NINAI didn’t know where I was.Slowly, I lost all sense of my reality. The room started to fade, swallowed by an endless white void. My body was there, kneeling in that room while men sat in their chairs, but my mind had drifted elsewhere— into that familiar nothingness, where time didn’t exist and neither did pain. The world outside was muted, unreachable, and I was floating, weightless and empty.It was cold.Like being trapped in a vast expanse of ice, except the frost wasn’t around me— it was inside, spreading from the center of my chest, seeping into my veins, wrapping itself around my bones like poisoned ivy. My limbs felt heavy, unmovable, as if I had turned into a lifeless porcelain doll, set aside and forgotten.I knew this state.I had lived in it before, survived it before. It was my mind’s refuge, its way of protecting me when everything became too much— when the weight of my reality crushed down on me until I couldn’t breathe and instead of fighting it, my mind chooses
NINAChaos erupted before I could even process what was happening.The sharp thumps of bullets hitting the windows has my stomach curdled with fear. And unknowingly, I stepped even closer to Jeremiah, somehow finding his solid presence protective with the danger looming around us. “Lachlan!” I looked up to find Lachlan making his way to the door, pushing the guards aside. He stopped at Jeremiah’s voice and looked back at us. He said, “I’ll check out what it is.”“No,” Jeremiah growled, his chest vibrating. “You are not stepping out of the room, the guards are here to do their duty.”I could hear the screams and rush of footsteps from somewhere in the building, as I watched both the men staring at each other. I realised that Jeremiah was stopping Lachlan from putting himself in danger. And Lachlan looked ready to argue, but then Jeremiah said, “Take her.”Lachlan stepped toward us, his jaw clenched. But before I could’ve grabbed his outstretched hand a loud boom echoed and his face
LACHLAN The air still smelled of gunpowder and blood. The Yakuza’s signature chaos had left its mark— burned cars, bodies littering the streets outside, and the metallic scent of violence hanging thick in the night. The attack had been precise, but not devastating. It was more like a warning. A message. They wanted to shake the very foundation of Sokolov’s reign, but all they managed to do was piss us off and made our men bloodthirsty for revenge for the death of their comrades and the general display of disrespect the Yakuza showed. They attacked us when their were women of the families present, something we take pride in by not stooping so low.I left Jeremiah and Kayne talking to our men, as they gave orders to clear out the building, make sure everyone was safe and back in their homes while Xavier had already ran off to capture whoever was left behind from the Yakuzas to take them for interrogation. I made my way back inside the room where the chairs lay upended, the floor was
Flashback #3JEREMIAH I stepped into her room without a sound, the room was cloaked in darkness, the heavy curtains drawn shut, but a sliver of moonlight spilled through the gaps, casting silvery bars across the carpet.She didn’t look up at first. Just sat there- small and still, like she was trying to disappear. She was lost in her pain, not caring about the world around her. But she proved me wrong when I took a step in her direction and her head jerked up, her shoulders stiffened. “Who is it?” she asked, voice hollow, frayed at the edges.When I didn’t answer, she pushed herself up on her unsteady legs. “Is that you?”Not who are you?Not what do you want?Just… is that you?Like she already knew. Like she was waiting for me.I almost smiled.She pushed forward, almost staggering toward the window, where I stood half shrouded in shadow. When she saw me, she didn’t flinch. She didn’t scream or back away like a scared little girl, oppressed by her father and the world she lived in
JEREMIAH She. Fucking. Ran.My deceitful little wife thought she could leave me. That she could slip away into the night like a whisper and disappear. Like I wouldn’t find her. Like I wouldn’t drag her back. Like I wouldn’t make her pay.I gripped the steering wheel so hard it creaked beneath my fingers. The world outside was a blur, but my mind was crystal fucking clear with everything I needed to do. I was going fucking easy on her. But now… I am going to show her what a real monster looks like.I looked at my phone. She wasn’t far. She was moving near the tree line, apparently thinking she’ll be safe in those trees. She should’ve learned her lesson by now. She will never be safe from me, and especially in the trees that felt more like a home to a predator like me, where I have hunted her not once but so many times now I could find her with my eyes closed. A notification on my screen had rage flooding my system a
NINA “J-Jeremiah…”He took a step closer and even though there were still at least eight to ten feet between us, fear slithered down my spine like icy fingers. Every cell in my body screamed at me to run and when I took a step back, he paused. His head tilting in a way that seemed too familiar. I swallowed.He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. The cold fury radiating off his body was enough to choke me. I had felt anger before, I had seen rage… but nothing compared to the storm in his eyes as they burned into mine.“You want to run, wife?” He said, his silver eyes dropping to my feet and his lips curled in a snarl. “Run. Run like hell, and when I catch you I will make you regret you ever tried.”Then he moved.And I didn’t think. I didn’t wait. It was like a primal urge, an instinct telling me to run from him, to let him chase me even when a very logical, sane part of me knew that he’ll catch me and there was no other option for me except to be captured by him.But still I ran.The
