VEN

by K. Webster

  Something is about to go down.

  I can sense it.

  These two powerful women know it.

  Servants begin bringing out the first course of tonight’s fancy meal.

  When Diana reaches for her knife on the table, I stop her with my hand on her thigh. “Don’t do it. You won’t make it to him before one of his guards cuts your throat.”

  She chuckles, and it’s sexy as fuck. Evil, but sexy. “Oh, Ven, I’m not that reckless.”

  I relax in my seat and glance over at Vas. He’s back to wearing his normal smug expression. The dinner goes on, through each course, without anyone getting stabbed. Father may deserve it, but they’d kill her in an instant. I’ll take him out myself, but it can’t be here. We need to cover it up and make it look like an accident, or I could just cut his throat right here and demand I’m taking his seat on the Vetrov throne. I can’t think of anything I want less than to run his empire. I’d rather let it crumble and build mine and Diana’s in the ashes.

  “Do you have anything to say?” Father asks Diana. I almost spit my drink at the possibilities of things she would like to say. She’s fierce as she sits there amongst all the men who hurt her. They tried to steal everything from her, yet here she is, forcing them all to witness her greatness.

  She straightens and takes her time eyeing every person at the table before speaking. When she does, she’s elegant and classy. “Thank you all for this lovely evening. I can’t imagine any other place I’d rather be than right here. Right now. It’s perfect.”

  Father scowls and sucks down his drink, his glare on her. “Is that right? Perhaps you should tell us about how you tried to save the Baskin girl. A First Family traitor. What happens in the arena, stays in the arena, yes. However, I would love to know why you…” He grits his teeth, his face turning red. His fat fingers tug at his collar, and beads of sweat form on his forehead. “Jesus, what kind of hot peppers did you put on this shit?” he snarls, then jerks a servant nearby to him. “Find me something that doesn’t taste like hell pissed all over it.”

  She scrambles to pick up the plate and walks off with it. Another servant refills his drink and scurries off. He chugs it down. His face goes from red to purple. Leonid grabs a server and whispers in harsh tones, no doubt passing on a message to the chef.

  “I would love to know why you thought you could rescue that cunt,” Father hisses to Diana. “She…she…” He coughs and his eyes water. “Bring me another drink, goddammit!”

  Diana gets up and goes over to a serving station. She pours a drink, then comes over to my father. My nerves are on edge as she places the drink down and he grabs at it.

  He chugs it down, but then starts coughing and sputtering. Pained croaks escape him as he clutches at his throat, and his eyes widen as they look up at Diana. “Milk?” he chokes.

  Her smile is one of victory, an inside joke perhaps.

  Ruslan jumps to his feet and starts whacking on Father’s back.

  “I think he’s choking!” my brother cries out.

  Nobody moves.

  Vika laughs.

  “Vika!” Ruslan growls.

  “Oh no,” she deadpans.

  Father glares at Diana as he gasps for air. “Y-You—” Another coughing fit. People run to his aid. Not people from our table, aside from my brother. We all stare at him. When he can’t seem to catch his breath, he collapses forward. His face hits the table with a loud thunk, and he slumps off to the side. Heavy with his weight shifted on one side, the chair topples over, and he crashes to the floor. Diana sidesteps him and walks back to where I’m sitting, staring at my father’s stiffened body. Yuri begins sniffing at the food on his plate, and Vlad pushes the plate from in front of Irina to the middle of the table and stands.

  I tear my gaze from my dying father and snap it to Diana. She picks up her wine glass and salutes the air as Vika does the same, then sips from her glass.

  “He’s dead!” Ruslan cries out. “Father is dead!”

  No fucking shit.

  “It’s poison! The food!” Yuri bellows, pointing a knife toward Leonid.

  Leonid jumps to his feet. “Impossible.”

  “If there is something in this food…” Vlad roars.

  “Stop!” I shout, rising from my chair. “It’s not the food. Father was sick.”

  “What?” Rus chokes out, looking up at me from his knees. He’s checking for a pulse, despite announcing our father’s death moments before.

