Page 114 of Axel

Again, this fucker interjects? First, at me being the heir, and second, at a queen who left me?

Fuck this.Now, I’m suspicious.

Keeping out of range of his stare, I hunt, my shoesclapping over concrete until I stand behind him, just enough to step the point of my shiny black oxfords down on his trapped balls.

“Argh!” he growls, protesting.

“Oh, so this isn’t your kink, ballboy?” I mock, “We finally found a torture that doesn’t please your dick?” I step harder. “Care to contribute meaningfully to the conversation, or do you need a cough drop?”

“Fuck you, Aleksi,” he mutters my birth name and my eyes widen. My mind, shocked. My pulse stutters as the hot blood in my veins turns to ice.

Then … it’s instinct.

I reach for my gun, and press the muzzle of my double-mag, Mossberg 9mm to his asshole, and growl, “Whatdid you just call me?”

“Aleksi Kholodov,” he answers, laughing. “Nice to finally meet you, brother.” I whip my murderous glare to my mom, my trigger finger itching to pull. “Half brother, I should clarify.” He jeers, “We have different mothers, which is a good thing, because Ireallywant to fuck yours.”

I rage, “You fucking piece of…”

“Michael!” My mother shouts my fake name. “Leave! This man is delusional and my prisoner and the last thing he needs is a bullet in his ass. He wants me to fuck him there and I will for his intel.”

What.

The.

Escaped Bratva.

Hell?

My half-brother? On my father’s side? Somehow, in my cold bones and thundering heart, I believe him. It feels true. And if that’s so, it means…

My father has found us.

“Leave!” My mother orders me again, pointing toward thedoor. Outside, three of her armed guards await her orders. After that? Five more are stationed outside, with two snipers who keep the only door, in or out of our bunker, in their crosshairs.

This man will never get out.

My half-brother will die in here.

Did my mother know this all along?

“Not before he pays.” I tuck my gun into my back holster and whip my knife from my pocket.

I’ll obey my mother, our queen, but she knows who I am, too. Who I was born to be.

With careful precision, I press the blade of my dagger to our captive’s hamstring.

If he truly is our father’s son, he’s seen this effective torture.

“You dare to disrespecther?” I want to call her my mother, to defend her honor, but I won’t confirm our identity.

“You want to kneel for her?” I sneer, “Then let me help you. Do you know where the term ‘being hamstrung’ comes from, ballboy? It comes from slicing a man’s hamstring. More accurately, your biceps femoris. Thanks for working out. I can clearly see yours.” With a one-inch cut, I slice across it, making him cry out and taking his freedom of movement for months to come. “It comes from this revenge, you disrespectful piece-of-shit.”

Then I pull out a salt packet. Now thanks to my sadistic father, I always carry one in my pocket. Pouring it over his weeping wound, he whimpers in pain while I jeer, “And now you’ll live with no infection, but it’ll be on your knees for her, you mother fucker, indeed.”

I move my blade to slice his other hamstring, but my mom shouts, “Enough! I fight my own battles. Leave!”

It’s with fierce love and something else in my mother’s glare that she pleads with me to listen.

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