely on me now, his morning wood pressed against mine in the most…infuriating way.

He wiggles against me, slowly waking up, and I let my hands fall away from his warm skin.

“Oh,” he breathes, stretching against me before freezing and then rolling to the side. “Oh, why were you cuddling with me?” he asks, an accusing tone in his no longer sleep-addled voice.

“ Me cuddling with you ?” I’m almost indignant now.

“Yes, old man. You cuddling with me.”

He rolls his eyes, and I feel my hands twitch beside me.

I open my mouth to refute this, but then slam it closed. There’s no point in telling him. It will only make him stop doing it.

He rolls up and runs a hand through his messy hair, my eyes following his languid movements.

“I’m going to go downstairs and make breakfast,” he says as he slips out of bed, completely naked, his tight ass on display, my fingerprints on his hips. Black and blue. My cock perks up at the sight of it.

He grabs a sheer robe and slides it on, everything on display.

I feel a growl rumble up my chest despite telling myself not to.

“Put on something else,” I growl, knowing I made a mistake the moment those words leave my mouth. He just glances at me over his shoulder and throws me a wink before disappearing out the bedroom door.

And I’m left in bed, more frustrated than I’ve ever been in my entire life.

When I finally make it to the kitchen, there are entirely too many people lounging about. And I swear I catch a few of my men ogling Angel’s ass in that damn robe. I should fire them all. There is far too much testosterone in here.

Although, my men may not be the real problem. Nina is actually smiling at Angel. Smiling .

She’s never smiled at me. Ever.

Although that may be saying something about me and not her. This is proven when as soon as she catches me looming, her lips turn down into a frown .

Well then.

I move toward my husband, who is dishing everyone else up, and then elbow Andrew out of the way as he stands far too close, the dashing bastard. He’s too good-looking to be working with numbers all day.

He should really take it down a notch or ten.

“Have you eaten?” I finally ask when Andrew moves out of the way. Angel peers up at me with those beautiful eyes, slightly confused by my question.

“What do you mean?”

“Have you eaten?”

“Not yet,” he replies and hands me a plate of food.

I gently shove it back at him and then tug him toward the island, moving Titus out of the way so he can take a seat.

“You eat. I can dish everyone up.”

Angel’s lips are parted, at a loss for words.

I don’t know why he looks like a fish out of water. Everyone is taking advantage of him. He needs to fucking eat.

Silence pings around the room when I grab the spatula, and I turn my gaze to glower at everyone, especially Andrew, who is looking far too pleased with this.

“Anyone who wants seconds can get it themselves,” I growl, grabbing myself a plate, filling it, and striding to the corner to eat like a gargoyle.

I can’t help but stare at Angel, who just watches me back—a tug of war between two men who refuse to give up, who refuse to relent.

When breakfast is done, I demand that someone other than Angel clean up the mess and then point to Andrew, who is looking far too suave in his chair and tell him to “go the fuck home.”

Not that he listens to me, he just goes back to ignoring me, chatting with Felix and Casey. The entire Costello clan is contrary and stubborn, it seems. So I stomp to my office, whispering blyat for my own satisfaction, and sit there, mulling over Angel and Bane and Andrew until I finally decide that the only way he will ever go home is if I let him look at my fucking books.

My stomach roils at the thought of letting someone else in, but I don’t know if Angel will let him leave otherwise.

And for a sliver of a second, I tell myself he can be trusted.

In that moment of complete delusion, I call for Andrew, telling him to set up and get started. He has exactly two hours and then I’m done. He doesn’t even balk at my command, just gets everything situated and then looks at me and goes, “I don’t even need that long.”

Asshole.

I don’t trust him, so the entire time he pulls up the spreadsheets and goes through my accounts, I watch him like a hawk. Andrew is muttering to himself often, but it’s nothing I can really understand, and within the hour, he’s leaning back and pointing to the screen.

“Like Angel said, someone is skimming off all the massage parlors and five of the laundromats.”

I scoff, feeling a sense of dread and, at the same time, relief well up inside of me. I wish Ivan was the one who had to deal with this and not me. But we both know I’m just the figurehead in this operation. Ivan might be shit at security, but he’s a genius when it comes to business. He just doesn’t look like it.

Hence my current situation.

