Page 55 of Twisted Fate

I keep the blade pointed at him, backing away until I feel the edge of the counter behind me. I could tell him everything, now. I could tell him the truth, and then finish this. But I can’t bear to say it aloud. To admit that it was always the plan, from the beginning, to end him.

That everything was a lie.

Not everything, a small voice in the back of my head whispers. Not all of it .

“Do it,” Konstantin challenges. “Finish what you started.”

He takes another step forward, and I tighten my grip on the knife.

The weight of it feels strange in my hand—heavier than it should be, as if the blade itself is resisting what I'm about to do. His expression is hard and fearless as he closes the distance between us with slow, deliberate steps. My back presses harder against the counter’s edge, as if every part of me is resisting this final moment between us.

He looks at me as if he knows something I don’t. As if he’s privy to some inner part of me that I’m unaware of, as he advances on me, close enough that the tip of the knife presses against his chest.

"You must have been planning this from the start,” he murmurs, his voice full of that same knowing sound, as if he’s in on a secret that I’m not a part of. “So why hesitate, volchitsa ?”

I stare into his eyes—those eyes that once looked at me with such tenderness, now dark with anger, with betrayal, with some other emotion that I can’t begin to name.

My hand trembles violently. The knife tip creates a small tear in his shirt, directly over his heart. One quick thrust is all it would take.

But I can't move my arm.

In an instant, Konstantin lunges forward, his hand closing around my wrist with brutal force.

He twists sharply, and pain explodes up my arm.

The knife clatters to the floor. Before I can react, he's swept my legs out from under me, sending us both crashing down.

The impact knocks the breath from my lungs.

His weight pins me to the floor, one hand gripping both my wrists above my head, the other retrieving the knife.

I thrash beneath him, wild with the instinct to survive, but he's too strong, too heavy.

Every part of my body is reacting to the instinctive feeling that this is the end.

That this is the moment that Konstantin kills me… or worse.

"Who are you?" he demands again, pressing the flat of the blade against my throat.

I go still, feeling the cold metal against my skin. His eyes burn into mine, searching for something—truth, perhaps, or a glimpse of the woman he thought he knew.

And there’s one truth that I can’t stop myself from whispering, from releasing into the air like I can’t bear to die without him knowing.

Like I’d give anything to hear him say it just once, even if it’s the moment before he kills me.

"Valentina," I whisper, my real name escaping me like a surrender, my voice cracking.

Konstantin's eyes widen, the pressure of the knife against my throat faltering for just a moment. It's enough. I bring my knee up hard, catching him in the stomach. He grunts, losing his balance, and I use the momentum to roll us, wrestling for control of the knife again.

We crash into the base of the couch, the knife between us, both our hands wrapped around the handle.

His strength is overwhelming, his fingers crushing mine as he wrenches the blade away.

Before I can recover, he's on top of me again, knees pinning my thighs, my wrists pinned again while his hand presses the knife against my throat.

"Valentina," he repeats, testing the name on his tongue. A shudder ripples down my spine at the sound of my name in his voice. I feel burning at the backs of my eyes—not tears, surely. At this moment, of all moments, I’m not going to cry.

But god , my name sounds so good on his lips, even when his voice is cold as ice. A tremor runs through me, hot and needy, at the thought of him saying it differently. Whispering it heatedly as his hands run over my skin. Groaning it as he comes inside of me.

His eyes bore into mine, searching, and I can see the conflict there.

The cold, ruthless, brutal Bratva heir, hesitating as he tastes my name on his tongue.

The blade trembles against my skin. I stare up at him defiantly, knowing as my body aches from a dozen bruises that I’m not going to win this fight, waiting for the killing stroke.

But it doesn't come.

"Why?" he asks, his voice hoarse with emotion. "Was any of it real?"

I can’t tell him why. Even now, I can’t bring myself to give him the whole truth. Secrecy is ingrained in me, trained into my bones and my blood like my skills with a knife and a gun, like my fighting ability, like my instinct to survive. But I can give him one thing.

“Yes,” I whisper. “Some of it was.”

I see the war raging behind his eyes—fury battling with something deeper, something he doesn't want to acknowledge. His hand tightens on the knife, then loosens. The blade presses against my skin, then eases away.

"I can't," he whispers, almost to himself.

