Lap of Luxury (Love Don't Cost a Thing)

A calm, clear voice cuts through my panic. “Princesa.”

Damir is looking at me, breathing hard, blood running down his face. We exchange a long look. He doesn’t need to speak. Those gray eyes say it all.

Stop struggling. Listen. Th

ink.

Slowly, I get a hold of myself. I hate that Boris is touching me, but I try to relax in his grip.

Damir’s eyes travel down over my throat to my wrists and back up again. “They do suit you,” he says hoarsely. “I knew they would.”

Confused, I look down at myself. There’s a heavy gold necklace glinting on my chest, and diamond and ruby bracelets around my wrists. Navarro steps forward with a tiara in his hands and places it carefully atop my head. Then he steps back, admiring me like I’m a piece of artwork he’s crafted. The jewels that should have been Nataša’s. The jewels that she wore at her engagement feast, secretly pregnant and feeling so young and alone.

“There,” Navarro murmurs and turns to Damir. “Doesn’t she look a picture?”

Damir’s left eyebrow and lower lip are split. Blood has dripped down his face onto his white shirt. “She looks perfect, as I knew she would.”

That indulgent smile is back on Navarro’s face. “It’s only right that she wears them once before she dies. As your sister did.”

Hatred blazes in Damir’s eyes. Then his gaze travels over to Boris. “I treated you like a brother.”

I jab my elbow into Boris’ guts, and he grunts in pain before taking a firmer grip on me. He doesn’t say anything, but his face is pale beneath his tan. I don’t think he revels in blood and violence like Damir does. To him, they’re more a means to an end, and he’s shut down so he can get through tonight.

“And you, Bethany.” Damir is looking into my eyes. “You betrayed me, too.”

I take a shuddering breath. I’m clearly paying for my poor choices. “But it’s cute when I do it.”

Damir stares at me, and then breaks into his toothy shark-grin. “I have to admit, yes, it is, princesa. How have they been treating you?”

My heart twists in my chest. His laugh. His smile. I wonder which of us is going to be killed first. Will I have to watch him die, or will he watch me die?

Damir seems to know where my mind has gone, and says softly, “Don’t lose heart. You’re not going to die tonight, and neither am I.”

Which is optimistic under the circumstances.

Navarro steps toward him. “You killed my son. Now I’m going to kill your fiancée, and then you. I will find your brother after you’re dead, and I’ll finish him as well. I wish you had a son so I could have the pleasure of taking his life, but I can live without that. Soon the Ravnikar clan will be dead and gone, forever.”

“You’re not going to kill Mikhail,” Damir snarls, and for a moment I think he’s going to speak out for his brother. “I’m the one who’s going to kill him. Georgios was just the appetizer.”

Navarro gives a growl of pain and rage. “How dare you! Your family is cursed. Every Ravnikar destroys themselves and everyone around them. Your mother rotted from the inside out. Your sister broke her own body to pieces. Your father disappeared into thin air. Your brother will die. Does this girl—” Navarro flings an arm at my while looking at Damir “—know she’s looking at death himself when she looks at you?”

Damir pulls toward Navarro, and the two men holding him struggle to maintain their grip. His face full of power and anger like the Archangel Gabriel. “All Georgios had to do was never marry, never father a child, and I would have left him in peace. I should have come after you when I was eighteen. I should have killed you and your son, but I hadn’t tasted death then. I didn’t know what pleasure it could bring until I killed my own father.”

“You should have stayed in hiding, you fool,” Navarro sneers. “Your lust for revenge is what is getting you and her killed.”

“I decide what revenge I seek, not you,” Damir says, his voice a snarl. “I decide when you have suffered enough, begged for mercy enough, bled enough.”

Navarro lets out a snort of derisive laughter. He glances at Boris, and then passes him the knife. “Would you like to do the honors on the girl?”

Boris adjusts his grip so that one arm is wrapped around my shoulders, and accepts the knife in his hands. He regards it for a moment, as if trying to make up his mind. Then he holds it up to my throat. The blade catches on the necklace around my throat. A dead woman’s jewels.

“Oh, good plan, Boris,” I say waspishly, chin straining away from the blade. “You’ll be safe with Navarro, Bethany. Navarro will protect you, Bethany. What happened to that?” I meet Damir’s eyes, the blade glimmering in my vision. “Still think I’m not going to die?”

“You’re not going to die,” he says firmly.

I wish I believed him. He held a knife to my throat the first day we met. “Look at the way it started between us. I was always going to end up with my throat slit.”

Navarro’s right. I do see death when I look at Damir, and his mantle weighs heavy on all of us. I wonder if Boris knows that he won’t live to see the dawn.