Page 94 of Refrain

“After all,” she adds before lowering her shirt, “Vinny did get the idea fromyou.”

My lower back throbs in sympathy, recognizing the ache of an owner’s possession. That name she said… It rings a bell. Vinny. Vinny. Vincent.

“Stacatto’s bitch,” Piotr says in English. “I remember you. He used to pick out your toys himself.”

The woman flinches. One of her hands flexes, and as if following some telepathic command, the man beside her places something in her grasp. Her fingers close over it securely, and seconds later, another feral smile shapes her mouth.

“I thought I would return the favor,” she says, her soft voice adding an ominous edge to her words. “Vinny said that you always preferred to mark your women on the face to create the best possible effect. I have to admit. I’ve seen your work. It suits you well.”

My throat feels raw with the memory.Fight it back, Ksei.Swallow it… I can’t as my trembling fingers graze my forehead. A mark on the face was the equivalent of a death sentence in Piotr’s world. It was the stamp of a discarded product. You were nothing.

“What do you want?” Piotr demands. Even with his men lying dead around him, he doesn’t bat so much as an eyelash. He’s thinking.

I know that look. It’s as if the entire universe knows it too, taunting me with a low buzzing sound that hums through my skull.

“Wait,” Anna hisses into my ear the moment I tense. Her tiny hands grasp my arms, drawing me tight to her side. “Wait…”

“I don’t want anything from you,” the woman declares. Sheapproaches him slowly. Only when she’s just beyond his reach does her hand lash out, catching his cheek with the end of her blade. Digging deep. Blood flies, painting those handsome, chiseled features in shades of red. “I just wanted you to know,” she explains as his head jerks to the side with the force of the blow. She left him with a present he will always remember—a jagged edge to his infamous smile. “I just wanted you to see who pulled the trigger.”

“Is that so?” Piotr laughs, spitting blood as he fights to stay upright. His voice is a snarl, but it’s his unstable chuckle that rouses every flight instinct in my body.

The buzzing grows louder. Swallowing me. Smothering me.

“Wait!” Only Anna’s weight is enough to pin me down.

“Don’t worry,” the woman says. “Your helicopter is still on its way, filled with your skilled guards.” She pauses for a delicate laugh when he doesn’t interject. “Your plan was to have them come in through the roof, yes? I’ve only changed their course of entry by a hair.”

She smiles. Piotr doesn’t.

She extends her free hand and the man beside her places something new onto it—a two-way radio like the kind used by a patrol officer on the beat.

She brings it to her mouth. Inhales. “Now.”

Two things happen simultaneously. One, the distant buzzing grows into a deafening roar and streaks of colored light flood the room. Greens. Reds…

The massive bay window provides an impressive view of a helicopter headed straight for the building. Piotr’s private escape route, the one he only used in the direst of circumstances. I can make out every nuance of the ebony shape before it suddenly rears up and…

CRASH!The entire building shakes. The lights flicker. A lion roars. A monster. The sound claws through my entire being as glass flies in every direction, and in the midst of the chaos, thestrange men start to leave. They move quickly, unconcerned by the cacophony of sirens going off. Door alarms. Fire alarms.Fire?

The dark-haired woman stands tall amid the chaos, her eyes seeming to glow as the lights flicker and dim. “When you see Vinny in hell, tell him…” She draws her own weapon this time from the back pocket of her jeans. A gun. She aims it surely over Piotr’s forehead. “Tell him that I understand now. I understand just what kept him going. What fueled him. What terrified him. It was never me.”

She raises the gun…and, suddenly, Anna weighs nothing. I’m scrambling out from under her, crawling over bloodied bodies in my haste.

“No! W-wait.”

She and Piotr both turn to look at me. Her face is emotionless, but my tormentor is smiling. Beaming. Even through the blood. Through the humiliation of being outsmarted. He’s still won the only prize he seems to want. I can’t bear to watch him be killed.

Not when I’m the one who should do it.

“P-please.”

The woman just eyes me, her gaze a twisted reflection of everything I see in myself when I look in the mirror. That rage. That hate. Thepain. God, the pain. It swirls through her irises. It consumes her. This Vinny may be dead, but he lives inside her, haunting her every waking moment.

She’s still not free.

Without a word, she hands the gun to me, and I take it, my fingers shaking over the metallic surface.

“We need to go.” The tall man returns to place his hand on the woman’s shoulder.

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