Page 134 of Nikola

My sixth sense flared and I opted for a vague answer.Mafia is dangerous and you don’t want to mess with them.

Her expression twisted. “They blinded my boy. My poor boy.”

Huh?

The woman wasn’t making any sense. I typed a message in my notes and showed it to her.Who are you talking about?

“My son. He hurt my boy. That devil beat my son in a club, rendering him blind,” she said, tugging on her hair while her expression was full of malice.

“Which club?” I signed, but her confused expression reminded me she couldn’t understand me, so I typed it up.

“At some exclusive club in Connecticut where my boy touched his girl.”

My brows furrowed before I jotted down the only club name I knew in that part of the country.

Revelation?

“Yes,” she cried. “It’s not my boy’s fault he needs that stuff. He didn’t mean to hurt girls. He was getting better.” It would seem Dr. MaryAnn should have been providing her therapy sessions to her own son, not Nikola. “My son was just doing what an old woman, The Duchess, asked of him. He needed help, but instead, that devil scorched my boy’s eyeballs.”

Understanding dawned on me. It was that man who kissed me forcefully at Revelation. Was he working with my great-grandmother? For fuck’s sake, would her malice follow us forever?

I needed to tell Isabella this woman was cuckoo and had to be removed from ever speaking with Nikola again. In fact, she shouldn’t be counseling anyone in her state.

“But mark my words, that gimp will die, and I hope whoever shot him gets another chance,” she continued, oblivious to my thoughts. “This world would be a better place without people like him and his family. Hell, I might do the world a favor and do it myself.”

Red misted my vision and I had to take a second to swallow down the burning rage that rushed through me, pulse drumming in my neck. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, but I couldn’t find the will to forgive or forget.

There are two types of sinners in this world: those who sin with their hearts and those who sin with the intent to destroy. This woman was the latter.

She was hurting Nikola instead of helping him. Letting her live would be a mistake. The kind that would come back to haunt us, and I couldn’t allow that.

I walked over to the door, locked it, and then headed toward her.

Oblivious to my fury, the woman continued. “That might keep the gimp away this time, but he’ll be back.”

She went to stand by her desk, opened a drawer, and I never saw her next move coming. She was gripping a gun barrel with shaky hands, waving it around like a madwoman.

I couldn’t latch on to her words. Red marred my vision and blood drummed in my veins. I blinked once, twice, until her next words registered. “I’ll kill the cripple Nikolaev.”

Reaching into the back pocket of my jeans for the knife, I opened the blade and threw it across the room.

Just the way I learned with Sasha.

56

NIKOLA

After my physiotherapy, I noted a text waiting for me from Skye.

Skye: I’m at Dr. MaryAnn’s office. Can you pick me up here, please?

I instructed my driver to break every fucking law while all the different scenarios ran through my head during that five-minute drive.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I would find when I entered Dr. MaryAnn’s office.

Skye seated on the couch with her pink pumps on the coffee table.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, wheeling into the office as I glanced around the space, noting splashes of crimson. It didn’t take long to find the cause of it. My therapist, MaryAnn, was sprawled on the floor, dead as a doorknob. A Swiss knife pierced her neck, blood gushing out of it and staining the carpet.