Just when I think he’s not going to answer, he shakes his head. “Nah. I ain’t got time.”
I sigh, resting my forehead on the window and watch as the trees zip past in a blur of autumn palettes. “Well, when you do, I hope I get to meet them, though I probably won’t be alive long enough for that to happen.” I wish the champagne lasted in my system as long as a glass of Don Julio.
Niko’s phone starts ringing, and he answers it. “We’re almost there. You can meet us.” He pauses, and my eyes close.
I need rest. After this morning and last night, I don’t think I can sleep enough to catch up on my fatigue.
Car doors closing jolt me out of sleep. Before I can process what is happening, my door opens and Niko is watching me. “I’m going to give you an option, but that’s not because I care. It’s because Ma would kick my ass if she found out I didn’t.”
I hear bikes rumbling in the far distance, but I’m too focused on Nik to really care. He’s wearing his cut over a hoodie and destroyed denim jeans. His swag confuses me, yet somehow it… works.
“Okay.”
His teeth sink into his bottom lip as he drags his thumb over the edge of his jaw. “Do you want to stay in the car or come in?”
I search his eyes, the angry depths of snow sprinkled through smoke and the dark rings locking in the color. Why is he asking me this? Maybe he doesn’t know everything that he claims he knows.
“Can I ask you something?” I say, swinging my legs over the side of the seat indicating I’m going to choose coming.
He holds my stare and I itch to touch him. He’s vile, fucking evil, and a master manipulator, but, well… so am I.
“Do you know about what goes on behind the Cathedral?”
Instant. “Why the fuck do you think I lost respect for you?”
Oh. I backtrack. “Niko, you literally kill people—and for fun, as you said—who are you to judge?”
“Who am I to judge?” he snaps incredulously. “Well, for one, I don’t rape, sell, and murder children, so there is that.” His hand slams over my mouth. “And before you have an answer, I’ll put you out of your misery. No, I don’t harm children, nor will I ever. So, there is the difference between you and me, Meraki.”
“Wait!”
He has already turned his back on me by the time I’m climbing out of the car.
“Nik, I don’t do that either! Who the fuck do you think I am!” I know I’m yelling, and I know that all those bikes I just heard have now got a front-row seat to our argument, but I can’t find it in myself to care, because nothing in the world means more to me than what Nikolai fucking Davis thinks of me. Apparently. “Fuck you, Nik! Fuck you and your stupid fucking games. I’m not fucking scared of you! Ghost, Antichrist, or fucking Niko!” By the time I finish the sentence, sweat glistens down my neck and I think someone has a hold of my arm from behind.
Niko spins around and starts closing the distance between us. Oh fuck.
“Nikolai,” a voice says quietly behind me, but it’s too late because I’m being shoved backward against the side of the car with a firm grip around my throat.
He picks me up from the ground easily, his head cocking to the side. His face and features are calm, but the fact that he’s choking me is, well…
“You think I don’t know everything there is to know about you and your little boyfriend, Mer?”
I tap at his hand to let me down, my pulse thrumming against his hand. I can’t breathe. The fact that my throat feels as though it’s closing in farther and farther as seconds pass is also worrying since it has had a fucking workout over the past twenty-four hours.
“Nikolai, let her down.”
“I know everything there is to know about the two of you.” He comes closer until his nose touches mine. He releases his grip a little, lowering me onto the ground but keeping his hand resting against my throat. “I know that as soon as I left, he gave you everything you ever wanted in return for your silence and cooperation, oh, and your dream school.”
“That’s—”
He tightens again. “I know that Luca removed people from your life so that you would always need him and only him.”
I’ll let him get it all out because I know there’s no getting through Niko when he’s this way. He’s like an explosion in slow motion, and it’s not until the shrapnel has pierced all of the targets he intends will he stop.
“I know that you help steal those women and babies and sell them. I know that you’re a fucking bad person, Meraki, and yeah, I may be the Devil, but even the Devil has his boundaries and you, my little fucking slut, have zero.” His words don’t come as a gut punch this time because I knew they were going to be cruel.