Red Alpha: A BWWM Russian Alpha Billionaire Romance (21 page)

Demyan stiffened, resisting the urge to wrap his fingers around the blonde’s throat and squeeze until her neck snapped. “You know, you’re
just
like your parents.” She went on blithely. “Taking the first out they could see to compensate for their own weakness.”

The Russian man growled low in his throat, a retort rising to his lips a moment before the door to the room burst open. He whirled, crouching low in anticipation of a fight – only to have his legs weaken beneath him.

Boris and Petya Yenotov held Cadence’s struggling form between them, the young woman spitting English curses with the force of a seasoned sailor. To Demyan’s relief, she didn’t look too much worse for the wear – there was a growing bruise on her jaw and a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth – presumably from the struggle she underwent when they captured her.

At the sight of Roksana, however, the young woman froze.

Her eyes went wide, her face flushing deep red – and she screamed.

The force of her bellow was enough to shock every occupant of the room, Demyan included. The sound Cadence made was almost inhuman – and for a split second, the Yenotov brothers stared at her in awe.

“
Well
.” Roksana arched a brow at her quarry, tilting her head in curiosity. “I believe she’s outdone you, Demyan.”

“You bitch! You fucking murderous, sadistic, cunt!”

If the Russian man thought she was mad before, now it seemed as if the Yenotovs could barely hold her. At her animosity, Roksana’s gaze narrowed. “What the hell is wrong with her?”

Demyan said nothing as the Yenotovs dragged the young woman into the room, forcibly slamming the door behind themselves. They dragged Cadence forward to force her to her knees in front of Roksana. To the dark-haired man’s dismay, she didn’t even look at him. She was focused solely on the blonde woman before her. She was lost in her rage, and until Demyan could get a hold of her, they would have no chance of escape.

“Where are the documents?” Roksana demanded in a low, dangerous voice.

Demyan’s heart skipped a beat. If the blonde believed he had handed them over to Cadence then, perhaps, they had more of an upper hand than he realized. The book remained safely sewn into the lining of his coat, and as long as they only searched his person, they wouldn’t find it.

Cadence just stared at her, murder in her eyes. Roksana met her gaze steadily for a brief moment before rising from her chair. Without a word, she hauled back and struck the dark-skinned woman with the flat of her hand, and Cadence jerked backwards against Petya Yenotov. “God, I’ve wanted to do that for ages.” Roksana massaged her palm with relish.

“Why don’t you do it again, then?” Cadence spat blood on the floor, straightening. “But get the muscle to let me go. It’ll be
fun
.”

Demyan only wished that Lichakov would be so stupid.

“How about you tell me where the documents are,” the blonde countered, “and I won’t slice up your pretty sand-rat face.”

“
Fuck
you.” At that moment, the dark-skinned woman seemed to notice Demyan for the first time and she inhaled sharply. “
Demyan
? What the hell are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.” Roksana beat him to the punch and Cadence’s eyes widened in shock. Slowly, she began to shake her head. Though she spoke not a word, it was almost as if Demyan could read her mind.

Why
are you here? Why didn’t you run?
This isn’t about me
. “And here you are. So, Demyan,” Roksana cocked her head at him, her expression smug. “You see I haven’t harmed her. Much. So, here’s how this is going to work: We’ll spend a single night here before heading back to Moscow on the first available flight tomorrow morning. If you try to run, I pry her eyeballs out of their sockets. You try to contact
anyone
,” Lichakov’s blue eyes narrowed, “I tear her tongue out. Are we clear?”

Slowly, he nodded, even as Cadence shook her head more feverishly.

He had utterly lost his mind.

This wasn’t what he had planned. For the past two decades of his life, he wanted to escape. He was willing to do anything and everything it took to take power away from Osip and put it back where it belonged. And now he was jeopardizing that for the sake of a single woman. Certainly, she was an American agent, but that was no justification for putting their entire operation at risk.

