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I PERCHED ON THE EDGE of the bed, staring into space. I had no idea how to feel right now, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I would be able to sleep tonight.
Even though I was exhausted from the day behind me, my mind was too wired to just lay back and get some rest. How could I? I knew that what the next day would bring would change everything, one way or another, and I needed it to be over with already.
I had managed to borrow a phone from one of the girls I had been with that day, so I could organize a car to pick up my father and get him out of the city. He was the main thing on my mind right now, I needed to know he would be safe and stay far from here.
I had to pray that nobody would notice that he wasn’t at the wedding. If they did – shit, the whole plan could go to hell right then and there. Nikita would know I didn’t want to do anything without my dad there, and the only reason I would have tried to get him out of the city was because I didn’t intend on sticking around much longer myself.
But then – there were going to be so many people there, the crowds so intense, I had to hope nobody would pay much attention to him not turning up. By the time that the ceremony started, he could be a hundred miles out of New York, and hopefully nobody would think to go looking for him. He had nothing to do with this, and I was going to keep it that way – give him as much freedom as I could from the nightmare I was going to bring down on my own head.
Speaking of. I had been going back and forth all day, trying to work out how best to carry out my plan. I wanted to use poison to off Nikita, certain that it would give me the distance from him I needed to make this work, but it wasn’t so easy to find any. I was being followed around most of the day by those women who had basically been assigned to get me ready for marriage, and I had no way to slip off and find something I could use to take out the man I was supposed to be pledging my life to the next day.
So I would have to do it with my bare hands. Which sounded ridiculous, even to me – I was way weaker than Nikita, even if I got the jump on him and landed it with the element of surprise. He would take me out in no time, and when he did he would kill me.
I was sure of it. I had been thinking about it all night long, and it was the only way I could see it going down. He wasn’t going to take any kind of insubordination. He would wipe me off the face of the earth the moment I did anything that didn’t fit with his fantasy for me, and an attack would be just that.
But I had to try. I couldn’t marry him and just play along with his image of me as the doting wife. I needed him to know I wasn’t going to give in the way everyone around him always had, I was better than that – I was stronger than that. Even if I couldn’t go through with the murder, I could, at least, make it so he didn’t have me right where he wanted me.
I would do it on the wedding night. When he least expected it. I had tried to convince him as best I could that I would be willing to give myself to him once and for all when our wedding night came, but in truth, I was planning something far darker. Maybe because the thought of it, of him touching me and trying to kiss me, made me want to vomit, made me want to claw my skin from my body just to be sure that he didn’t have a chance to touch it.
He didn’t care about it, though. Didn’t care that I hated him. He just cared that he had me where he wanted me. This was a man who was used to having everything his own way, no matter the feelings of the people around him on the matter – he was willing to shit on everyone close to him, as long as it meant he got the life he wanted.
Which was why he was so miserably alone in the first place. It seemed obvious to me, but I doubted he would admit it, even to himself. He would never be able to say it out loud, tell himself that he was the problem. Much as he liked to frame himself as this tolerant guy who wanted the best for his community, he was a control-freak, a monster who needed every tiny detail to run the way he wanted it to or he would lose his fucking mind.
I wasn’t going to let him have me. Yes, I would go through with the wedding, if only because it would give my father more time to get out of the city and to safety. But as soon as we were alone together, as soon as I got the chance, I was going to strike, and he was going to understand that he had never had me the way he thought he did.
It was the only thing giving me any peace on this long night ahead of me. I knew I wouldn’t see another, and I was doing my best to come to terms with that. My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to imagine it, the anger in his eyes when he realized I had turned on him. I knew what he was capable of, I knew how he would act if he didn’t get what he wanted, but the satisfaction of knowing that I had beaten him at his own game would be all I needed to get me through this in one piece.
I could handle it. I could accept my fate. As long as I knew my father was safe, I’d know I had done the right thing, and I could go into the next day happy with the choices I had made.
I needed to rest if I was going to be able to stand on my own two feet for the ceremony tomorrow, but honestly, my body wasn’t going to give me that. I was exhausted from putting on the game face that I had for the girls I had spent the whole day with; I almost felt bad for lying to them, letting them think I was happy with all of this when I wished that I could have found any way out of it. But they would never have accepted my misery. No doubt more than a couple of them had hoped that they would see themselves in my place, marrying a man as powerful as Nikita, and if I had expressed even the slightest bit of doubt, they wouldn’t have waited to show me their disdain.
