Chapter 25

Alexei

The amount of rage that simmers within me is indescribable. There’s an unfamiliar ache in my chest that I’ve never felt before. I can’t place it, but I know it doesn’t belong. She betrayed me. After all I’ve done for her and she lies to me. I can’t control the anger I feel. I’ve taken it out on everyone around me although it wasn’t their fault. That fact mattered very little to me. I’ve killed the men that fired at my wall after Dmitry found them. They apparently worked with my uncle although he should have known better than to send amateurs to do that job. They didn’t even break through security. After all of them were disposed of, I drank. Quite a bit too. I wanted to be numb. I wanted to forget that the girl in that makeshift cell in the corner of the basement didn’t betray me the way she did. She doesn’t see me in the darkness as I sit silently in the corner staring toward her.

“I wondered why something as pure as you would have fallen into my life,” I say loud enough for her to hear me. I hear the gasp too.

“Alexei?” She’s been down here a week. A week of me missing her touch. A week of me wanting to hurt her as I took her. Seven days of me stalking her in the dark. It’s a sick thrill that I get when I sit here knowing there is nothing she can do, that she is indeed helpless to me.

“You were the first thing I thought I actually cared for.”

“Alexei, I wasn’t going to do it. Why do you think I wanted to kill myself?” She pleads through the darkness.

“You were afraid that I would torture you. I would make you pay for what you’ve done. How, after everything we’ve shared could you do that?” I’m drunk. I’m not thinking clearly and as I lift the bottle to my lips, I know this fact. I’m rambling and giving her pieces of me that she doesn’t deserve. She has no right to them but that doesn’t stop me.

“I didn’t do it, Alexei! You are alive and well,” she says.

“Alive, yes. Well, no. I’m very sick, воробей. There is a monster that lives in me and I can’t fight him much longer. Do you know what he’d like to do to you?” I ask as images of her naked body are laid out before me.

“Alexei,” she begs once more.

“I want to lay you out. I want to fuck you until you can’t walk. I want you to scream for me, say that you’re mine. All my darkness could have been yours. I gave you the pain you so desperately needed, and you gave me the pleasure that I was missing. Now you fucking ruined it! All I want now is to watch you bleed that beautiful crimson. The very same color of your hair as I paint your body in it.” Her sobs rip my chest apart. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt her like this, and now that’s the only option I have. She chose wrong when she decided to help her father work against me.

“He will kill me. If you don’t, he will. I’ve known this from the beginning and yet I still love you, Alexei.” She what? I stand up now, pissed at the world and her words. I reach for the light switch and flip it on. Blinking rapidly, I try to regain my composure as I stumble toward the cage, I had Dmitry make for her.

“Мой маленький ирландский воробей.” I look down at her, huddled in the corner. Her bright blue eyes now so pale.

“You don’t know what love is. You are a liar of the worst kind.” She shakes her head rapidly, tears streaming down that porcelain skin that I love to touch, to taste.

“I do love you. You are the only one that has made me feel alive, Alexei.”

“And yet you wish me dead,” I tell her, grabbing the bars in my hands. Clara slowly rises to her feet, her much too thin frame making me internally cringe. She moves slowly bringing her hands up to cover mine. Jolts of electricity shoot through my body, my cock hardens just from her touch. I’m losing the battle with my sanity.

“If anyone were to die, I’d wish it was me,” she says softly. We stare into each other’s eyes and I find a softness in her that I didn’t when she first got here. I also find the girl she is now after being torn apart by Timur and his men. Although I’d like to look away, I find that I’m hypnotized by her. I reach through the bars and cup her cheek before sliding my hand lower. Holding her throat tightly, her eyes widen. Her hands move, clawing at mine, desperate to get free of my hold and to get the much-needed oxygen into her system. I tilt my head and watch her eyes widen in terror as she realizes what’s happening right now. That ache in my chest is worse and only grows as I watch the life slowly leaving her body. Her lips are parted and the thought of taking them with mine slips into my mind causing me to briefly loosen my grip. Clara pulls in the much-needed air before I shake my head and refocus. My hand tightens as she tries to speak, begging me with her eyes. Love me? How could she love me? I hurt her at every turn but it’s what she wants from me. In the back of my mind, I wonder if it could be true. Could she love me? Is it possible? Her eyelids begin to flutter when a loud explosion rocks the room. My hand falls from her neck as her body drops to the floor. Smoke fills the basement making it hard to breathe or see.

“Dmitry!” I call out for him but in seconds I can hear footsteps racing into the room and right before I can call out again, something hits me in the back of the head. Darkness creeps into my vision before it all fades to nothing.