NINAAs soon as we cleared the tree line and Jeremiah stepped on the cold asphalt, I saw cars lined up on the road. I wanted to bury my face in his chest and hide, feeling ashamed for reasons that weren’t right as I saw the men standing in a line, making a passage for their king to walk. It made me guilty that there was a teeny tiny part of me that was ashamed for running away. I understood my regret and guilt over being caught and for being responsible for everything that seemed to be unraveling now, but I didn’t understand why there was a spark of guilt inside me for making my escape in the first place. And why in the hell, did I wanted to hide myself in the man who was the reason I was this mess.Jeremiah didn’t stop to put me down as he stalked toward the waiting car in which we’d gone to the party- the same party that felt like it was days or weeks ago instead of just mere hours.Before we reached it, Lachlan stepped out. His green eyes taking me in and then looked at Jeremiah
NINA Lachlan disappeared into the adjoining bathroom without a word, and I heard the distant sound of water running. After a few seconds I realised he was filling up the bathtub for me.I’d have walked there instead of waiting on the bed but the pain in the soles of my feet made me reluctant to do so. And as I finally took a look at my feet, I realised what a mess I had made of them in my attempt to escape. The adrenaline and fear had made me ignore the pain but at the sight of my bruised, scratched and wounded feet with debris and whatnot sticking and cuts on my feet that had dried blood around, the pain slammed into me like a force that brought tears to my eyes. No wonder the monster had taken pity on me, if he was even capable of that, and instead of making me walk to the car, he had actually lifted me in his arms.And somehow those arms had felt like a comfort in my state. Thankfully, Lachlan came out just then
Flashback continues...NINA “You need to eat more, lisichka. How will I hunt you next time if you fainted in the middle of the chase.”I sucked in a breath, he made it sound like there was more to our little game of chase. I licked my lips and despite myself I obeyed him. Somehow it felt good to obey him, to make him see that I could do whatever he wanted from me.As I ate, I watched him. And watching him, made my body relax. It always did when I am around him, except that initial nervous energy that takes hold of me. But being close to him, my muscles would relax, no longer coiled up to fight or run from danger. Even though I knew he was dangerous, he felt less so with every other threatening presence around me.And it was all because of the last few days. Because something had changed without me knowing it. The quiet between us wasn’t threatening anymore. It had morphed into something else. Slowly, subtly, it had become a respite from the nightmare that was my life. I used to be s
Flashback #4 NINAThe house was quiet. And it was way past midnight. But I was still waiting… He hadn’t come yet.I didn’t even know when it had started, this habit of waiting for him. Of glancing at the balcony doors every night, my breath catching at the slightest shift of shadows, thinking that he had finally come.But he wasn’t there.For the past ten days, he had come at midnight like clockwork. But even though he had been at the dinner table last night because my father had invited him, he hadn’t come to my room afterward like he usually did. And it seemed he wasn’t going to come tonight either.With a disappointed sigh, I slid down on the bed and pulled the covers over my head. I was just about to let out a frustrated breath when I heard the balcony door creak open, and the air in my bedroom shifted with his presence.Jeremiah Sokolov.The Russian. Enemy of my father.And my only chance at freedom.The small lamp at my bedside table barely illuminated him, but I knew exactly w
LACHLAN "Then maybe you never did.” And then he walked past me. But I wasn’t done.His words made a crack inside my chest, spilling the pain and making a mess. “So that’s why you chose to do what you did tonight, to test me? To hurt me, because you think that I never loved you.” I whirled him around by his arm and glared at him, “If you want to punish me then do so… don’t fucking use her, or question my feelings in this way,” I yelled, my calm that I was known for was nowhere to be found. And because I was filled with so much need to destroy something, I grabbed the bottle from the bar and threw it across the room. It shattered on impact, but not nearly loud enough to compete with the noise inside my chest. I'd need something else to drown that out. “And you will take that punishment? To spare her?” He asked, his grey eyes glinting with a warning. If I was sober, I would’ve laughed in his face for being jealous of me and Nina. Wasn’t it him who brought her in our lives? Wasn’
