Reckless Heir (Underworld Kings)

I was vaguely aware of the private jet’s engine starting and pulling me out of my thoughts. I heard the sound of the pilot and the copilot rattling off airplane jargon. I sensed rather than saw the flight attendant walking up and down the small aisle.

But what I was very aware of above all of that was Nikolai’s intense stare on me.

I looked at him, not surprised he had those blue eyes trained on me. I couldn’t call any part of Nikolai soft. He was seated but looked tense, jagged, like a sharp blade that would cut through you as easily as a hot knife through butter.

“I have to get her out of there.” I knew he was aware of what I said, what I meant.

But he didn’t respond, just reached across the short space between our seats and gently took my hand in his. He pushed up my shirt, showing the ugly coloring of my wrist, and I heard a low, deep sound of disapproval leave him. He gently—God, so gently—stroked his finger down my inner forearm, stopping right before he got to the bruise.

And then his touch was gone and he was leaning back in his seat, his focus trained out the window. A muscle under his scruff-covered cheek flexed and I swallowed, knowing that sensation I felt coming from him, knowing that hard, almost unreadable look on his face.

He wouldn’t let this end.

We sat there for long moments, so long I didn’t think we’d speak the rest of the flight to Desolation. I lifted my legs onto the seat and curled them close to my chest, adjusting myself so I could look out the window.

We'd been in the air for half an hour now, the time surprisingly passing by in a blur, but the tangible energy that kept coming from Nikolai couldn't be ignored.

I’d stopped glancing over at him, knowing I’d see the same thing each time. Hard resolve that he would deal with my father in the way men like him did

Violently. With finality.

But I didn’t have the energy or the emotions to care, to try and talk him out of it. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

All I cared about right now was getting Claudia safe and out of that house, away from my father. Because surely now, after all of this, after the spectacle that happened in his office with Nikolai, my father was especially volatile. And Gio and my mother could only protect my sister so much.

“Your mother is under your father’s thumb so deeply she’s embedded there,” Nikolai finally said and I was so startled by the deep timbre of his voice that I actually jerked slightly in my seat and turned to look at him.

I licked my lips and nodded, not trusting my voice for fear it would tremble from the force of my thoughts and emotions. And I didn’t want to appear even weaker than I felt I was already coming across. I was ashamed that I wasn’t stronger, that I hadn’t fought harder, that I hadn’t just taken my sister and ran.

My mother was already too far gone in my father’s clutches to listen to reason. She hadn’t protected us all these years, and instead had been complacent in his wrath and hatred toward us. She’d let his anger wrap around us with the reasoning, the explanation that it was “just how things were”.

Just how things were.

I was done with that.

“You act surprised.” I uncurled my legs and stretched them out, not realizing I’d been in the same position for so long that my legs were cramped and aching.

He lifted his hand and ran it over his jaw before smoothing it up and down his thigh. I watched the act, remembering how he’d done that last night in the hotel room before he patted his lap and told me to come sit down.

I felt a flush move over me, unexpected arousal washing away all my worry, which just made me feel even guiltier.

“Women in the Bratva, or at least in Desolation, aren’t like that.” He leaned back in the seat further and spread his legs a little wider, the position shouldn’t have been as attractive as it was.

And he was so big, his legs so long, his torso so muscular and wide, that he dwarfed that leather seat.

“They stand by their man, powerful in their own right. They don’t cower. You can’t when it concerns the world we live in.” There were shadows behind his blue eyes, things he wasn’t telling me.

I didn’t ask him about his mother. Maybe that’s where that darkness came from.

“Of course this isn’t how it always is, or was.” His jaw clenched at that last word. “Even though it should be. But there’s a lot of evil that lurks right under your nose.” He lifted his hands, palms up, as if that explained it all.

“You're worried about your sister.” He said it point blank and I didn’t hesitate to nod.

“My father is going to take it out on her.” I looked out the window again, seeing nothing but white and blue, so far up I could almost pretend that we’d never land again, that we could stay high above the world where nothing could touch us.

“Your father will take what out against your sister?”

I dragged my tongue over my bottom lip, feeling that soreness from when he’d bit the flesh last night, once again another reminder of what we’d shared and done.