𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐃𝐎 𝐔𝐒 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 - 𝟏𝟖+

S E V E N T E E N

K E I R A

Russia

It's funny how sometimes trying to do the right thing blows up in your face. I thought I was saving Nikolai from a lifetime on the run, never knowing he was already quite familiar with pretending he wasn't who he was. The heir of Chernov Bratva. His grandfather was the current Pakhan, and Niko was on his own little rebellion as Kyzer has said it. I'd wanted to play by Nikolai's rules this time, but then Kyzer came up with one of his many plans he only divulged to me at his leisure. This one included Nikolai, and well aware of my brother's manipulative nature I'd initially denied, however, he'd been insistent that he wasn't manipulating Nikolai. I doubted Kyzer was even aware when he shifted towards his deceptive ways. I reckoned it was his way of self-preservation more than anything else, and after everything my brother had been through, the least I could do was stand by him when he needed me. And it wasn't like he needed me for some selfish, virulent plot of world domination, he needed me for the vengeance we'd been after for years.

No one truly knew Kyzer. Even saying that I did was getting ahead of myself. Kyzer might've been my twin, but he was lost to something far more turbulent eight years ago than I was. He liked masquerading as prey, only to lure the monsters he wanted dead. He was like the ocean at night, tempting, mesmerizing, and truly malevolent unless he decided you were more useful alive than dead.

So here I was in a small village, miles away from Moscow, getting drunk as I hid from none other than my husband. I didn't understand what doing this would accomplish since Nikolai had made his hatred for me very clear, but Kyzer was adamant in his thoughts that Nikolai was incandescent. Except unlike most people his rage had festered for eight years, and my brother had wanted to test where Nikolai's priorities lay for reasons that could vary entirely between our safety and Nikolai's usefulness. I was busy drinking all my sorrows away when a loud band on the door of the small cottage I'd rented out shook me to the core. Placing the tumbler on the wooden table, I reached for my gun behind the cushion on the comfy couch I was just lounging on.

Not wanting to raise alarm if it was a local. God knew I didn't need any more of their animosity at the sight of a weapon, I'd already been on the other end of their glares when I first got here a week ago. I hid my pistol in my waistband and approached the door. I'd only just unlatched the clasp to see who it was when a muscled body pushed through the door, a set of fingers around my throat as I was forced to turn around, my cheek pressed against the wooden walls of the cottage. Cold air from outside bit my skin as the embers cracked in the fireplace, the fire surrendering with the cold air. Soon enough the door closed, and the person pressed their nose against my neck. I should've been scared, heck I would've had I not recognized that cologne. I didn't need to see him to know that he was here. Nikolai was here.

"What did I tell you about running from me, little wolf?" He breathed out, his voice filled with relief? No, that couldn't be right, I must be reading too much into this. "Answer. Me."

I couldn't say a word when he was so close to me when the warmth he tried so hard to hold back from me embraced me anyway, and especially when his caresses felt less out of hate and more from a place of a deep-rooted love no betrayal could ever strip away. Closing my eyes, I tried getting air back in my lungs. Well, as much as I could with his fingers pressing against my pulse.

"I didn't run." I somehow manage to breathe out with the alcohol in my system and his touch taking away all of my abilities to think. Before I knew what was happening, I was turned around, my back pressing against the wall as my eyes came in contact with his leaden ones, the intensity of them searing me.

"No, you didn't." He noted, his harm firm at the base of my neck, "You just hid in a place no one knows you. Do you have a death wish?"

"Wouldn't you like that?" His brows furrowed in confusion, or maybe it was my drunk brain playing tricks, but I found myself speaking for good measure, "me, dead."