LACHLAN I didn’t know how many drinks I have had. At least it had stopped hurting at some point and now all I was filled with was this rage that needed an outlet, or someone to blow it out a breath at a time. I tried the easy method, I went to her bedroom. But I found her sleeping, peacefully, or maybe once again she was lost in another of her nightmares. But I saw her wet hair and the jar of ointment on the bedside table and I guessed that Jeremiah, for once, had taken responsibility and done the aftercare like she needed. At least I hoped that it was him.I hovered near her bed for a while, and then tugged the covers down and glared at the marks that I revealed. Fucking Jeremiah. Fucking arsehole, for not only doing this to her but also in front of them all. He hurt her. He humiliated her. Degraded her in front of everyone and I was okay with it. He wanted to take it out on her. He wanted a sense of satisfaction for the pain he went through. He wanted an outlet and he got one i
JEREMIAH When I finally put her down on the tiled floor of the bathroom, she stumbled but caught herself on the sink and then she glared at me. “Get out.” I looked down at her. My suit jacket had slipped off her shoulders, and she stood there… Naked and vulnerable. Looking too small. When I didn’t move, she grabbed the first thing she could get her hand on and threw it at me. A toothbrush. I let it hit me in the chest, before it dropped down on the floor. I took a step toward her and grabbed her arms. “You either let me do this, or you sit here all night crying like a broken thing.” “Why do you even care?" She gritted out, trying to pick up the bottle of hair oil next to hit me with. I grabbed her wrist. "I don't. I am making sure, you don't die before you fulfil your side of the agreement." Her eyes spat daggers at me even as tears pooled in them and fell down her cheeks in rivulets. "Go to hell!" She cursed, hate written all over her face. I grabbed her chin and forced her
JEREMIAH The silence in the car was thick— like blood drying on skin, like ash after fire. She hadn’t said a single word since we left the club. And for the first time I wasn’t too comfortable with this silence. I’ve always preferred it in the past. It’s predictable. Reliable. Uncomplicated. But tonight, it feels like a scream stretched thin across the leather seats. It’s suffocating like the silence in that dark cell where I was kept. She was crying. Again. The way someone cries when they were trying not to. The kind that doesn’t beg for attention. Not loud, not hysterical but just those quiet sobs that crawl under your skin and settle into your bones. And then then those quiet sobs turned into more, they begin to shake her shoulders, like something inside her was breaking with each breath.I fucking hate it.And I didn't understand why. But hearing her muffled cries had my jaw locked. And my mind? It felt like a fucking battlefield.I should feel victorious. I should feel sati
NINA“Lift her,” My husband ordered, voice like sharpened ice. “And put her on the table.”The table? My breath froze in my lungs, the blood roaring in my ears, making it impossible to hear anything else. Olezka moved toward me before I could do anything, not that I even had the strength anymore. With my skin stretched taut like any time now I will catch on fire as I burned with shame and pain.But thankfully, Lachlan was there as he lifted me and carried me with a tight expression on his face to where Jeremiah wanted me. On a padded table in the center of the room. The surface was cold, the leather felt chilling to my heated skin as I was laid bare on it. I hissed through my teeth when my aching arse, the raw flesh, came in contact with the cold surface. My thighs instinctively tried to close, a last shred of modesty screaming inside me even when I knew it doesn’t matter.But at least Kayne and Xavier were not there anymore. Jeremiah laughed. “Now you want to hide, when we can cl
NINA My hands dropped by my sides as I laid there on the spanking bench, and my eyes fell on the cuffs on either sides. But thankfully my monstrous husband didn’t cuff my hands and legs. It couldn't be kindness, I knew that. It was just his way of keeping me under control with more threats in sight. He gave me a warning though, as he caressed his palm down my spine, he said, “Don’t move. If you move, we’ll start all over again.”I should’ve been afraid. I should’ve begged. But a part of me… a small, sick part… was almost thankful for the punishment now. At least my mind will stop connecting this monster to the man that comes in my dreams. And I will stop feeling that pull I have been feeling for this monster despite myself. After this humiliating ordeal I will go back to hating him and that’s what I needed to keep my sanity intact. Because hate, unlike this spiraling confusion, was clean. Controlled. Necessary.“This isn’t just for me,” My husband said as if he was a king giving s
NINASomething was fúcking wrong with me. How could I settle in his lap and let myself get lost in the heat of his body? But damn, for being a cold, heartless monster, he sure has the body heat similar to a comforting woollen blanket in the frigid temperature. He had been conversing in Russian and the rumble of his accented voice had lulled me to a false sense of safety. And I had almost relaxed into him. Now I blinked at him as his question registered, “Are you sleeping, wife?”I stiffened. “No.” “Good. Now that everyone is here let’s begin with next part of your punishment.”Before I could respond or slid out of his lap, he stood up with his arms securely wrapped around me. My eyes went to Lachlan, and unlike before, he seemed to be at ease now like he had come to terms with whatever Jeremiah had planned.Lachlan stood without a word. The others followed, falling into line behind him.I was surrounded by shadows in suits, by silence thick with menace and danger.And yet… in a