“How do you know for sure?”

“It’s clear as fucking day. Someone at those massage parlors is taking a cut of the profits off the top. It’s not totally noticeable unless you’re looking for it, but they were right.”

“Daniil runs those businesses,” I say, more to myself than anyone. “He’s been with me for ages.”

And he has—he’s a loyal friend, someone I trust with my life.

But then again, I trusted Katarina. And I trusted Angel. And now look at me.

“You must be wrong,” I finally say. Because he has to be. Daniil wouldn’t do this to me. He couldn’t.

“I’m not fucking wrong,” Andrew replies and then cocks an eyebrow at me, like I’ve lost my mind.

Perhaps I have. Perhaps I’m too far gone.

“And how am I supposed to trust you, Andrew the Accountant? You could have come here on Angel’s behalf to tear my organization apart from the inside out, starting with sowing a seed of doubt about my business partner.”

At that moment, Angel walks in with a cup of tea, setting it down near Andrew.

I see his eyes widen, hurt pulsing through them, but I ignore it. Ignore him entirely. I cannot feel. The last time I did, I was gutted.

Andrew stares at me, looking annoyed. “Yeah, no. That’s not what’s happening. I came here as a favor. For Angel.”

“And why the fuck should I trust any of you?” I can feel my cheeks warming, my fists clenching at my sides. Angel is no longer innocent, but a force to be reckoned with. He knows what he’s doing. He’s getting back at me for not being the husband he thinks he deserves. He’s here to destroy me, my body, my home, and now my businesses.

The devious little angel.

Does he know how much I struggle to keep it all going, to do what needs to be done? I’ve never been good at it. Never will be either.

“Mikhail,” I hear him say, but I’m done.

I won’t be tricked again. I was a fool to let that man look at my books. I was a fool to marry Angel.

I am a fool for all of it.

“I want him gone. By tonight,” I nearly shout as I stalk away, my steps sure and focused.

I hear Angel tell Andrew I’m just grumpy and untrusting, but it’s more than that. So much more. He doesn’t even know. He’ll never know the depths I’ve sunk to.

I stomp up the steps and when I make it to our room, Angel is right behind me, shutting the door behind us .

“Leave,” I growl, but Angel refuses, just stands there with his hands on his hips, his pretty pink lips pursed, his eyes cold and hard.

“You were very rude to our guest, someone who came all this way to help us.”

“He’s only helping you. Not me. Don’t fucking lie.”

He rolls his eyes, but I see the way his cheeks are stained.

Katarina looked like that too. And she was guilty of it all.

“I know what you’re doing. I know what you’re fucking doing!” I nearly shout, and that propels him into action. He strides toward me, grabbing my shirt and yanking on it, forcing me to bend toward him. Our faces are now level, his eyes sparking with anger.

“You know nothing of what I’m doing, Mikhail. Nothing. Your head is so far up your own ass, you’re goddamn blinded by all the shit.”

I huff and he tightens his hold on my shirt, pulling me even closer. I can feel the warmth of his breath on my lips and it moves through me, all the way to my cold and dying heart.

“I’m surviving this hellhole, I’m surviving you. But I’ll never hurt you, Mikhail. I’ll never harm you in any way.”

I’ve heard that before. I’ve heard it all.

All lies.

“You will apologize to my friend.”

I let him jostle me slightly and then his hand releases me, and I stand back up, righting my rumpled shirt.

“You apologize or I’m not fucking you tonight, Mikhail. And you better be sincere when you do it.”

I huff in derision. I don’t need him to fuck me. I can fuck myself.

That thought has me shriveling slightly and I bite my tongue.

Well, not fuck myself literally .

I have two hands. I know how to use them.

“We’ll see about that,” I finally say, and Angel cocks an eyebrow at me.

“Oh, we will, husband .”

I notice his absence.

It’s a gaping hole in my life, the blackness of it seeping even further into the shadows of my soul.

I tell myself to not care, but I do. I fucking care. It seems I still have the capacity for it, even after Katarina.

I pace like a caged animal in our bedroom, waiting for him to appear. But he doesn’t show.

I knew he was stubborn, knew he’d make me fucking apologize.

But I won’t. Mikhail Ivanov doesn’t apologize. Ever.

