Page 9 of Brutal Knight

I stare back up at Victor. Hate burns like fire in his eyes, but there’s also a stark emptiness. This is his entire life, and that’s fucking sad. He’s just another mafia man, just another weak man looking for power.

Anger bubbles up inside my chest, and the words I’ve been trying to hold back slip out before I can stop them.

“Dmitri got what was coming to him. You know it as well as I do.”

Victor’s nostrils flare, his jaw clenching. Then his hand flies out, rearing back and coming down. He slaps me so hard that I see stars, white spots blinking behind my eyes as I reel. If I had been standing, I would have fallen.

Just like Dmitri. All his fucking men are just like him. I’m not surprised Victor hit me. I’m surprised it took so long.

“You’re a stupid bitch,” he snarls. “You realize you could have had it all. We could have had it all, could have taken this whole fucking city.”

“No—”

He slaps me again. Now I’m just mad. I know he won’t listen to me. He won’t listen to the truth. Dmitri was full of himself. He was terrifying, but he was an egomaniac, and he was asking for it when he went after Aiden and Rose.

No amount of betrayal on my part would have done the trick by itself. I’d been trying for years to find a way out without success.

No. This was all Dmitri and his god complex. He wanted it all, and he wasn’t smart enough to get it.

Victor must see it in my eyes. It pisses him off. I can tell. He’s glaring down at me, holding my chin in his hand with a bruising grip.

“You’re fucking useless. You always have been. I told Dmitri to cut you loose a long time ago.”

I believe it. I can’t imagine how many of his men or how many others told him the same. They probably thought I chose to become an addict. That I was useless.

They didn’t want to see what Dmitri was like. They didn’t want to see what he did to me.

Or they did see, and they didn’t care. They were just like him. They didn’t give a shit about a man abusing a woman, a husband hurting his wife. They didn’t care. They let it happen and they sat back, dismissing it, ignoring every time I appeared with bruises on my body and drugs in my blood.

There was a time I thought that maybe someone would stand up to Dmitri. Then I realized no one was even looking. It crushed me inside and for the first time, I realized just how hopeless fighting him was.

I lost any hope of someone from inside the organization saving me. I stopped imagining some man finding me, shocked, vowing to bring Dmitri down. I lost hope of anyone giving a shit about me. They didn’t care.

Victor stares down at me, and all I see is another man wearing the same face that Dmitri did. He’s cruel and power hungry. He won’t hold back for anything or anyone.

I know he won’t hesitate to break bones. He won’t hesitate to do anything short of killing me—and if he doesn’t get what he needs, he might do even that.

I feel hopeless. Lost. Despair swirls in my chest almost as much as the anger does. I shouldn’t have to suffer this. Not after I survived Dmitri.

“I can fix this, though,” Victor says quietly.

His words are soft. They creep up my spine, and I clench my hands into fists, fighting the disgust that floods my veins.

Victor’s anger is barely contained, and his knuckles turn white when he curls a hand on the bed frame.

“I’ll claim you and step up, into Dmitri’s place. I’ll take control of the Raven Syndicate. I’ll be the one in power, and I’ll do what should have been done a long time ago.”

I look up at Victor and suddenly, I’m horribly aware of just how much like Dmitri he is.

He’s serious. He means every word. Victor may just be one of many who have the same fucking plan, the same grand ideas about ruling the world—but he could actually do it.

He’s going to try to do it.

And knowing he’ll do it, knowing he’ll stop at nothing, fills me with terror. Because I know that in his mind, having power over me is one of the only things he thinks can prove his strength. And I know what power over me means.

Struggling won’t help. I’ve already proven that to myself, but that knowledge doesn’t mean shit. My rational brain isn’t the one in control right now. I’m still high, still dizzy, still tied to a fucking bed. I can’t get away.

But I have to try.

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