  “Weak heart. He knew this was coming. A heart attack,” I grit out. “His doctor was just telling him if he keeps up at the rate he was going, his heart would fail.”

  Diana snaps her eyes to mine in question.

  Yeah, baby, I’m saving your ass.

  “Well, that’s unfortunate,” Vlad says, smirking. He retakes his seat and pulls Irina’s plate back to her. Her nose scrunches up and she rubs at her round stomach.

  Vas is grinning like that cat who ate the fucking canary.

  “I’ll go call an ambulance,” Diana says, placing her glass down.

  “We’ve already called them, ma’am,” a server informs us.

  “Very well.” She smiles and continues her departure.

  “Diana,” I utter to her. “We’re not done.”

  Her glare meets mine, and she shakes her head. “But we are, Ven. You’re the Vetrov king now.”

  “That’s not what I want,” I utter lowly, so only she can hear me.

  “You can’t be my savior,” she hisses. “I don’t need a guardian angel, not anymore.”

  “Fuck no you don’t need an angel. You need a devil. You need the demons inside me. You’re a dark angel, and together, the angel and demons can create a new world, a new empire.”

  A flash of sadness glimmers in her eyes, but then she blinks it away and hardens her stare.

  “Goodbye, Veniamin. My condolences on the death of another bearded vulture.” She bats her lashes, and then she’s gone. I feel eyes on me from the assholes still sitting around the table like there’s not a dead fucking person they all have known most of their lives on the floor. They look to me like they’re waiting on direction.

  “Veniamin?” Rus asks, looking up at me. He’s pathetic. He’s grown a patchy beard, but he yields no power. This is what’s left of the Vetrov name.

  “Looks like dinner is over,” I state bluntly.

  And then I leave. I have plans to put in motion.

  Screams.

  Over and over again.

  The begging.

  I’m groggy as I wake from the nightmare that has replayed each night since The Games. It’s pitch black in my childhood room, and old fears replace recent ones.

  He’s dead.

  Anton died nearly a year ago at Vlad’s hand.

  I’m safe.

  I roll over and stare at the bedside clock. 3:49 AM. My father asked me to stay so we could discuss my future tomorrow. I certainly don’t owe him this, but a part of me is curious to see what he has to say so I can take great pride in telling him to go to hell, the bastard. He was the first man to break my heart. He filled me with belief I could be more than just a wife, then took that away and passed me off as a prize only to disown me when I wasn’t as shiny as he first thought. Vas has promised to attend this breakfast with me. He’s been more than a brother. He’s been my friend. When I felt alone, he was the only one I could rely on, and he and Vika aided me in my vengeance.

  My thoughts drift to last night at the celebratory dinner. Vika and I watched with glee as that monster took his last breath. Poetic, really. To die at a dining table. He was fond of dining rooms—it’s where he brutalized us both. When Vika told me about him raping her, I felt even more vindicated to kill him. After months of thought and planning, the three of us—Vika, Vas, and myself—planned the perfect murder. Death by slipping drugs into his food, masked with some chili. The drug sends the heart into acceleration, causing a heart attack. It’s perfection, since the traces wear off too fast for eviden
ce to show in an autopsy, and all it took was distraction and seduction with one of the servers to get it into his food. I planned the milk and timed it so he would know in his last breath who was responsible. It was me, you son of a bitch. As much as I wanted to cut his throat, it was more satisfying to watch him die in such an undignified way. Poetic to see him writhe in pain on a dining room floor. He robbed me of life on a dining room floor. He took something from Vika over a dining room table. It was so fitting. Everyone stared at him with pity in their eyes. His eating habits and lack of exercise drove him to that point.

  Poor Yegor Vetrov.

  And now, by default, Veniamin will lead that family. I didn’t do it for that outcome, but I’m glad he has something to claim for his own. He knew it was me who killed his father, and he covered for me. It scares me how much I still love him. And after all that’s passed between us, he gave me the death of his father. Sometimes, when I think of him, it’s hard to breathe. Last night, he and I in the powder room, was overwhelming. I almost lost focus. I almost let the bearded fucking vulture pin me and pick me apart nibble by nibble. He disarms me and reaches inside, consuming me.

