Page 67 of Darkest Deeds
Ava
I knowI’m being watched before I even open my eyes. Maybe it’s a sixth sense from being raised in a house where hitmen came and went like couriers of death, but I know he’s there.
Niko’s face is sullen and weary. He’s sitting in a chair directly across from the bed, bent over with his elbows resting on his knees, and his hands folded over his mouth. Dark circles underline his eyes, and they’re so red it appears as if he’s been—no, it can’t be.
This is Niko Gaheris, ex-Bratva soldier and one of the Cavalieri Della Morte. He’s a merciless assassin, a man without a conscience. One who doesn’t feel pain. Not his, and definitely not anyone else’s.
“Hey,” I say softly, brushing my fingers over his knee. “You okay?”
Niko’s gaze lowers to where I’m touching him, and his nostrils flare before he clamps a tight hold around my wrist, tugging it toward him.
“What the hell?” I barely catch myself before I tumble off the mattress.
“Explain this.” He strokes his thumb over the first puffy, jagged scar about six inches above the inside of my elbow. All I can do is stare as his strokes become harder, more insistent. I want to tell him. I want to make him see the moment darkness claimed me, but at the same time, I’m terrified he will.
“It’s a scar.”
“I know that, Ava. How did it get there?”
“I cut myself.” I close my eyes, remembering the sting of the blade as it sliced my skin. It hurt, but the pain was only secondary to the cathartic rush of relief. The power to inflict suffering, even if it were my own, drew more satisfaction than accepting the nothingness I’d become.
“Why?”
“To punish myself for breaking my promise.”
Niko slides his thumb up another scar. Then another, and another. Eight in total until his hand stills just below my armpit. “And the rest?”
“One for each year of penance for the first.”
“And this?” He tears down the sheet, and pulls up my shirt to reveal a six-inch scar on my pelvis. “Was this penance?”
“Let go of me, Niko!” I fight him with all I have in me as he straddles me. He’s holding my wrists, but I thrash and twist, landing one good long scratch across his chest before he pins me flat against the mattress.
“Goddammit, Ava! Tell me the truth! Was this from the man your father sold you to?”
Oh God, he knows.
The one secret I’ve been holding onto for eight years has gone up in flames, and I’m tied to the stake, left to burn with it.
Something inside me snaps. “You want the truth? Fine! Yes, Niko, that scar was given to me by the man you had the pleasure of meeting today. The one who paid half a million dollars to be the first man to ever fuck me! After you left, Senator Dresden tied me up and beat me with a barbed wire whip so hard my skin split open. Are you happy now?” I expect a rush of anger from him, punishment for resisting, and I brace for the impact. When it never comes, I slowly open my eyes to find the redness in his eyes returning, along with an unreadable expression that ignites a fire inside me. One that’s ready to incinerate every secret I’ve ever held.
“Sergei killed your mother, didn’t he?”
I nod. “In the kitchen. I watched him smother her with a dishrag.” He doesn’t say anything in response, only closes his eyes and breathes. “Do you know why the attic was always my safe place?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“I used to watch my father and Yuri take girls through the kitchen down into the basement. Those girls never came back up. That’s why the basement scared me so much. I thought if I climbed to the highest place I could find, I wouldn’t drown.”
“Heaven and Hell,” he says in a rough voice, and I nod. “I should’ve fought my way back, Ava. I should’ve come back for you. I didn’t know…I thought…”
“You thought I’d betrayed you, and I did, but not for the reasons you think. We were both manipulated by my father and Yuri.”
Niko tips his head to the side, his grip loosening on my hands. “I don’t understand why. It couldn’t have only been about money. Sergei had more money than God.”
I feel Niko’s hands shake. It tears me apart that it’s more self-loathing than rage. He blames himself, and he can’t. Not for this.
“You really don’t get it, do you?”