Page 4 of Sweet Deception

His eyes narrowed. "Are you deaf?"

Elisabetta jolted and bolted.

I swallowed, my pulse hammering against my throat. "What do you need a lighter for?" I asked, forcing steel into my voice, despite the dread coiling inside.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” He stepped back, flipping through the pages with a lazy menace.

Elisabetta returned, her movements stiff. She handed him the lighter, then stayed close to me, as if that would offer any protection.

She was just as afraid as I was.

Gleb turned the book over in his hands, his bloody fingerprints leaving a trail of ruin across the spine.

"I assume you like this book?" he asked, flipping a page.

I swallowed. "Yes of course. I told Elisabetta to bring it for me because I wanted to read it." I added, “I love to read novels, in case you care but you are already messing it up with blood stains. Plus you need to get yourself treated rather than standing here and staring at my novel.”

His lips twitched. "Watch it burn."

A shiver ran down my spine.

Elisabetta glanced at me, pity in her eyes.

I lunged for the book but he moved too fast, slipping it from my reach like it was nothing. Gleb flicked the flame to life. My breath hitched as he lowered it to the paper.

Chapter 2

ANNA

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He dropped the smoldering book at my feet. Ash whispered across my lap as the final pages curled inward, devoured by flame. The lighter clinked softly to the floor.

My lungs refused to expand. My fingers clenched the armrests of the chair so tightly my nails dug through the velvet. That book, my last escape, the only place I could still breathe was gone. Burned because I dared to imagine a life beyond this cage.

“You bastard,” I whispered.

His silhouette moved through the haze of smoke. Unflinching. Unapologetic.

I didn’t expect an answer. I didn’t expect anything but the cold weight of his silence pressing down.

Then he moved.

Fast.

A blur of black stormed past me, and before I could scream, his hand closed around Elisabetta’s throat.

“No!”

Her body slammed into the wall with a sickening crack. Her feet skidded, then dangled as he hoisted her upward. She clawed at his wrist, her face going red, then purple.

“Gleb! please!” My voice broke as I lurched forward. My wheels jammed in the rug’s edge. I couldn’t reach her. “Stop! What is she doing? What has she done?”

He didn’t answer.

Didn’t even look at me.

The only sound was the desperate rasp of Elisabetta’s breath—thin, fleeting, wet.