SWNOVELS Sasha: Chapter 57
Tap. Tap. Tap.
My fingers tapped against the window, but I didn’t bother looking at the landscape that stretched for miles. My eyes were locked on the open door. First, I waited for Tatiana to return. She didn’t. Then I expected it to be a trap. It wasn’t.
I’d spent six hours and twenty minutes in this room with the door open. I took a shower, brushed my teeth, ate my breakfast and all the while, the bedroom door remained open.
A middle-aged woman came to clean up the room. She eyed me suspiciously as if she thought I was an idiot for remaining in this bedroom with the door clearly wide open.
“Where is Sasha?” I asked.
Flicking me a glance, her answer was a scowl, then she resumed her activities. I headed for the door and found myself in the hallway. There was nobody there to stop me. So I continued my path down the hallway. Down the stairs, through the large ballroom where Kostya, Aurora, Nikola, Isabella, and her little baby girl sat in a circle.
“Hey Branka,” Isabella greeted me. “Want to join us? We’re playing musical chairs.”
I blinked, then slowly looked around. “There are no chairs,” I remarked.
She grinned. “It’s a disaster with the chairs. This is better.”
“Thanks for the invite,” I muttered. “I’m actually looking for Sasha. Is he here?”
The glance Aurora and Isabella shared didn’t escape me. “He’s in the gym,” Isabella answered.
“Alone?” Another shared glance. “What?” I questioned hesitantly.
Compassion filled Aurora’s expression. “Sasha’s kind of protective,” she murmured. “Even though he can drive me nuts.” I frowned, not following what she was saying at all. “When someone hurts people under his protection, he goes into Nikolaev mode.”
“Nikolaev mode?” I repeated slowly, sure I heard her wrong.
Isabella rolled her eyes. “Yeah, the mode where they kill anyone and everyone who looks at us wrong.”
“They are protective,” Aurora reasoned. “Overprotective. But I’d take that over the alternative any day.”
“Alternative?”
“Yeah. A parent that puts their kids at risk,” Aurora muttered.
I studied her. She was Senator Ashford’s daughter. Alessio’s half-sister. She came to my brother’s wedding and my bachelorette party, but I didn’t exactly get up close and personal.
“Senator Ashford put you at risk?” I questioned.
Her gaze flicked out the window and something dark crossed her expression. “My father is trying to atone for his sins. But he’s committed too many. My brother, Kingston, paid for them. Alessio paid for them. Everyone around him pays for them, one way or another.”
I was starting to see we all carried a family burden in one way or another. Some were heavier than the others but burdens either way. Sasha was no exception.
“He won’t hurt Alessio again, will he?” I asked worriedly. My brother had been through enough. His hard-earned happiness shouldn’t be taken from him. My nephew deserved both parents. Happy parents. “If he hurts my brother, I’ll destroy him,” I threatened in a low voice.
“Don’t worry.” Aurora assured. “Father needs Alessio. He’ll play nice.”
“Where is the gym?” I asked, determination settling inside me. “I’m going to go find Sasha.”
“Out the door, left and second right,” Isabella instructed. “He’s a good man, Branka.”
“I know.”
Maybe it was time we both came clean with each other.
I found the gym, following the muffled voices. Men’s voices.
I pushed the door open and my heart froze. The Nikolaev men surrounded my nightmare. An anchor pulled me deeper and deeper into the dark oceans.
“Remember me, little girl?”
Closing my eyes, I counted to five, then opened them.
“Time to play, little girl.”
Nausea hit me. My skin turned cold and clammy.
Blood dripped onto the ground. Drip. Drip. Drip. The man who tortured me when I was that little eight-year-old girl. He hung off the same rope as a punching bag, his head bowed and bloody. He was naked, except for his boxers and there were knife cuts all over his chest.
I took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. Again and again. Yet, it did nothing to calm my wild heartbeat. My lungs hurt with each breath, like shards of ice against my sensitive skin.
My hands trembled. I swallowed, then swallowed again. Terror crawled up my spine and refused to leave. He was tied up, not me. Yet, I was the one shaking.
Hands cupped my cheeks and forced my eyes away from the threat.
“Kotyonok.” I blinked. I wasn’t looking at him, but I still only saw him. “Kotyonok, look at me.” The order was soft and vehement. It wasn’t until I drowned in those pale blue eyes that my tremors slowly eased. There was peace and safety in those eyes. The wild thundering in my chest slowed with each breath.
It was only then that I realized Vasili and Alexei stood behind Sasha, their expressions grim and concerned.
My eyes slowly traveled from Sasha to Vasili, then to Alexei and back to Sasha.
“Sasha thought he–” he tilted his chin to the man hanging like a piece of meat about to be dried, “–was a romantic present,” Alexei deadpanned.
My eyes flickered back to Sasha. “It’s your choice how he dies.” God, my eyes and my throat burned. “But he will die. For what he did to you.”
How did he know? Then I remembered the scar. The only scar I kept. But that was hardly evidence of this man’s identity. Not even I knew his name. Only his face.
“Did Mia tell you?” I choked out, my own voice sounding distant to my ears.
“Not everything.” I dragged a deep breath into my lungs. It wasn’t enough. There wasn’t enough oxygen in this world for this man who hurt me and my sister.
The expressions on the Nikolaevs faces was murderous, and suddenly I understood exactly what Aurora meant. There was a cruel, twisted glint in their eyes that promised retribution. Aurora’s brothers were protective. My brother was protective. But compared to the Nikolaev men, our brothers were normal.
The Nikolaev men’s protection went up a few notches, into a sick and psychotic level, and I didn’t mind it.
Not. One. Bit.
It wasn’t until this very moment that I realized this man still lurked in the corners of my mind. That little girl still feared that he’d come back for me and hurt me again.
The palm of my hand burned. I wanted to make him pay. For Mia. For me. For our family. For every tear and every scream that tore through us. I rounded the three of them, the disturbing hardness and glints in their eyes not alarming. I wasn’t afraid of them.
The monster hanging off the ceiling, on the other hand, terrified me. There were different kinds of monsters walking this earth. The ones that protected you from the monsters like this fucker who had ruined my sister and me. And then there were men like my brother and the Nikolaev men who were ruthless, but because they had to be. To protect us.
As I neared the battered body, the man opened his eyes, blood dripping off his forehead. He spotted me and he froze. Understanding entered his eyes. He blubbered something unintelligible and I realized then, he couldn’t talk.
“Sasha cut out his tongue,” Vasili remarked coldly.
“He was annoying me,” Sasha said, his voice deadly. “All that begging for mercy.”
Fear clouded the man’s eyes that were glued to me, that glassy eye still there. A reminder of my fight. Of my screams. He didn’t spare the Nikolaev men behind me another glance. He knew it was all in my hands now. Unfortunately for him, I was my father’s daughter too, and I didn’t believe in mercy.
I turned to Sasha, watching me. Possessively. Obsessively. Protectively. Like I was his. And I was. I’d been his for a long time.
My eyes lowered to the gun in his holster. Without question, he pulled it out and handed it to me. The metal was cold in my hands. I wasn’t a killer, but I did believe in vengeance.
I lifted my gun, the barrel of it pointing at his face.
Tears began to fall down his cheeks, mixing with the blood. He shook his head frantically, buckling, his body swinging back and forth.
“Eye for an eye,” I said, my voice calm and my aim deadly.
Bang.