Page 112 of Nikola

“He’s supposed towantto marry me. Honestly, at this point, I’m probably dreading this wedding as much as Nikola.”

“You could alwaysnotmarry him,” Kostya suggested, the words enough to cause my eyes to burn with unshed tears. “You could marry me.”

It took several heartbeats for his words to sink in and my eyes widened. “What?”

“You could?—”

I waved my hand, shushing him. “I know what you said, but why would you say it?”

He shrugged. “Remember how jealous he got when he saw us in the restaurant?”

“As if I could forget.”

Kostya smiled smugly. “Well, just imagine what he’ll do if he thinks you’re marrying me.”

I tilted my head. “And if he doesn’t react?”

“Then we marry.”

“Kostya, I?—”

“It would just be a marriage of convenience, and we can dissolve it when my knucklehead cousin comes to his senses. But I don’t think it’ll come to that.”

“You can’t be sure.” I couldn’t believe we were even discussing it.

“Oh, I’m sure. As the wedding date approaches, we slip in a hint to his father and tell him we’ll do a switcheroo.”

“But—” I shook my head at the crazy idea, yet it sounded so tempting. “Nikola doesn’t want to marry me, so the groom switch could be exactly what he wants.”

Kostya rolled his eyes.

“I’d bet anything that Nikola won’t let the two of us get married if he gets wind of it.”

45

NIKOLA

After one solid week of torture, Diana Bergman’s expression finally turned fearful the moment she spotted me. She never even glanced Uncle Sasha’s or Alexei’s way.

It was only me she watched. After all, this was my revenge. My payback. Mine and Skye’s.

Her expression was filled with hate and malice, but it finally went through her head that nobody was coming to save her. Not the head of the Spanish mafia. Not the heirs of her long-dead lover and first husband. Not her granddaughters.

I wheeled over to her with a twisted grin, ignoring the stench of her body that smelled of copper, urine, and desperation. She was still in the same clothes that Alexei had found her in. The white Valentino tuxedo now yellow and sporting multiple rips.

“Merry Christmas,” was my greeting, watching the IV hooked to her vein drip, drip, drip. It was what had kept her alive for so long. “Or maybe not so merry after all, considering you’re tied up in a dark basement and there’re no hollies or cherry pies to go around.”

“You have no honor,” she spat.

“Funny, neither do you,” I scoffed. So did Sasha and Alexei, who stood a mere two feet behind me.

“Torturing an old woman is so beneath you,” she said tersely, her speech slightly slurred. A sure sign that her end was near, and today I might just be generous enough to give it to her. “What happened to no torturing women and children?”

“It still stands. But you’re neither a woman nor a child. You’re an evil piece of shit who manipulated her family. Who tried to kill her own great-granddaughter. Who hurt a five-year-old.”

It was what kept me coming back to this fucking basement and inflicting punishment on this old woman.

I hurt inside, and I needed this bitch’s screams to drown out the pain and voices of regret in my head. Skye out of my life hurt more than anything else. Deep down, I constantly fought the urge to go after her, but every time I sat in that fucking wheelchair, I knew I was doing right by her.