Page 32 of Dimitri
After running the back of his hands down my mascara-stained cheek, he smiles as if I flashed him my tits. I didn’t, but it was pretty damn close. I offered myself to him, wholly and without constraint. I’ll be hisifhe doesn’t kill me.
“Please, Dimitri. I’m begging you for mercy.”
His smirk shifts to a full teeth-bearing grin, full of angst and confusion. I understand things drastically changed for him from the last time we stood across from each other, and that he’s most likely only holding on by a very thin thread, but his anger shouldn’t be projected at me. It should be rained down on the people holding his daughter captive, and the ones responsible for his wife’s death.
When I say that to Dimitri, the muscles in his neck bunch. “Why do you think you’re here, kneeling before me?”
With his lips arched at one side and his eyes locked on mine, he curls his finger around the trigger and takes his shot.
Chapter Sixteen
Dimitri
As the scent of my recently fired gun lingers in my nostrils, I stray my eyes to the black sedan idling a few spots back. The brightness of the Audi’s high beams ensures I’ll never see the occupants inside, however my gut has no issues identifying him.
My father doesn’t trust anyone. He is who I got my neurosis from. He’s so distrusting, I’m surprised he didn’t request to helm our trip to the woods.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t understand his concern. Roxanne saw him murder Old Man V for a measly ten-thousand-dollar dint in his profit margin. That’s an instant one-way ticket to a graveyard. I’m seeing things differently now, though.
Although Roxanne was a witness to one of my father’s many mistakes the past three months, unfortunately for him, she wasn’t hisonlywitness. He’s made an incalculable number of costly blunders during his reign, but tonight’s was by far his most senseless. He showed his hand way too early, and now this wolf is primed with anticipation.
I’ve been seeking answers for months, and it came in a way I never predicted. Because my father was as distracted by Roxanne’s tear-stained face as I was on that night almost twenty months ago, he fucked up in a way he can never come back from. He ruined his legacy with one little word.
He said, ‘wife.’
Not plaything.
Not whore.
Not a cunt to keep me warm throughout the winter as he called Audrey many times the seven months of our marriage.
He said wife plain and clear for all to hear.
I failed to join the dots together until Roxanne peered up at me with mascara smeared down her cheeks mere seconds ago. She once again had me trapped, blinded to everything happening around me that didn’t include her. I was so caught up by her beauty and determination to live in spite of her horrid upbringing, I played her re-entrance into my life on repeat until the clog in my mind spilled away.
Roxanneisto blame for my wife’s disappearance. Sheisthe reason I haven’t laid my eyes on Fien in over nine months. But sheisalso responsible for my father’s slip up. If it wasn’t for her, I’d still be trying to push a four-pronged puzzle piece into a three-pronged spot. She freed my mind from the torment, and she did it all the while offering herself to me.
I catch sight of my unforgiving smirk in the fender of my modified Range Rover when the headlights of my father’s chauffeur-driven Audi shift to the right. This is a one-way track, so his driver, Mario, either executes a three-point turn in atrocious conditions or squeezes by the minute snippet of space my Range Rover isn’t taking up.
My father would never allow the latter to happen. He’d rather risk being bogged than show weakness. It’s another unwanted trait I inherited from him. We’re more alike than I’ll ever admit, but there’s one difference between us—I’m willing to show weakness if it’s for the greater good.
This is for the greater good.
Roxanne’s eyes lift to mine when the taillights of my father’s car disappear into the black abyss of an almost moonless night. They’re wide and terrified and have my cock tapping at the zipper in my trousers like it did when she placed herself onto the table during our unrequired negotiations.
They were unrequired because if I wanted to fuck her, she’d be splayed across the hood of my Range Rover now, being thoroughly pounded as my cock has begged to do since I spotted her in the alley. However, that isn’t what this is about. For once in my life, my libido isn’t part of the equation. This is about placing my daughter before anyone—even me.
“You will do what I saypreciselywhen I tell you to do it, or we’ll come back here and settle the score. Do you understand?”
She has nothing to fight with except her looks, which she uses to her advantage when she dips her chin. It isn’t the rake of her teeth over her plump bottom lip I’m paying attention to, it’s the fat, salty blob rolling down her cheek. It’s stained with blackness and has me recalling the color of the blood that runs through my veins.
It wasn’t always that way. Before my heart was scolded beyond repair, my blood used to run red. Now it’s stained with the murkiness of my dark, bleak existence—an existence Roxanne is now a part of.
Chapter Seventeen
Roxanne
Rocco’s hand falls from my face when the gravelly voice of Dimitri rolls across the cabin of his car. “Let it be. It’s just a graze.” He locks his eyes with mine. They’re as tormented and beautiful as they were when he took his shot. He fired at me as predicted, but instead of the bullet burrowing deep into my skull, it skimmed past my right cheek, leaving a slither of a burn. “The more you pick at it, the more it will scab. If you don’t want another scar, leave it alone.”
