Page 53 of Twisted Fate

VALENTINA

I jump when I hear the beep of Konstantin’s keycard on the door.

I have the mood set for the evening—drinks poured, more candles lit on the dining table, a record playing with soft Spanish guitar filling the room.

I’ve been thinking for the last hour about how I’m going to do it, and all I’ve been able to come up with is the deep desire to put it off until tomorrow night, until the deadline.

To fall asleep with him one more time, wake up with him again in the morning.

My chest aches, and I breathe in deeply as I see the door start to open, forcing myself to look and act as if nothing is wrong.

To put a smile on my lips and a soft look in my eyes, to go to him the way I would any other night.

Konstantin has a takeout bag in one arm, the most normal thing I’ve ever seen him do, I think.

I press my lips together to force back a giggle—the sight of a Bratva heir with a paper takeout bag isn’t something I’d really ever expected to see.

I never thought of any powerful man I ever targeted as anything but a name on a piece of paper—as someone who had a preference for noodles or rice with their Chinese food, a favorite drink, a preferred restaurant.

Seeing Konstantin like this is startlingly domestic.

“I brought home something from that new Asian fusion place,” he says, hefting the bag before pausing as he looks at me, and around the room.

“I really could get used to this,” he says after a moment, his gaze sweeping over me as he takes it all in.

“Candles, music, my beautiful wife waiting for me—” He walks toward me, tossing his keycard on the counter as he goes, before reaching out to tip my chin up with one hand as he bends down to kiss me.

I close my eyes, savoring the feeling of his lips on mine.

The warmth, the fullness, how firm they feel against my mouth, slotting against my lips so that the bottom tucks between his, perfectly placed for him to tug it into his mouth if he wants.

I can feel him on the verge of doing just that, of deepening the kiss, but then he breaks away from me, that hungry light in his eyes as he walks past me to set the food on the table.

“Can you get silverware?” he asks, glancing back. “I’ve never been the biggest fan of chopsticks, but I grabbed a set in case you want them.”

“Of course.” I don’t know how my voice sounds so calm.

My throat feels tight, my heart hammering behind my ribs as I walk to get two sets of silverware out of the kitchen drawer.

My hand closes around the steak knives, and I bring one of each of those as well, my pulse fluttering in my throat as I look down at the glinting blade.

I’m not going to do it right now. I’m not.

This is a messy, difficult way to kill him, and it could come with all kinds of complications.

A bullet is quicker. Poison would be even better—quiet, simple…

but I can’t bear the thought of Konstantin choking to death, his throat closing, fighting for his last breaths and staring at me as he dies slowly, knowing it was me.

Sometimes, I like poison for exactly that reason. But I can’t do that to him.

A bullet is the best option. Or, if a knife, then while he’s asleep. I set the silverware down with a clatter, and I realize my hands are trembling.

Konstantin glances at me. “Are you alright?”

I nod quickly. “I’m fine. Just?—”

His eyes narrow, and he gives me a wicked smile. “Thinking about what we did last night on this table?”

My stomach flips for an entirely different reason.

For all the conflicted emotions swirling through me, that one look, those words, are enough to heat my blood instantly.

I feel my skin tingle with awareness, my thighs squeezing together at the memory of him kneeling in front of me at the table, his hands on my thighs, his mouth pressed between them.

“Yes,” I whisper, and he turns toward me, takeout containers spread across the table as he leans in to kiss me again.

Not tonight, I think, as his lips touch mine. Not yet , my heart pleads, even as my hand slides across the table and I feel the handle of the knife brush against my fingertips. Trying to kill him right now is the stupidest thing I could possibly do.

My heart pounds against my ribs. Konstantin steps between my legs, his hands cradling my face as he deepens the kiss, the food forgotten in his never-ending hunger for me.

And I feel my heart shattering as I imagine another night, another day of waiting, hours and hours of struggling with the fate that was decided as soon as Kane handed me that dossier.

If I feel something more for Konstantin than I was supposed to, then I’m a fool. He’s a fool for trusting me. And I can’t take it any longer.

