Page 70 of Sexting the Bikers
We reach the threshold. Bishop’s breath hitches; he looks back once, guilt and fury mingling in his good eye. I squeeze his side—a promise we’ll return. Zaika leans against the window, skyline shadows behind him, smile fixed. He thinks this is over. He has no idea what storm he just called down.
I step into the hallway, hauling Bishop with me. Before I can draw a breath, the guard behind us kicks the door shut, the heavy slab of wood booming in the corridor, cutting off Zaika’s taunting smile and Katya’s voice in the same instant. The echo rolls through the empty hall while the guilt sits like lead in my chest.
20
KATYA
Two guards shove me through a second doorway and into a connecting suite that feels colder than the first. One tries to pin my wrists behind my back. I twist hard and drive my heel into his shin. He yelps, folding for half a second, which feels sickly satisfying—right until the other guard cuffs me with an openhanded slap that snaps my head sideways.
Pain blooms across my cheek, copper tang flooding my mouth. I blink past the sting, refusing to give them the pleasure of a scream.
“Careful now,” a calm voice purrs.
Zaika steps inside, closing the door behind him with polite quiet. He looks me over like I’m an auction piece—measuring, cataloguing bruises, deciding what needs fixing. “Wouldn’t want that pretty face wasted,” he says.
“Fuck you,” I spit, lip throbbing.
He almost smiles. “Charming.”
He waves, and the guards yank my arms forward, cinching zip ties around my wrists. Plastic digs into skin. Every instinct tells me to keep fighting, but I hold still—save energy, wait for an opening.
Zaika straightens the cuff of his immaculate jacket. “Your friends have abandoned you,” he announces, voice mild, like he’s discussing weather. “They ran as soon as guns turned their way.”
My heart lurches so violently I feel it in my throat. Dog wouldn’t leave. Bishop wouldn’t leave. Would he?
No. I breathe through the doubt, steadying the quake in my chest. They’re regrouping. They’re smarter than a frontal charge. They have to be.
But the seed is planted, throbbing with my pulse as Zaika’s men force me into a chair. My cheek burns, wrists sting, yet the worst pain is the voice in my head whispering,What if he’s right?
Zaika kicks a duffel toward my feet; it thuds against the carpet. “Fresh clothes,” he says. “Clean yourself up. We leave for Novikov’s estate soon.”
I lift my zip-tied wrists a few useless inches. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little tied up here.”
He smiles like it’s a private joke. “I’ll leave you to it for a bit. Solitude calms the temper.” He turns for the door.
“It was a trap all along, wasn’t it?” The words rip out before I can swallow them.
Zaika pauses, hand on the knob. He looks back, eyes bright with amusement. “Correct. Though I didn’t think you were foolish enough to walk right in.” He chuckles. “You really thought I’d side with low-life Riazanovs over my own blood?”
“Novikov is barely your blood, and you know he’s just a snake,” I push.
His smile thins. “Careful. You’re a guest, and I am a gracious host. I’d hate to reconsider my hospitality.”
I shake my head, pulse hammering. “A gracious host doesn’t slap his guests or drag them off in zip ties.”
“A gracious host,” he says, voice silk over steel, “keeps them alive.”
He steps out. The lock clicks. I’m alone with the echo of his words and the duffel at my feet. Fear gnaws, but fury burns hotter.
I stare down at the duffel bag on the floor, the plastic ties biting into my wrists, the ache in my cheek refusing to fade. Every inch of me feels raw and exposed, but it’s my pride that hurts worst of all. I never thought I’d end up here—bound, humiliated, waiting for some Bratva kingpin to drag me back to Novikov like a parcel nobody wants.
The men I gambled everything on, the men I let touch me, hold me, strip me down to skin and soul—they’re gone. Just like that. I trusted them, or maybe just needed to believe someone could care enough to fight for me. I let myself believe I could carve out a place in their world, that I was something more than a pawn, more than the battered, expendable daughter of a doomed family. That I could make my own rules. My cheeks burn with the memory of what I did with them—each of them—how easy it was to give in, how desperate I was to feel alive, to feel seen.
But in the end, I’m here, sitting on the floor in a strange room, my skin stinging with the reminder that trust is always a mistake. I should have known better. There are no knights in shining armor in my story—just men who take what they want and disappear when the heat comes down.
It’s not just shame that flushes my face; it’s anger at myself. For letting Bishop’s hands on my skin convince me he cared. For letting Dog’s wild laughter make me feel safe, even for a heartbeat. For letting Reaper’s impossible eyes and harsh words convince me I belonged somewhere, with someone. I thought I was using them, spinning them in my web. Maybe I was, for a while. But the truth is I wanted to believe in them, and that makes me the biggest fool of all.
I curl my hands into fists, feeling the plastic dig deeper. My pulse pounds in my ears, rage mixing with humiliation, fear with bitter disappointment. Alone. Always alone, no matter how many bodies fill the room, no matter whose mouth is on my neck. I can almost hear Zaika laughing from the other side of the door, smug in the knowledge that every path leads back to him, to Novikov, to the same old cycle of men with guns and cold eyes and no loyalty.
