Page 44 of Alluring Darkness
A cry of pain rips from his throat as his leg buckles and he crashes down on the floor. I slam my knee into the side of his head, sending him smacking into the ground.
Dropping down, I straddle his chest and then ram my fist into his face again and again.
Mikhail tries desperately to protect himself, but on his back with my weight across his chest, he doesn’t stand a chance.
Fury roars through me like a lightning storm. I know that I should try to control myself, but those safeguards in my brain were shattered long ago.
“Uhm, did I miss something?” Rico suddenly asks.
Locking my hand around Mikhail’s throat, I pause my attacks and look up to find Rico, Kaden, and Jace standing next to us. Rico just looks at me with his eyebrows raised in question while Jace cocks his head as if studying Mikhail’s face and the injuries there. Next to them, Kaden watches us with a cruel smile on his lips and that customary sadistic gleam in his eyes.
“The bastard tried to knife me,” I grind out between gritted teeth while trying desperately to get my rage back under control. “Because I put a gun to little Anton’s head earlier.”
“Aww, how cute,” Jace says.
I turn back to Mikhail, who is struggling to get my hand off his throat so that he can breathe again. “You want to be us, huh? You want to take our family’s place as the most feared one here? You want to be me?”
Only strained gurgling answers me.
Without taking my eyes off him, I snap my fingers at Kaden. “Knife.”
He immediately slides one out of his thigh holster and hands it to me.
I relax my grip on Mikhail’s throat, allowing him to suck in strangled breaths. Then I lift the knife and place it over his left eyebrow.
“Well, if you want to be me, then we need to start by making you look more like me.”
His blue eyes dart up to the scar running through my eyebrow and down to my cheek. But before he can say or do anything, someone else comes sprinting around the corner up ahead.
Anton Petrov skids to a halt on the concrete floor, and his eyes go wide as he stares at us. Then rage floods his features, and he charges.
“Get off him, you fucking—” he begins, but his words are quickly cut off as Rico and Jace intercept him.
Air explodes from his lungs as my brothers throw him up against the wall. He struggles like a maniac, but they keep him effortlessly trapped like a fly with his back against the wall and his arms spread wide.
I turn back to Mikhail. “Now, as I was saying, we should start by making you look more like me.” Shifting the blade, I position the tip right above his eyeball. “Though maybe I should take your eye too, so that we don’t look too similar.”
Dread washes over his features. But to his credit, he doesn’t beg.
Someone else does, though.
“No, please,” Anton calls as he struggles against Rico and Jace’s hold. “Please!”
“Anton,” Mikhail snaps.
But Anton ignores him and instead locks pleading eyes on me. “Please, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what happened on the gun range this afternoon. I’m sorry for what my brother did in this corridor. Please,please, don’t take his eye.”
While holding his gaze, I let a vicious smile stretch my lips as I move the knife closer.
“No!” Anton thrashes wildly against the wall. “Please, I’m begging you. I’mbegging you.”
I stop moving the blade and arch an eyebrow at him. “Are you now?”
“Yes. Please, Hunter. I’m begging you not to take his eye. He won’t come after you again. I swear it. Just please let him go.”
Mikhail squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his jaw. Shame burns on his face at hearing his little brother plead so pathetically and beg us for mercy on his behalf.
And in my book, that utter humiliation is punishment enough.