  Ven weakens me.

  The thoughts and feelings for him that never go away weigh me down.

  Falling for him wasn’t like falling at all; it was more like learning to walk again and then growing wings and taking flight—seeing the world from a height I didn’t know existed before.

  But, as always, I had to pay for men’s egos, and he was taken from me. Forced to release him—and he allowed me to. He left and went to be the man his father raised. Vas told me he was the one who brought Kira to the games. That he was off training Hiss, drinking himself into a stupor every night and taking whores to his bed. The agony of learning this was torturous. I know how these men work, I’ve lived with them my whole life, but when I accused him of being like them, he proved me right, and it broke something within me. But I grew back stronger. I’m a fighter. A survivor. A lioness injured but still mighty—still ready to roar. He nearly had me in that bathroom, nearly made me succumb to him, but I need to stay focused. One asshole down, two more to go. Yegor, Yuri, and my father all need to go. Their children have better sense than they do. Even Vlad and Vika, spawned from the devil himself, show more valor and honor than their father. It’s time to clean house and set up shop.

  I allow myself a selfish moment to think about what could have been had Anton’s baby and the subsequent miscarrying not been thrown right into the middle of my and Ven’s budding relationship. I’m sure we would have fallen deeper and deeper. I would have given him sons or daughters. I would have given him my hand in marriage. My everything.

  But like I knew way back when I was sixteen, staring up at the man I secretly loved and adored, that was not the hand I’d been dealt. My hand was a deck full of kings, and I was the queen who had to be on top. We can’t go back to being two innocent youngsters wanting more than what was destined for them.

  I’m just drifting off when I hear a creak. Awareness prickles through me. Flashbacks of The Games haunt me. How I hid in that room with Kira and wished for it all to go away. The constant state of adrenaline I’d been in. My fight or flight response is heightened since that fateful day. I’m always on edge. Trusting of no one.

  My haunting thoughts bleed into memories. Of times when Anton would sneak in, tear my clothes from me, and brutalize me. How, despite the awfulness, I grew to love it. I craved it. And this is why I’m not wife material like Irina. I am not content to sit in the backseat and let someone else do the driving. I thirst for the danger. I want to play the games. I’m corrupt and broken—like them.

  Creak.

  My heart stutters to a stop. I listen for sounds and slowly reach my hand toward the bedside table where my gun sits. The moment my fingers graze the tabletop, my worst fears are realized. A man clears his throat, and then he attacks.

  I start to scream as he pins me and shoves a cloth against my nose. My body loses all energy as blackness steals me away.

  No.

  I should have known they’d be unhappy with my win. Vas even warned me to watch my back.

  They were never going to let me live despite the rules of no revenge taken outside The Games. Rules are meant to be broken.

  I wake, and my senses are flooded. Sweat. Rubber. Violence. I’m someplace dark aside from a lone lightbulb above my head. I can’t see beyond the circle of light glowing over me. But I can sense another person. I’ve been strapped to a chair. My ankles are secured tightly on each leg and my wrists are bound in front of me. I’m still in my nightshirt and panties. Small victories.

  “What do you want?” I demand, keeping my voice cool. “Who sent you?”

  At least if I’m going to die, I want to know who to haunt.

  Metal on metal clinks behind me. As though someone is dragging a metal object along a chain-link fence.

  Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink.

  I try to angle my body around to search out my assailant. A large, dark frame walks along the perimeter.

  Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink.

  “If you’re trying to scare me, it won’t work,” I hiss, furious I’m someone’s victim.

  Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink.

  “Might as well make it quick,” I snap when the large shadowed frame comes into my view. “I’d rather you cut my throat and be over with it. I promise you, the pussy isn’t worth it. Who sent you? Who paid for this? The Vasilievs? The Voskoboynikovs? …The Vetrovs?”

  The man, tall and muscular, falters at my last words, then he steps into the light. He wears a ski mask and holds the same knife I used to kill Hiss. His black leather gloves are tight on his large hands, and his black long-sleeved shirt is glued to him. Silently, like a panther, he stalks me. Toying with me. Motherfucker. When he reaches out quickly and grabs the front of my nightshirt, I let out a surprised shriek. He yanks it forward and saws through the material with his knife.