My fingers close around the handle of the knife. His tongue slips into my mouth, sliding against mine. He leans into me, one arm going around my waist, and I feel him press between my thighs, long and hard and thick, hard for me …

I reach down, sliding my hand along the length of his cock through his pants, and he groans into the kiss. And, at the same moment, I bring up the hand holding the knife, the point of it aimed at his throat.

He’ll die with his lips on mine, and all I can hope is that there’s only a moment where he realizes what’s happening before he’s gone.

I feel his teeth sink into my lower lip—and his hand leaves my face in a flash, his fingers wrapping around my wrist in a vise grip with the point a fraction of an inch from his throat.

He rears back, confusion and horror on his face for a split second as he tries to wrench the knife away.

Something clicks inside of me, the assassin’s instinct that’s been trained into me since I was a child, and I lunge toward him, throwing myself toward him off the table as I fight to drive the blade into his neck before he can get it away from me.

“Sophia! What the fuck—” He lets out a string of Russian curses, swinging me to one side as we grapple for the knife.

We both crash into the table, and it rocks, sliding to one side as the food slides across the top of it.

A wine glass tips over, red liquid spilling like blood onto the wooden floor.

“You don’t understand,” I gasp. “This was never?—”

His face pales as he seems to catch up to what’s happening, and he wrenches the knife away, bowing me back over the table as the knife approaches my throat. His eyes are dark, furious, his jaw clenched as he stares down at me.

“I should have known,” he breathes, his hand still wrapped around mine as he presses me back against the table, the knife inching toward my skin. “I should have known from that first night, when you had the nightmare. There was always something wrong with you?—”

“There’s nothing wrong with me!” I spit out, arching up, trying to fight him off. Inexplicably, I can feel that he’s still hard, pressing against me through layers of our clothing as we both fight over the knife. “I’m only what I was made to be, Konstantin. Nothing more.”

“You’re right,” he growls, shoving me back. “ Nothing . Nothing but a liar, and a?—”

I knee him in the groin, and he groans, toppling forward.

I twist away, the knife grazing the side of my throat, and I feel the trickle of warm blood on my skin as I dart away from him, trying to run.

If I can get upstairs, I can get to my gun.

I’m no longer fighting this—I have to kill him now, whether I want to or not. If I don’t, he’ll kill me.

It doesn’t matter that I can feel my heart breaking as I run, that the thought of seeing Konstantin dead, eyes sightless, the life gone from his body, feels like a crime when no other kill ever has.

It’s him or me now, and if there’s one thing that Kane instilled in me above anything else, it’s a survival instinct that trumps all of it.

Konstantin lunges after me, his hand catching my ankle. I fall hard, sprawling onto the wooden floor, my chin striking it with enough force to make my teeth click together. The knife skitters away, spinning across the polished surface.

"Like hell you're getting away from me," he growls, yanking me back toward him.

I twist, kicking out with my free leg, catching him in the shoulder. He grunts but doesn't let go, dragging me closer. I claw at the floor, my nails scraping against wood as I try to find purchase.

"Who sent you?" he demands, flipping me onto my back. "Who are you working for?"

I swing at his face, but he catches my wrist, pinning it above my head. His weight settles over me, heavy and immovable. Blood is still trickling from the shallow cut on my neck, warm and sticky against my skin.

Somehow, despite the danger of the moment, despite the fear and anger and the pain in my chest at the thought of killing Konstantin, my body still responds to his.

The feeling of his hand closed around my wrist, holding me captive, the weight of his body pressing down on me, his powerful thighs around mine, sends shudders of desire through me.

My blood feels hot, adrenaline pumping through my veins, as if my nervous system doesn’t know if we want to fight or fuck.

Maybe both. I can feel the throb between my thighs, in my blood, a separate pulse from my own heartbeat, from the instinct for my own survival that throbs through me as well.

"Who is it? Genovese? The Slakovs?" he demands, his beautiful, piercing blue eyes turned cold and violent, his fingers pressing into my wrist. “Was all that with Elia just to prove you were better at your job? Was she about to steal your kill?”