Page 93 of Refrain

“What are you doing?” I don’t know how I speak. Piotr’s last assault was child’s play.Thisis death. My heart stops beating. My lungs seize. Somehow, I’m still standing. Still able to listen.

I can’t help but listen.

“Well.” Piotr flicks the button on his tiny remote, ensuring I see each deliberate motion. “I will ask you again. Do you like your present, Ksei?”

“Y-yes.” I spit the word out, unable to move. Unwilling to scream.

Anna stares beyond me. From her posture alone, I sense that the trigger to her pain is virtually in my hands.

With sickening dread, I realize just what game he’s chosen to play.

“Say it again,” he says sharply. “Like you mean it, Ksei.”

“I like my—” A high-pitched wail pierces my words. “Stop!”

The girl’s whimpers are abruptly cut off and the only noise to flood the room is that of my own erratic breathing. And my sobs. They rip from me, unable to be contained—breaking the one rule I always maintained in Piotr’s presence. Never show weakness. Never let him see your pain.

I won’t. I am.

My legs can’t hold me. The stench of cigarette smoke fades, and my fingers flail, searching for something. Anything.

Cool fingers grab mine, yanking me upright before I can hit the floor. “Ksei…”

I look up.

His smile is beautifully restrained, even as his eyes glow with a predatory gleam. “My precious angel.” His hand lands on my shoulder, the tips of his fingers lingering over my skin. It’s like the world’s purest cocaine laced with arsenic—the difference between his touch and Espisido’s is night and death.

My skin crawls, goosebumps forming. My heartbeat quickens. I want to move. My body refuses; she’ll suffer.

“Tell me—Are you pleased?” he asks. “Now, we can be together, always. A perfect family.”

Family? Bile coats the back of my throat at the prospect. “I…”

Anna flinches, reacting to something beyond her collar. A noise? Then I hear it. Loud. Sporadic. Gunshots. There are too many of them to be just from Piotr’s small group ofsoldaty. The floor vibrates with a million differing sensations. Footsteps. Thuds.

There’s no time to think. I lunge, wrestling a smaller body to the floor as nearly a dozen figures burst into the office.

“Clear it out,” one of the strangers commands. A man. His voice is deep, resonating down my spine. I can’t see his face, but there is something familiar in his tall, imposing build.

Four of the men take off through the rest of the suite. I hear more gunshots. Shouts. Screams. My mind races as I try to picture a fitting scenario. It’s an attack.

From whom?

Jose? They aren’t wearing the beaten leather duds of the Cartel or the stained, brutal clothing of Arno’sGardai. Just black. Like shadows.

“Clear!” The shout comes from somewhere deeper in the suite, and the man I assume to be the leader heads for the main door.

The moment he pulls it open, another figure steps inside. Someone smaller than he is. Slender. Unlike the rest, she’s not wearing bulky, nondescript clothing.

A dark sweater and jeans cling to her slender frame. Paired with black hair cut to her shoulders and wide, hazel eyes, she could be a student who’s wandered into the wrong suite. But, even from the yards of space that separate us, I can sense the darkness in her gaze. It shines like a beacon. A demon knows another demon, after all.

“Did you find him?” she asks the taller man beside her.

As if on cue, two of the intruders approach her with none other than a smirking Piotr Petrov marshaled between them. He’s bleeding from his lip but otherwise looks none the worse for wear, even as his captors shove him to his knees. Behind him, at least a dozen trembling women in maid uniforms are ushered through the foyer and out into the hall.

“Hello, Piotr.” The woman in black smiles, but with her face half bathed in shadow, it resembles a snarl more. “You don’t remember me,” she says. An accent laces her words, though I can’t place it exactly. “Maybe this will refresh your memory?” Shetakes a step closer and lifts the front of her sweater, heedless of the men, dead and living, who crowd the room.

She doesn’t reveal anything more than her torso, but I suck in a breath when I see what mars the golden flesh.

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