I heard something hit the ground, a meaty, wet sound following. And then the man who held me abasing the wall was off of me and the motion was so sudden I sagged.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but then I saw a massive body standing five feet from me. I felt his gaze on me, this beast.
Razoreniye.
I could smell the sweat and blood that clung to him, and heard it dripping onto the floor.
A heartbeat passed of us staring at each other before he took a step closer. I pressed my back to the wall, about to scream, when he bent and picked up the man who’d been pulled off me.
Razoreniye had a huge hand wrapped around his neck, and the entire time he stared at me, I knew he was squeezing hard and harder.
He let the body fall to the ground and I thought he’d killed the man, but when he groaned and tried to rise, I snapped my focus back to the one they called Ruin.
He stepped aside just as another body moved closer.
Nikolai.
Nikolai stepped into the corner, his hands in his pockets as he looked at me and then at the man who was still groaning on the ground. He stopped when he stood right beside the wounded asshole.
Nikolai stared down at him for so long I didn’t think he’d ever speak, but then he murmured low and deadly, “you thought you could touch my wife?” There was this deceptive calm in his tone that was more frightening than anything else right now.
My fearsome husband looked at me then, his gaze lingering on my neck where the man had grabbed me. It throbbed and stung, and I knew it was red, and would possibly be marked come morning.
“I didn’t know she was yours—” The man said in English, responding to Nikolai.
“—You didn’t know she was mine?” Nikolai cut him off and produced a knife from his pocket, the blade catching the filtering light from the main part of the room for just a second. “You didn’t know she was mine,” he said again, low, his voice even, as if he was asking the question in a conversational manner.
The man pulled himself off the ground finally and stumbled backward until he had nowhere to go. A beast at his side, a wall behind him, and my husband stalking him from the front.
“You touched her.” Nikolai stopped and looked down at his knife, smoothed a finger over the blade. “And for every mark you left on her body, I’m going to cut into you, take a piece from you.”
And that was the only warning Nikolai gave. He had his hand in the man’s hair, yanked his head back, and proceeded to take chunks out of him, bits of flesh he tossed to the ground so they made a disgusting wet slopping noise as they hit the cement.
The man screamed, begged, pleaded and cried. But his sobs couldn’t be heard over the roaring coming from the crowd. But I had a feeling he wouldn’t have gotten help anyway, not when Nikolai was calling the shots.
I didn’t know how long this went on, but long enough that I tasted blood in the air, a coppery flavor that coated my throat and had me gagging.
And when the man was a ruined, barely breathing mess on the ground, as his blood pooled around him and snaked its way toward me, I watched in stunned–sick–fascination as Nikolai grabbed one of the man’s hands and started cutting off the pads of his fingers.
He did this to all ten digits, the man giving one last gurgled sound as his throat was cut open, his eyes staring up at nothing.
Nikolai wiped his blade on the other guy’s jacket, pocketed it, and faced me. I was so stunned by what I’d just witnessed I felt like I was swimming underwater, unable to breath, my body feeling almost detached.
He didn’t move for long seconds, just watched me. Without breaking eye contact, he said something to the mountain of a man behind him, and a second later we were alone. But that only lasted for a few minutes and then two men were coming and dragging the two bodies away.
I covered my mouth with my hand as I watched the dark, inky looking blood trail behind them.
“Printsessa,” Nikolai said and there was this weird note in his voice.
When I looked back at him, I also took note that his expression was off. He was hiding something. Masking how he really felt. But I was too shocked by what happened to see too deeply into it.
And so I let him wrap his arm around my shoulders, felt him kiss the top of my head, and let him lead me out of that underground illegal fighting room, up the stairs, out the doors, and back into the hallway of the main establishment.
It was then when the noise rushed back into me. The sound of women giggling, glasses clinking filled my head. I blinked several times, the world settling itself around me. It was as if what I’d just witnessed happened to someone else. Elegance and lavishness surrounded me from top to bottom. Gone was the scent and taste of blood in the air, of the violence and shouting filling my head.
How did nobody hear what was going on downstairs? How did nobody know what was happening in the underbelly of this place?
The man who was initially guarding the front of the hallway glanced over his shoulder and lowered his brows. He looked between the two of us, then faced us and held his hands out. He started speaking quickly in Russian to Nikolai, and the entire time Nikolai held his arm around me, keeping me close to his side.
“Give me a minute,” he said and before I could question him, he had his hand curled under my chin and tipping my head back so he could press his mouth to mine.
He slid his other hand up the length of my spine and cupped the back of my head, curling his fingers against my scalp, tangling his fingers in the strands. He kissed me long, slow and deep and everything else faded away.
My fear, the anxiety and the shock of what I witnessed all melted away under the onslaught of his mouth devouring mine. He was slow as he pulled his mouth back, languished as he dragged his tongue over my top and bottom lip. He dragged his tongue over my lips again, an act, I realized, he did every time after we kissed, as if he were marking me.
He pulled back fully and looked down at me, that strange expression still on his face. And then he was striding up to the guard that stood several feet away. I brought my hand up to my mouth and touched my tingling lips, my body light, my pussy liquid. A shocked cry left me when out of nowhere Nikolai slammed his fist into the side into the man’s jaw.
The sound of something cracking filled the short hallway and I stumbled back, feeling my eyes widen as I watched Nikolai continue to slam his fist into the other man’s face over and over again.
“Stop.” My voice was threadbare. “Nikolai. For God’s sake stop.” I was shouting now, tears streaming down my cheeks. He turned and faced me, his chest rising and falling, a cold, hard and dead look in his eyes.
“He didn’t protect you,” he said matter-of-factly. “He had one fucking job to do and he didn’t fucking do it.”
I was shaking my head before he finished. “It’s not his fault. It’s not his fault.” I felt like I kept saying those words over and over again. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t.” I had my hands out, palms facing forward, moving slowly toward him. I didn’t know why I thought doing so was a good idea, with the blood and gore covering him, the cruel look on his face.
But the closer I got, the lower his brows went, as if he were confused I was coming closer, as if he didn’t understand why I would risk being so near to a feral creature.
I didn’t know the kind of upbringing Nikolai or his brother had, but I could imagine. Being a male in the Cosa Nostra meant you were brought up to be ruthless, with little love and an iron fist always in your face.