Page 46 of Keeping My Enemies Closer: Pt. 2

“Sorry for what?”I practically snapped.“Trying to rob me?For beating me unconscious?For scaring and hurting my mother before you killed her?Or for shooting me and leaving me for dead?I mean, there are so many options to choose from, so I’m curious as to what you’re exactly sorry for.”

Daryll shook his head tiredly.“We...she lied to us.”

“Well, I don’t know if she lied to you exactly,” I drawled out, acting as if I did this kind of thing all the time.“She just omitted a couple of very important facts before tempting you with all that money.”

“We’ll...we’ll do anything,” Jim stuttered, ready to begin the begging portion of the night.

“Sure, sure...”I replied evenly.“I’ll just wait patiently as you bring my mother back to life, yeah?I mean, that should make things all better, I think.”

“We didn’t know!”Daryll yelled.

“You know, I remember a lot of begging of my own that night,” I replied.“I remember begging to the point of hysteria.I remember begging for my mother’s life as well as my own.I can even remember begging so much that my voice cracked from the effort.I even remember my throat hurting the next morning, something that felt so damn unreal at the time.”

“What...what are you going to...to do to us?”Jim asked, finally looking at me again.

“Oh, me?”I quipped.“Oh, I’m not going to do anything.You see, torture really isn’t my thing.Unlike my fiancé here, I have a conscience, and no matter how much I believe in getting even for killing my mother, I don’t need to spend the rest of my life with your screams in my ears.Plus, having never tortured someone before, I might mess it up and send you to your graves a lot earlier than Kasimir would like.After all, the man really does enjoy his craft.”

Daryll visibly paled, and Jim looked like he was on the verge of tears as he said, “I have...I have a wife.”

“Oh, so...are you offering for her to take your place?”I asked coldly.

“God, no,” he screeched.

“Then why are you bringing her up?”I cocked my head again.“Why should I care about your wife when you didn’t care about my mother?”

His head dropped again, and that’s when it occurred to me that I was done here.I’d made my point, and the only thing left was to leave Kasimir to have his fun, which didn’t sound as horrifying to me as it should.However, I also wasn’t the same person that I’d been before meeting Kasimir.

Chapter 24

Kasimir~

Once Zoya felt satisfied that Jim Giles and Daryll Joseph had gotten the picture, I had escorted her from the storage container, then I’d had Yuri escort her home, trusting that he’d make sure to keep her safe.Granted, it’d been unnecessary since everyone associated with the Korolevs already knew what would happen if anything were to happen to Zoya.Aurora’s kidnapping had made sure of that.

So, with Zoya safely at home, it was now just me and the two men that she wanted to see dead, and I couldn’t lie and say that I didn’t feel positively giddy right now.My broken mind enjoyed this kind of shit far too much to ever be considered sane, but I didn’t mind the diagnosis.

I liked myself.