The realization hits me like a thunderbolt. He can't kill me, just as I couldn't kill him. The knife clatters to the floor beside us as he releases it, his hand still pinning my wrists above my head.

"I should slit your throat," he growls, his face inches from mine, breath hot against my cheek. "I should make you suffer for what you’ve done to me. For your lies, your betrayal. I should make you tell me everything, word by word, like you did to Elia. Didn’t it ever occur to you that you might suffer the same fate, Valentina?”

My name again, on his lips. An ache sweeps through me, hot and burning, and without meaning to, I arch into his weight, my legs pressing against his as I stare up at him. “Yes,” I whisper. “Every moment.”

“So why didn’t you do it?” His blue gaze holds mine, intense and piercing, and I remember the first time I saw his face staring up at me from a photo in a dossier, how those eyes were the first thing that captured me.

How I knew then that this was a mistake.

“I don’t know,” I whisper, and his expression darkens.

“I think you do.” His weight shifts against me, and I can feel how hard he is. Solid as iron, pressed between my thighs, only a few thin layers of fabric separating us. “Tell me, Valentina.”

“Stop saying my name,” I whisper, and I can hear the thread of desperation in my voice.

“Valentina.” He breathes it roughly, his voice rasping like sandpaper over silk as he grips my wrists more tightly in one hand, the pressure enough to hurt, as he drops his other hand to my thigh. He starts to slide my dress up, inch by inch, and I bite back a whimper.

“Why didn’t you do it?”

I try to turn my face away, and he reaches up, grabbing my chin as he yanks my face back so that I’m forced to look up at him. “Don’t look away from me, volchitsa . Face what you’ve done. Why , Valentina?”

“Stop,” I whisper, but my hips arch as he reaches down and yanks my skirt up around my hips, and we both know I don’t mean stop touching me . I mean, stop saying my name, stop reminding me of what could have been, stop making me feel this now, after everything.

His fingers slide between my thighs, pushing beneath the lace thong I’m wearing, and I hear the strangled groan in his throat as his fingers slip between my folds.

“You’re dripping, volchitsa ,” he growls. “Does fighting me turn you on?”

Everything about you turns me on. I bite back the words, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing them. He chuckles darkly, his fingers rubbing back and forth through my slick wetness, and a moan escapes from between my clenched teeth.

“You want me,” he murmurs, satisfaction thick in his voice. “You’re so wet for me, Valentina. Dripping with need. You’d come for me no matter what I did.”

His thumb grazes my swollen clit, and I gasp.

His gaze darkens then, and he slides his fingers out of me, curling them around the fabric of my thong as he bunches it in his hand.

I let out a mewl of protest despite myself, my body clenching as an ache sweeps through me at the loss of having him inside of me.

A smirk curls Konstantin’s lips, and he jerks his hand back, towards himself.

The lace of my panties tears, and he rips them away from me, balling them in his fist before throwing them to the side. And then, as I stare up at him with a fearful need, he reaches for the knife lying next to me.

My chest cramps with fear when I see him move his hand toward my leg. And then he flips the knife in his grasp, his fingers curling around the very edge of the handle where it meets the blade, and he pushes the wooden handle between my thighs as he nudges them apart with his knee.

“Keep those legs spread for me, volchitsa ,” he murmurs, his voice thick and husky. “Or you might cut yourself on the blade when you come.”

“I—” My mouth falls open as I realize what he’s doing, the moment that the cool wood touches the hot, slick flesh of my inner folds. He pushes the knife handle into me, and my body clenches around it instantly, desperate to be filled, for friction, for something .

He laughs, low in his throat, the sound dark and threatening. “Do you want me to stop, Valentina?”

“Don’t call me that,” I whisper, my voice strangled. “Don’t—” He thrusts harder, his thumb finding my aching clit as he fucks me with the handle of the knife, and a moan escapes my parted lips.

“What should I call you then?” he murmurs. “Liar? Betrayer? Wife ?”

He thrusts again, faster now, his thumb keeping the firm, tight circles on my clit that he knows will push me over the edge, and a dark need fills his face.

“You’re going to come for me, wife ,” he growls.

“Come on the fucking knife you wanted to kill me with. Scream my name, and maybe you can earn this cock one more time before I fucking kill you.”