I looked down at the pretty pink on my freshly-manicured nails; this was what I would be buried in. It was hard to imagine it, really. I had always thought I’d have more time, that there would come a point in my life where I would be able to pursue the things that really made me happy again, like dance, but it was clear I wasn’t going to have that chance. I had to accept it. This was a noble way to go out, keeping my family safe and denying that evil man the chance to call me his. Better to be in the ground than wearing a ring that bound me to someone like Nikita, I was sure of it.
My mind drifted to Andreas, for what had to be the hundredth time that day. I wished I could speak to him, just one more time before I was gone. I’d tell him I never wanted to do this with Nikita. I was sure he could already have guessed it, but I wanted to look him in the eyes and make sure he understood that my feelings for him had been real in a way that the ones I had for Nikita never would be. I would have walked down the aisle for him, but for Nikita, it was just something I had to do. Something I had no choice but to go through with.
I had thought of calling him, but I was sure it would raise some alarms, and I didn’t want to drag him back into this and get him hurt in the process. Mauro had told me to let go of Andreas, and I needed to accept it was over between us. It had been as soon as I had left New York, no matter how much I wished I could have stayed with him. He was a man leading his own empire, and if he was going to have a woman by his side, then she needed to be solidly there, not drifting in and out the way I had been.
I hoped he would find that woman, I really did. It pained me to think of him with someone else, but it would be unfair of me to expect him to sit around, mooning for me for the rest of his life. Our connection had been intense, and I knew I would never be able to replace it or even replicate it with anyone else, but I was sure he would be able to find women who would make him feel that way again.
The way Nikita had been talking to me about him, it sounded like he might already have done just that. I was trying not to imagine him with anyone else. If this was my last night on Earth, then the least I could do was not torture myself with the thought of him with someone else. I just hoped he was happy, hoped that he didn’t know what I was doing with Nikita and that he would never have to find out why I had left him.
I lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. My brain was buzzing with everything that was about to happen, no way was I going to be able to sleep, but I had to try. I needed all my strength if I was going to stand a chance against Nikita the next day. If I was going to be able to convince anyone for a damn second that I wanted to go through with any of this.
I could imagine the way he would look at me at the altar, and the thought of his cruel face trying to contain any measure of emotion seemed almost funny. I would have to bite back the laughter when I was there in front of him, that was for sure.
There was a knock at the door, and I snapped upright. Had one of the women come back? Maybe the girl, looking for her phone? I honestly didn’t have the energy to handle them right now.
“I’m trying to sleep!” I hissed into the darkness. I was staying in one of Nikita’s apartments in the city, a place I had demanded for myself so I would be able to have some peace on my last night, but there were guards scattering the corridors.
“Let me in.”
The voice that came back was not one that belonged to a woman – it was deep, masculine, and my heart skipped several beats inside my chest.
Nikita. There was nobody else it could be. He was here to take what he wanted from me, refusing to wait for our wedding night.
He had another fucking thing coming. I looked around the room quickly, trying to find something I could use to make my attack. If he wanted our wedding night early, then I would give it to him – just not in the way he expected. My eyes fell on a small letter-opener by the window, glinting in the darkness. I doubted it was very strong, but I didn’t have a whole lot to go on right now. I needed to take the chance that I had.
I grabbed the small knife and started on my way to the door, my blood rushing to my head. Could I really do this? I didn’t have a choice. When I answered this door with a knife, Nikita would know what my plans were. He wouldn’t wait to show me what he thought of them.
I paused next to the door. Shit. My palms were sweating. I wasn’t sure I could go through with this. Was I a killer? I had never thought I would be, but I wasn’t certain I had much of a choice any longer. I had to do this. I had to. It was for the good of my family. I closed my eyes, and brought to mind my mother’s face – all that she had done for me, all that she had sacrificed to make sure that I was okay. This was for her, to save the man she loved. The very least I could do.
I put my hand on the door and squeezed the knob for a moment. This was my last chance to back out, my last chance to hold back and live my life as Nikita’s unwilling bride. My last chance to stop myself before this went any further...
Fuck it. There was no way I was going to let him win. I would fight this man till my dying breath if that’s what it took. I felt the pressure of the blade in my hand, and pulled open the door, promising myself that I would fight to the death if that’s what I needed to do—
But it wasn’t Nikita standing there waiting for me. Of course it wasn’t. No, it was the only man I’d been dreaming of this entire time, standing before me like a mirage, like a magic trick I had conjured from the air.
“Andreas?” I gasped. And without a second thought, I pulled him over the threshold, burying my face in his neck, and held him close enough that I was sure we would never be able to be pulled apart again.