  With my wrists bound, he’s unable to pull it away completely, but now my breasts are bared to him. He grips one and gropes it. I spit into his mask-covered face. His body jerks back, and for a moment, I worry he’ll cut my throat right then. He turns his back to me and yanks his ski mask off, swiping at the spit that hopefully got him in the eyes.

  Terror creeps through my veins. A man with a buzzed head and tattoos up the back of his neck swipes his face clean with the mask. I fight at my bindings. One ankle isn’t bound as tightly as the other. I wriggle and pull, hoping to loosen it. I’m still focused on my endeavors when he turns around. His face is tilted to the side, and pure animalistic hunger gleams in his green eyes. I stop yanking at my ankle to gape at him.

  An avenging angel.

  A dark devil.

  Scary and beautiful.

  Sharp jawline. Proud nose. Manly throat.

  I remember him from my childhood. When I was just twelve years old. I stared at him from the shallow end of the pool and watched as he peeled away his shirt, revealing his lean torso. I’d fallen in love right then.

  With a smug grin, he grabs the hem of his black shirt and yanks it off. This man’s chest isn’t bare like the teen from my youth. Instead, he’s a colorful work of art. His jeans hang low on his hips, revealing the perfect V-shape of his muscles on his lower torso. He looks so youthful and stunning without his beard. My heart stammers in my chest. Despite my predicament, my mouth waters. My nipples harden, and my panties grow damp.

  Always were a sucker for the wrong man, Diana.

  “Why are we here?” I demand, my voice breathy and needy, betraying me.

  “Because we have to be.” His words are deep and gravelly. They leave no room for argument. He’s right. The beating of my traitorous heart attests to his words.

  “You’ve come to kill me?” I quirk a brow and smile. It shouldn’t, but the thought speaks to some part of me. The depraved, ruined part. There’s this darkness inside that breathes and needs oxygen. I can’t deny who I am. What they’ve made me
.

  He chuckles. “I’ve come to claim you.”

  Veniamin fucking Vetrov kneels in front of me, setting the knife down beside my feet. Shaved head. Beardless. Violent, hungry eyes fixated on me. Half-naked and ready to fuck. Jesus. Why am I so turned on right now?

  Because you’re a bad girl, Diana.

  Dirty and depraved. Strong and sexual.

  “I’m not yours to claim,” I murmur, then lick my lips. Lies. Lies. Lies. I’m so thirsty.

  His green eyes watch my tongue, then he leans forward. I let out a moan when his mouth covers my nipple. Hot and wet, his tongue circles the peaked flesh. My bound hands are useless. And still yet, I greedily run my fingertips across his bare flesh as he sucks on my nipple.

  “What we have is real. It’s been there since forever ago, and I’m tired of letting them interfere,” he growls. His teeth tug on my nipple, making me cry out. “This is ours, and we’re fucking taking it, moya roza.” He pulls away long enough to yank his gloves off, and then his hand slips between my thighs. “You’re being stubborn, and that’s okay. I’ll be the one to take if that’s what you need.”

  “Oh!” I cry out, the immediate pleasure zinging through me like a shot of adrenaline. My heart rate spikes and my body thrums with need. It is what I need. I’m too scared to give in—to admit I’m stumbling through recovering from him and our love.

  He rubs my clit over my silky panties until I’m panting and whimpering. “Did you miss me, sweet Diana?”

  I bite my bottom lip and shake my head. “No.” Lies.

  “Did you miss my fingers touching you?” He pinches my clit, and I scream out, wanton and needy.

  “No,” I lie on a breathless whisper.

  “Did you miss me loving you?” He peppers featherlight kisses up my thigh.

  “No.” I almost cry. I control my emotions. I’m overwhelmed. Elation and fear bleed into the marrow of my bones. I want this, want him, but I won’t take another blow—I can’t take it if he breaks my heart. He’s my danger and my remedy.