Page 107 of Beautiful Forever
“Viktor just arrived and is in the study. Why don’t you go tell him that?”
The man doesn’t say another word, but I can feel the tension in his muscles as Serena’sclick-clacksfade away.
He mumbles a string of very obscene and derogatory names about Serena that I absolutely agree with. I slit open an eye as he descends a long flight of stairs. From what little I can see, the house isn’t grandiose or ostentatiously decorated like I expected for a man like Viktor Androv. Then again, this may not be his house. Aleksander said his main residence was in Las Vegas.
Sconces placed every fifteen feet along bare, taupe-painted walls light the way as I’m carried to the end of the hallway.
“Unlock it,” he says to someone.
This is going to hurt.
I experience a few seconds of weightlessness, and then all the air gets knocked out of me when my body hits the floor. I’m going to look like one of Christian’s finger paintings by the time this is over.
“Watch the door.”
A different man replies in Russian, but I don’t understand what he says.
“Watch the fucking door.”
“Fuck you,” the other man hurls back in stilted English.
Like an antique Victor-Victrola, their argument becomes distorted when I see Aleksander lying on the floor, bound to a chair and not moving. His back is to me. He’s too still. Too quiet. Dark, wet patches cover his shirt, glistening against the pale light spilling into the room. Blood. His blood. Everywhere. On him, the chair, on the floor. The metallic stench of it fills my lungs, and the ache in my chest at seeing him broken fills my chest until it hurts to breathe.
Don’t you dare leave me. Not like this. Not now.
I want to go to him. Hold him. Tell him everything that I’ve been too scared to say.
Baldy slams the door shut and looms over me in the dark, his brown eyes feral. Unzipping his pants, his intention is clear when he takes out his cock. “I can assure you that I’m going to enjoy this even more.”
Oh, hell no.
He never gets a chance to take his next breath.
In a blur of movement, I tuck my legs through my arms, then shatter his knee with an upward heel kick. He hits the floor with a grunt, and I make sure he can’t call for help when I wrap my legs around his head in a triangle choke and squeeze my thighs against his neck until it breaks. It’s over in seconds. He deserved to suffer longer, but whatever.
Lifting my bound wrists above my head, I swing my arms downward toward my knees and break the zip ties to free my hands. My heart trips over itself when Aleksander turns his head, those magnificent light-gray eyes looking at me through bruised, puffy eyelids.
“Hi,” I whisper, so fucking happy that he’s alive.
He doesn’t utter a sound. Just stares at me like I’m a ghost. The evidence of what they did to him, what he had to endure—his gorgeous face is almost unrecognizable.
Moving to straddle the man’s barrel chest, I sink my thumbs into his eye sockets as far as they will go, making sure he’s truly dead and not just paralyzed from the neck down. He doesn’t even twitch.
Using the guy’s shirt, I clean off the blood and goo from my hands the best I can and scramble across the floor to Aleksander. I start with removing the duct tape from around his ankles.
“Syn?”
“Hey, gorgeous.” I heave a frustrated sigh when I get to the zip ties. More fucking zip ties. Getting them off him is going to be much harder. I don’t have anything I can use to cut through them.
“I must…really look bad…if you’re…trying to…reassure me.”
“You’re the most handsome man in the room.” My efforts to free him are useless. Think, dammit.
“Don’t make…me laugh,” he rasps, his chuckles turning into labored coughs.
Alarmed by his horrific wheezes, I take a closer look at him. I don’t want to do any more damage if I can help it, but that may not be a possibility.
Because I need to touch him, I tenderly cup one swollen cheek. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
