Page 86 of Wicked Mafia Sinner

"I licked her." He grins over Cora's shoulder. "Now she's mine."

The cold that drops through my blood bleeds me of humanity. All I see is red. Death fills my senses and I forget about our shared blood.

My fists tighten until my knuckles pop and the silver ring bites into the finger beside it, pulling me off the lethal edge my demons want to push me over.

I inhale sharply and fill my lungs with gunpowder and the sting of rage. The men who loaded cargo beside me in Saint Petersburg would step back from me if they ever saw the rage pouring into my blood.

The only barrier keeping me from ending Nikolai Volkov’s life is the gun pressed against the temple of the woman I love.

Cora surges against his hold, every muscle straining, as she fights against the arm locked around her throat.

"Stop." I speak to her and I pour everything into the word. Every promise. Every night in the compound. Every morning we shared together. "Don't give him a reason to pull the trigger. He'd love nothing more."

Violet eyes find mine across six feet of glass-covered marble. Fury blazes in them, hot and alive. She holds. She trusts me enough to hold.

Nikolai's arm stays locked and he holds the gun steady. Shattered glass catches the overhead lights and throws fractured rainbows across the ceiling.

“Aww, the two love birds are scared for each other.”

His blue eyes shine with bitter amusement despite the obvious pain I see there too.

"I got your letter." Nikolai's voice shifts. The performance peels back and underneath is rawness. "You remember the letter, right, Father? I packed my bag and waited at the airstrip. I was so excited that my father wanted me at his side. Grandfather showed up telling me you changed your mind. He handed me a letter from you telling me I was better off in Russia."

I feel the weight of eyes on me from my brothers.

"He handed me a letter in your handwriting and your words." Nikolai taps the metal tip of his gun against Cora’s temple. "Telling me I was better off in Russia. Telling me you didn't want me." He turns to Cora and presses his lips to her ear. “Can you believe that? Can you believe a father would do that to his son?”

I turn the ring on my finger. The silver is warm and slick with blood.

"Your grandfather is a master manipulator, son. I was at the airport. Ready to pick you up. He was supposed to deliver you to me. Instead I received a note in your handwriting telling me you wanted nothing to do with me. That you considered me responsible for your mother's death."

My son chuckles like I’ve said something funny.

Seventeen

Cora

Iclose my eyes and focus on trying to get much-needed oxygen into my lungs.

Inhale. Wait. Exhale.

Inhale. Wait. Exhale.

I open my eyes and the first thing that hits me is the pain on Rowan's face. And it guts me.

I've watched this man absorb violence without flinching, take punches and dodge bullets and carry me through a war zone. He’s a bull in every sense of the word. Everything visible stays locked behind a mask of indifference while the fracture to his soul travels underneath, cracking through stone nobody gets to see. I only know because I know the signs to look for. The way he turns the ring on his finger. The slight tic at the back of his jaw.

Then he smiles and my stomach turns over because the smile has no warmth in it. No ghost of humor, no trace of the man who laughed with his heart. This smile is cold, lifeless and brings death.

Nikolai's arm loosens a fraction around my throat. A millimeter of give, invisible from the outside.

I hold.

"It doesn't matter now." Nikolai's voice hardens, armor slamming closed over the rawness. "That was two decades ago."

Rowan's voice drops lower. "It matters to me. You need to know the truth."

Rowan takes a step in our direction and Nikolai retreats a step closer to the broken window. Wind whips through the office, but it seems no one is paying attention to that.