Page 57 of Pageant

I make a short, angry sound. “Do not be fucking stupid.”

I have never dared to talk to myPakhanlike this before, but Konstantin is different to the others I’ve had in the past. He likes us to say what’s on our minds. He feels more comfortable that way, knowing we can be honest about any danger and treachery that’s lurking about, and that we’ll call him out on his bullshit if necessary. After Kirill and I saved his life, the three of us have been more like friends than boss and foot soldiers.

I feel more protective of Konstantin than I am of anyone else on this earth. I would die for him, and I know Kirill would, too.

“He’s not thinking of betraying you, Kostya. He’s jealous.”

“No one asked you,” I seethe at Kirill. I have been tied up in jealous knots over Lilia in the past. This is different. There’s a sick feeling in my guts that something terrible is going to happen. I’m seeing omens all around me. Spilled salt. Crows at dawn. Dreaming of deep water. I almost feel afraid of Lilia, which is ridiculous because we are the ones holding the guns and the keys to her cage.

Konstantin settles back in his leather chair and spreads his hands. “Just get it out. What is the problem, Elyah?”

I clench my jaw tight. My problem is that he touched her. He called hergood girl. Lilia Aranova is not a good girl. She is a treacherous little bitch. “This is Valeriya all over again.”

Konstantin raises an eyebrow, which scrunches the scar tissue at his temple, and his expression grows colder. “The last time I checked, I’m not going to marry Lilia. You are going to kill her.”

Panic shoots up my body and ricochets through my skull. He called her by her name, not by her number. I point a finger at him. “You need to be careful. The things she does in here, the things she says. She is up to something, I know it.”

“How do you know it?”

“Because this is not the Lilia that I saw every day, month after month.”

“Maybe that woman was a lie and this is the real Lilia. She betrayed you, and you never saw it coming.”

I push both my hands into my hair and growl, squeezing the sides of my skull. I’m not a stupid man, but I’m not as smart as Konstantin, and I am nowhere near as clever as Lilia. I was known asPushka. Gun. Weapon. I have the word tattooed on my ribs to remind me what I am good for. I run on instinct, not brains. Trying to tease apart the real Lilia from the one I knew and the one I see before me every day is giving me a headache.

“What do you think Aran Brazhensky will do to us when he finds out we’ve killed his daughter?” Kirill muses, spinning the gun around his finger and catching it.

Konstantin gives a lazy shrug of his broad shoulders. “He can shove it up his ass. The same as everyPakhanI’ve crossed. I apologize to no one.”

“He will probably send assassins after us,” Kirill says, sounding amused by the idea.

“That’s why I have the two of you,” Konstantin says with a smile. “My wolves with keen noses and keener eyes, who warn me of any danger that slinks in the shadows.”

And yet he’s ignoring everything I say about Lilia. “My instincts are telling me that Lilia Aranova is dangerous to you.”

Konstantin’s glittering gaze meets mine. “So kill her. End this now.”

I swallow, hard. She needs to die, but not like this. Not when her mockery is still ringing in my ears. I want to hear her begging for her life. I need to know why aPakhan’sdutiful daughter sold her husband out to the feds. I thought I would have figured out a way to break her down by now, but even Kirill falls under her spell. She was the one to tellhimto shoot, for fuck’s sake. How does she keep turning things around on us when she’s the one locked in a cage?

“I need some air,” I seethe, and I unlock and wrench open the door that leads into the villa. Striding through the cool, dark corridors, I take deep breaths, visions of Lilia dancing before my eyes, her cheeks flushed and her bare thigh squeezing Kirill’s shoulder. Her pussy filled with the thick barrel of the gun.

I groan under my breath and head for my bedroom as the visions continue. Kirill’s hands on her thighs as he dipped his head to lick her. The way her back arched as she moaned in pleasure. I remember exactly how she sounded when I touched her two years ago. The tight grip of her pussy on my fingers. Her slippery wetness coating the head of my cock as I ran it against her velvet pussy. I groan and grasp the windowsill. How many times have I jerked off to Lilia? A hundred times? A thousand? Even when I’ve hated her, my fantasies about squeezing the life out of her lying throat have turned into rough sex. I have never been able to kill her in my mind. The fantasy always ends with her climaxing around my cock.

I have to go back to the others and get through today’s event, but my dick is so fucking hard, and I need a release. I slam my bedroom door closed behind me and fumble for the button on my jeans. With one hand braced against the door, I picture Lilia, just as she was a few minutes ago, while I pump myself furiously up and down in my fist.

In my fantasy, I throw the gun aside, turn her head, and shove my cock in her mouth. She sucks me eagerly, working me up and down with her lips and tongue, moaning around me as Kirill devotes himself to her clit.

Konstantin needs to fuck her, too. He’s standing before her, stroking his hard cock while he waits his turn. When Kirill moves aside, he looms over Lilia, grasps her thighs and thrusts into her.

She moans desperately around my cock and holds on to my arm and Konstantin’s shoulder while we pound into her. It’s so fucking vivid. It’s so goddamnhot. Lilia should be fucked, hard and often, by men who know how to handle her and make her come.

“You suck me so good,solnyshko,” I mutter under my breath, and then break off with a groan. My orgasm rolls up my body and my head bows as my cum shoots out in ribbons.

I lean against the door, getting my breath back.

I’m so fucking stupid, beating off to a woman who’s going to be nothing but a corpse in a few days. I don’t know why I’m delaying the inevitable.

The sooner she dies, the sooner I can be free.

---