So I wait for him a little longer, staring at the clock on my phone, the minutes ticking down to my inevitable explosion. It’s a kind of frustrated rage that I’ve never felt before, an itch sitting just beneath the surface of my skin.

I can’t get any relief.

I should have never married him, should have just cut my losses before things grew complicated. No amount of money or alliance is worth this much torture.

But then I think of him, the way he blushes, the sweet way he talks to those he cares for, the way he used to stare at me in awe.

He was so in love with me, and I saw my opportunity to grow my empire and pounced.

And now here I am, waiting for him to appear and knowing he won’t. Because under that sweetness is a stubborn soul.

I should haul him in here, put him over my knee, and spank his ass a pretty pink.

Should make him come to heel.

But before I can, something creaks beneath the floor and I freeze, staring at the ground. The wood floors look pristine, as if Nina was just in here cleaning and my eyes start to burn from not blinking. The creak intensifies, the ground pulsing. Perhaps it is the rats Angel heard in the walls. Perhaps they found their way into the floors.

I stare at it intently as my eyes follow the sound, my heartbeat ratcheting up slightly as the floor opens up with an ominous creak and Bane appears.

His head pokes out, his hair an unruly mess, a cobweb stuck to his nose, and those big eyes blinking at me as he waves.

“Hi there,” he says as he maneuvers out of the hidden passageway and into my room, dirt falling onto the floor as he goes. “Didn’t know where this tunnel was leading.”

“I didn’t know there was a passageway into my room,” I reply when I find my voice. The thought of unknown tunnels under my house makes my head start to throb.

Who the fuck created these passages? I know about the one from my office. I had it installed to be used in case of emergencies, but this one? It seems I don’t fucking know anything anymore. I’ve lost complete control of my life, of my house, of my fucking mind.

“Yep. You have several. It’s a very unsophisticated labyrinth,” he replies and then shuts the passageway with a loud clang . “But it’s been fun figuring out where each one goes.”

“How many do I have?” I ask, and he shrugs.

“About ten that I’ve found so far. This one leads outside the gate.”

I stare at him, the throbbing in my head growing.

“And the others?”

“Oh, well, I can draw you a map if you tell me where your killing station is.”

I glower at him, my head almost cracking at the force of the frustration.

“You know, butchery, meat retail, eyeball palace?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You know, the place where you chop people up. I want to know where it is. I haven’t found it yet.”

“I don’t have one of those. However, Georgiy lives near the perimeter of my property…”

“Is George your Bane?” he asks, his cheeks flushing, his hands fluttering around his face. “Is he your butcher? ”

“He’d be appalled by that name, but yes.”

“Oh my. He’s so…good looking. I thought he was the onsite doctor.”

“He’s both.”

“My, oh my. I need to talk to him, discuss things, but first…”

Bane walks around the room, his hands sliding across the walls, digging into the divots where the paneling meets the drywall. I just stand there and watch his every move. I don’t trust him, this chaotic man who’s been snooping about, finding secret passageways that I didn’t even know about.

Perhaps he’s the one fucking with my house, with my mind. Perhaps the person I’ve been seeing isn’t Katarina, but Bane.

But as soon as that slips into my mind, it disappears. Bane’s not doing anything. He just arrived, apparently from Andrew’s suitcase. And right now he’s just snooping, doing the opposite of minding his own business. But it seems harmless. Or as harmless as this man can be.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I finally ask, and Bane just shrugs, his hands sliding along the baseboard near the headboard and then suddenly, another secret panel pops open. It’s small, not big enough to fit a human, but it’s obviously a place where secrets are meant to be housed.

Who the fuck had these installed? And where the hell was I when this happened?

I feel my eye start to twitch in time with the pounding in my head. Pretty soon it’s going to be a migraine.

“Oooh, look,” he says and then wiggles the opening free with a rusty creak.

I stand behind him and see something in the wall, a locked box.

Bane wriggles it out and sets it on the ground, the two of us staring at it.

“A treasure.”

“This is none of your business,” I say, and Bane waggles his eyebrows at me .

“I’d like to make it my business. Your house is so fucking fun.”

I grab the box, unsure who it belongs to, but refusing to let him look. Whoever hid this here, I was never meant to find it.

