Page 29 of His Prince (Unexpectedly Twisted #2)

27

MIKHAIL

M y head is swimming, my mouth dry as if I’ve had cotton stuffed inside of it. Blinking slowly, I come to, nausea rolling in my stomach. What the fuck happened?

One minute I was watching Angel leave the room, and the next, it was utter blackness.

My head lifts but I see no one in this cold, dark room. Not Angel. Where is he? My heart thumps in my chest, anxiety replacing the nausea.

Is he hurt?

Where the fuck is he?

I struggle against the bonds holding my arms to the chair, pain slicing up my forearms as I try to get loose. I have to find him.

I have to fucking find him!

A grunt leaves me, and I let out a huff of frustration just as I remember the picture that popped up on my phone, the one Angel sent me right before I passed out.

Daniil with Katarina. The two of them together .

Why the fuck didn’t I listen sooner?

Angel was right. My sweet prince. I was too stubborn to see it at the office. I didn’t want to believe Daniil could betray me. He’s been with me through it all. He’s been like a brother. But now I see him through Angel’s eyes.

He’s hated me all along.

That much is clear.

As soon as I walked into that restaurant and saw those guards next to him, the way he watched me, the fake way he smiled…I knew that something was off, that he was lying to me.

I just didn’t realize any of this had to do with Katarina.

Fuck, how did I miss that? How did I not know they were together?

Looking back, there were many times I was called away for something Daniil needed. Did he do that for her? To keep me away so she could have those tunnels built and plan her revenge?

Fuck.

Another grunt of anger leaves me and it’s then that I hear it, the screech of metal, the piercing rays of light almost blinding me.

“Ah, you’re awake,” Daniil says in Russian as I scowl up at him.

“What is this?” I reply. “Let me go.”

“No. I’m afraid I can’t do that. We have things to discuss.”

I meet his stare and feel the room spin slightly. Shit, I’m not well. I feel like I’m going to vomit.

“It will pass,” he says and then crouches down next to me, his dark eyes meeting mine. “I’d rather have killed you by now, but Mila wanted you alive.”

Mila? My mind scrambles, pulling up the different people I’ve met over the years, but I can’t place that name.

“I don’t know any Mila.”

“I know you don’t,” he says. “Katarina kept her personal life very quiet, didn’t she? She didn’t trust you.”

“And she trusted you?” I ask, my words slightly slurred from whatever they drugged me with .

“She did. She loved me. And you took her away.”

“She murdered my family.”

“And they deserved it. You knew it and you turned a blind eye.” He stands up and straightens his tie. “But don’t worry. Now I’ll take away the one you love.”

That has me straining against my bonds, my nostrils flaring. Angel. He’s going to hurt my Angel.

“Don’t fucking touch him!” I growl.

“I will. I’m going to hunt him down and I’m going to do things to him. And I’ll make you watch.” He grins, a truly sinister look, and then he pats my face, a condescending gesture. “He’s going to scream as I take him apart. I’ll enjoy it far too much.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a syringe.

“Just to keep you from fucking everything up.” He jabs it into my arm, and I feel my muscles go slack, my vision growing hazy once more.

“Fuck. Wait. Daniil! Who the fuck is Mila?” I slur as he turns and walks away. But he doesn’t answer, and I’m left alone once more in the darkness with far too many questions and not enough answers.

And a fear that they’ll hurt my Angel, that the man I love will be snatched from me.

I’m left in the blackness for so long, my mind reeling. Katarina—the way she smiled in such a cunning, believable way, her gasp of alarm as I slit her throat, her blood coating my fingers. And then my mother, my father. When I found them, they were lifeless, just shells of who they were, staring blankly up at me. And then my grandmother, my babushka. I couldn’t save her. I was too late.

And I’m going to be too late now.

That thought pulls me to the present. Whatever he gave me seems to be slowly wearing off. My heavy eyelids pry open, and I let out a long exhale. Fuck, I need to get out of here. I need to protect Angel. I can’t let him get hurt.

I should have listened.

Why the fuck didn’t I listen?

My hatred for this business, the apathy for the position I’ve been thrust into—all it culminated into was my blind stupidity. It made me a complete pushover, blind to it all. I didn’t want to see it. Refused to acknowledge the connections between Daniil and my dead wife.

