Page 56 of Her Vicious Angel

30

CERISE

Aweek after leaving St. Petersburg I was elbow-deep in soapy water when I heard excited and horrified squeals and someone turned on the small television in the corner of the kitchen.

I look over and there’s Andrei.

He was on the screen standing outside the ballet theater, dressed for a performance. Taller, bigger, more dangerous than everyone else there. Blindingly white collared shirt, suit molded to his body, tie that made my mouth water just looking at it. He looks even more like a sexy book vampire trying to fit into human society.

I ran over, heedless of the soapy water dripping on the floor.

“What’s he saying?” I cry.

“I’m not sure how to say it in English,” tiny Sister Sofia says to me. “He is saying that he does not . . .approve, maybe, or like. He does not approve of—” and here she gasped, looking at me with shock. “—rapists.”

Then I look closer and see he’s got Sergei with him, bound and tied on the ground. Sergei looks like someone has been beating the shit out of him.

The lovely motherly-looking news anchor interviewing him has this “what is going on here” face but, like everybody else, she’s mesmerized by Andrei.

A chill runs down my spine as he switches to Englishand says, “I do not tolerate rapists in my organization.”

He pulls out a knife and slits Sergei’s throat, right on live television.

The news anchor screams, loud and piercing, dropping her microphone as Sergei’s blood flows and spurts, and Andrei drops his body contemptuously to the ground.

The entire kitchen staff erupts into horrified screams and shrieks and cries of “angel mshcheniya” and “satana.”

I can’t lie, when he turns around and there’s Sergei’s blood on the front of his shirt the dark part of me that craves the darkness in him is singing with savage glee.

I can’t feel sorry for Sergei. Not after what Maria told me he did to Anya.

The chill down my spine is because I don’t know if Andrei meant this as a message to me.

Even if he did, I’m not going back to him just because he committed an unhinged murder on live television.

I’m not going back because I’m not going to be married to someone who was goddamn forced into it.

Sister Inessa, who is a cheerful, gossipy woman in her 20s, turns to me.

“We should pray for his soul,” she says.

I think that’s a complete waste of time, but I agree.

“That man is depraved,” she says.

My breath starts coming faster.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

I hope my voice shows only a casual interest in the topic. Maybe now I’ll finally learn what these unnatural proclivities are. I imagine him using stinging whips on dozens of women in the town square, pouring hot oil over their nipples, wild orgies.

I wish it was me. I want him doing everything tome. I want him doing everything twisted, dark, and wrong to me, and I want the wild, savage freedom I feel when he puts his hard hands on me.

“He hires women to run from him, and he chases them,” Sister Inessa says with ghoulish relish. “He loves when people try to stop him, too. He kills them when they do. The last time he had a chase it ran right through here, and a foreigner didn’t know what was happening and tried to stop him. He killed that man and . . .” her voice lowered to a breathy whisper, “TOOK the woman, you know CARNALLY, right NEAR the man he killed. They say the blood even washed over them like a tidal wave and it didn’t stop him.”

She stopped her story and looked at me, breathing heavily.

I am gobsmacked.

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