Page 18 of Wicked Refusal

“I did. Such a shame.” He kicks a piece of debris as he takes a turn around the room. His walk is slow, deliberate, with a slight limp in his left leg. I make a mental note of that—any weakness matters, even the smallest one. “But if I know my best friend, he’s still attached. He always had that problem, you see—a heart too big for his own good.”

I freeze. “Best friend?”

“Oh, sure. We were thick as thieves.” He points at his scar. “It’s why he gave me this. So I’d never forget him. And believe me, I haven’t.”

I can’t wrap my head around what he’s saying. Yulian… he used to be friends with the guy who slaughtered his family?

Bestfriends, even?

“You’re lying,” I accuse. “Yulian would never be your friend.”

“Want me to get him on the phone?” He pulls mine out of his pocket, taunting me with it. “Then you can ask him all you want about dear old Desya Bogdanov. That’d be me, by the way.”

I roll the name on my tongue. There’s some familiarity to it, but I’m pretty sure Yulian never mentioned it. Every word he ever said to me about his family was like pulling teeth—a slow, excruciating affair. The only names he ever gave me were Kira and Alina.

And here, right now, is their killer.

Wait. Kira.

An idea forms in my head. A crazy, dangerous idea, but what part of this isn’t?

I straighten up in my chair. “Wanna know how I know you’re lying?”

“Please. I’d love that.”

“Yulian told me about his best friend,” I spit. “Her name was Kira.”

Desya’s face darkens on the spot. His little smirk shatters like glass, replaced by a snarl that’s more animal than human.

He lunges for me. His scarred hands grab the armrests at each side of me, his knuckles white as death. “Kira was a nobody,” he growls. “A cheap girl from a cheap family.”

There.He’s lost it now. All his calm, all his poise—gone. Just like I wanted. “And yet, he loved her more than you.”

“Mind your tongue,printsessa.There’s nothing you can do for me that your cold, dead body won’t accomplish just as easily.”

“If that were true, you’d have killed me already.”

I can see it on his face—how close he is to hitting me. One thing about living with an abusive boyfriend? You become a quick study in psychology. You start analyzing the moods of the men around you, walking on eggshells, learning exactly what not to say or do to set them off.

But it works just as well in reverse.

And right now, I really need Desya to hit me.

C’mon. Do it, you bastard.My eyes flit to the shard of glass on the floor to my left, nice and big and sharp, next to the shattered window. If I could get my hands on it, I could use to cut myself free.Do it. Make me fall. Knock me right over that way.

His left hand twitches at his side. I noticed when he smoked—that’s his dominant hand. Sure, he could slap me open-palmed, send me sprawling on the right, but one thing I’ve learned about men like him? They like to make ithurt.

And his knuckles look like they’d love to meet my face.

But then, his face suddenly relaxes. He steps away, his rage bleeding out. Like a summer storm—there one second, gone the next.

“You’re right. I would, indeed, prefer you alive.”

Then he draws back.

Shit.

I try not to let my disappointment show. But Desya must see something, because he starts laughing, soft and childish. It’s such a jarring contrast from earlier, it makes me shudder from head to toe.