I was stubborn and now I’m paying the consequences.

Angel will too.

The thought of my sweet husband being hurt in any way makes my arms strain up against the restraints, my skin breaking, blood oozing onto the wooden arms they’re tied to.

Don’t fucking touch him. You won’t fucking lay a finger on him.

I struggle again, my eyes bulging from my head, my skin almost too tight as I pull, but I don’t get anywhere. The rope holding me down is far too strong, the knots impenetrable.

I lean back and let out a frustrated groan.

I need to get free. I need to protect him. He’s counting on me. I should have acted sooner. I shouldn’t have gone to that dinner. I should have taken Angel back to the hotel and fucked him. That’s what I should have done.

My mind flits to the name Mila, and I feel my heart thump angrily in my chest. Who the fuck is that? Obviously someone affiliated with Katarina, but who? Someone from Russia I didn’t know about?

I search for the answer and come up empty once more. I won’t know until someone tells me, until they lay it all out.

I hope they explain it all before they kill me.

That’s what I want.

As long as Angel is alive and well. Happy, in a garden, alive. He needs to stay alive. He has to.

Or I’ll die trying .

My eyes move around the room, and I make a plan to escape. No one is going to save me but myself. And the one thing Daniil has going against him is that I do know him better than most. I may not have known his secrets, but we were friends once upon a time, and I believe I can use some of that against him.

And if that fails, I’ll fight like hell to escape, to get back to Angel.

We still have so many years to live together.

I refuse to give up now.

A shout resonates through the cold, damp space, Daniil making an appearance, his lips turning into a deep frown as he approaches me.

He doesn’t stop though, just wrenches his arm back and punches me across the face. My entire cheek throbs in pain as the crack disorients me slightly. But I’ve had worse. He’s going to have to come at me with a lot more force to make me cave.

“That’s for Katarina.”

“So, you were fucking her?” I ask, blood pooling in my mouth, my cheek on fire.

“I did. She loved me.”

“She didn’t love anyone but herself.”

His fist flies again, knocking into the other side of my face. I slump sideways, my eyes closing slightly as I take the beating. I’ll take whatever he has. Nothing can hurt worse than the fact that I considered him a brother and he betrayed me.

“She loved me. Not you,” he seethes.

“And I killed her, so we’ll never really know will we?” I ask, forcing my lips into a small grin. “I slit her fucking throat and watched her die.”

That earns me another punch, this time to my stomach. The chair almost falls backward from the force of it. I grunt and cough but then laugh, antagonizing him. It works, his fingers flexing, already starting to bleed and bruise from the force of his punches.

“You were always shit at boxing,” I say, and he huffs a laugh.

“So were you.”

And then he lands another to my stomach, making me wheeze.

“You’re a coward,” I gasp. “You can only face me when I’m tied down. You could only fuck my wife while I was away. You run my businesses. You can’t stand on your own two feet. You’re nothing without me.”

He growls and comes at me, knocking me backward, my head hitting the cold cement ground. His fingers fall to my throat and he chokes me, my life being snuffed from me. I see it all, the hate in his eyes, the set of his jaw, and then everything starts to flicker out. Angel, his beautiful blue eyes, the pink of his lips and his cheeks as he blushes for me.

I see it all as I start to pass out, but before I can fully cross over, Daniil lets go and I gasp back to life.

“Not yet. Mila wants a fucking word with you. Several, in fact.”

“Who. The fuck. Is Mila?” I manage to ask, my throat sore, my words broken.

He pushes himself off me and brushes his jacket off. “Mila is Katarina’s sister. You’d have known that if you knew your wife. But she didn’t tell you anything because she despised you. She hated you with everything inside of her. She couldn’t stand to even touch you.”

“You could have had her, you know? I would have let you two run off together. She was a thorn in my side from the beginning. I would have given you up too, Daniil. Even though I loved you like a brother, I would have let you both go.”

He falters for a moment but then schools his face. “You lie. You fucking lie.” His words break and he looks unsure for a moment, but erases it once again. “And it doesn’t matter. You’ll get what’s coming to you. You’ll get what you deserve.”

He stomps up the stairs and calls back to me, “And soon, you’ll join her.”

“In hell,” I murmur and then let myself sink into the darkness.