“Get out.”

His lips turn into a pout. “But, Mikhail…”

“No,” I reply and then tuck the box under my arm before grabbing the back of his neck and tossing him out of the room. “This is none of your concern. And stop lurking about my house. If you continue, I will let Georgiy have his way with you.”

He gasps and then runs a hand across his shirt. “Like, what kind of way? A sexy way?”

My lips turn down. “I will have him chop off your toes and use your bones as a necklace for my husband.”

“Oh god,” he groans and then adjusts his crotch. “Don’t tempt me with a good time.”

My eyes are unblinking as he starts to stroke himself over his pants.

“Maybe you should send me to George. He can tell me what a bad boy I am with that sexy Russian accent of his.”

I don’t even respond, just slam the door in his face, locking it behind me. Then my eyes turn to where he appeared from the ground and decide to send one of my men down there tomorrow to take a look at where it actually leads. I don’t trust Bane or his map-drawing skills. But for now, I don’t want anyone else coming up from beneath the house, so I maneuver a small chest of drawers over the opening before dumping the small box under the bed, deciding to pry it open later.

Right now, I need to find Angel. I need him here—with me.

I turn and make my way out of the room, my shoes hitting the floors and echoing off the walls which used to be empty, but now are adorned with pictures and wallpaper, some even have fake ivy hanging from the corners.

Fucking chaos.

I stomp out of the house and into the garden, finding my husband in the greenhouse, the moon and a single small lantern lighting his movements.

“Where the fuck have you been?” I nearly shout.

Angel isn’t even surprised. He just turns toward me, dirt smeared on his cheeks, his hands tucked into the soil of a pot before him. He looks like a woodland elf in this moment, untouchable, ethereal.

“I’ve been busy,” he says and then turns his gaze away.

My head is now a throbbing mess, the tension in my temples almost making my vision white out.

“Did you apologize yet?” he asks.

“Fuck no.”

“Ah, well then you can go away. I have nothing to say to you.”

“Angel,” I hiss but he continues to work. I’m ignored, obviously nothing to him at this moment. It makes my rage boil over.

My arm flings out and I grab a small ceramic pot, throwing it to the ground. It smashes into a hundred pieces.

Angel’s eyes widen as he takes in the mess I made, and a second later, it hardens.

“Are you throwing a tantrum?”

“Fuck you. Come to bed.”

“No. Not until you apologize to Andrew and clean up this mess.”

My jaw ticks and my hands ball into fists. “You’re my husband. I can make you.”

“You can try,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “But I will fight you the entire way. I may be sweet, husband, but I’m not meek.”

I can’t fucking stand it. Stand him. I reach out and grab another pot, throwing it onto the ground and watching as the pieces shatter. Angel ignores me, continuing to plant those fucking bulbs in the dirt. As if I’m nothing more than a bug on the wall.

I want to break all of this, send the pieces flying. He’s planting in the dirt my grandmother toiled over, the space that my mother would lose herself in for hours.

The place I found solace.

The same place Katarina destroyed .

She took everything from me. She took it all and here he is trying to rebuild it.

He’s regrowing the heart of this home, and I fucking hate it.

I turn and stomp from the greenhouse, moving into the house and passing Andrew as I go. He’s chatting with Casey, and I glower at him.

“Angel is unattended outside.”

“Titus is out there,” Casey says, dismissing me.

I grind my teeth and nearly lash out when I see Andrew’s lips twitch. He thinks this is funny.

He’s laughing at me.

“I want you gone tomorrow,” I say, and he nods, but I have a feeling he’s going to ignore me as well. That he will defer to Angel and I’ll find him still here in a few days’ time. I’m no longer the boss. I’m just a lowly employee of my fucking angelic, demonic husband.

I should apologize, should clean up the mess I made, but instead, I go up to our room, shower, and then slide into bed, tossing and turning in a fury. Nothing feels right. The pillow is too lumpy, the sheets too cold.

My head is throbbing, even when I close my eyes and try to relax. I should smoke, should light up a cigarette and let myself calm down.

I haven’t smoked in years, giving it up when my family died, but I crave it. Just like I crave him.

I roll to my side and force my eyes shut, telling myself to go the fuck to sleep, to not give in.

I won’t fucking give in.