Cadence was just one woman. Just
one
.

And yet the idea of Roksana finding vicious glee in torturing her made him physically ill. Every time she
touched
Cadence, marring her toffee hued skin, Demyan envisioned ripping her apart – taking from Osip one of his most treasured possessions.

“I would be flattered, if I were you, American.” Roksana quipped with flourish. “I don’t think Demyan’s ever been so attached to a woman.”

“For the love of
Christ
, Demyan, don’t do this.” The dark-skinned woman tore her gaze from Roksana to address the man standing above her. “There is nothing
keeping
you here. Get out.”

She was certainly the antithesis of any woman he had ever met. With Cadence, there was no pleading for mercy and no bargaining. Her mission was first and foremost on her mind – though Demyan was willing to bet that she’d be willing to give up her own life for a chance at taking Roksana’s.

“Oh, yes. By all means, leave.” Roksana agreed jauntily, her smile returned. “It will give me something to do while Petya chases you.”

The bitch was baiting him. She knew perfectly well that he would do no such thing.

“I’m
not
leaving.” He replied firmly, before taking a seat at the edge of the bed – right at Cadence’s shoulder. She glanced back at him, and for the briefest of moments, her eyes gleamed with something that might be regret.

“Well, you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.” Lichakov nodded at Boris, barking a command in Russian. “Tie him up.”

The elder Yenotov appeared thrilled at the notion. Once he was sure that his brother had a firm hold on the woman they subdued, he released her to take the thick length of cord that Roksana offered him. Without missing a beat, he jerked Demyan’s arms behind his back to begin binding them tightly. “It’s about time you get your comeuppance, traitor.” He spat in his native tongue. He purposefully tied the larger man tight enough to cut off his circulation, but Demyan didn’t give him the satisfaction of wincing. Instead, he contemplated how the hell they were supposed to get out of this. He’d rather die than give Lichakov - and thusly Danshov – the information she sought. Problem was, the devious woman wouldn’t let that happen on her watch.

Torture, yes. But, she wouldn’t kill him until Osip gave her the go-ahead.

Summarily, Boris also relieved him of his pistol, but thankfully didn’t search any lower. When he finally moved away, Lichakov merely sighed, snapping her fingers. “Alright.”

As if some invisible switch had been flicked, Petya suddenly pressed Cadence against the floor as Boris wrapped an arm tightly around Demyan’s neck. Roksana’s expression was wild as she crossed the room to kneel in front of the dark-skinned woman before withdrawing an unmistakable knife from her pocket.

Veta’s knife.

Demyan bucked powerfully, but Boris’s grip was unyielding.

“I’m bored. And I’m hardly going to spend all night here with nothing to do, so, we’ll get started on trying to find those documents.” Lichakov yanked Cadence’s neck taut by her hair, the knife she held glistening wickedly in the low light.

Demyan could hear his heart pounding in his ears. “Now,” The blonde woman whispered lowly against her victim’s ear. “Let’s hear you refuse me.”

When Cadence said nothing, the Russian woman gleefully went in for her first cut, her blue eyes gleaming with bloodthirsty madness.

**

She hadn’t screamed.

If nothing else, for the past two hours, Cadence hadn’t let anything louder than a tortured whimper pass her lips. She refused to scream for this sadistic cunt.

She wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

Her refusal to raise her voice, however, only compounded the pain she was in.

Lichakov started high on her chest, carving a series of shallow but long cuts across her flesh just under her collarbone. As blood slid, thick and metallic, down towards the line of her bosom, the blonde cut off her sweater, bit by bit, to expose the entirety of her upper half. Cadence’s cotton bra offered little protection against the blonde’s sadistic intentions.

Roksana inserted the tip of her knife under her skin at the joint of Cadence’s shoulder and applied pressure downwards until she touched bone, sending searing pain down the length of the young woman’s arm. She seemed to know where and exactly how much pain to inflict so that Cadence remained conscious – and she moved agonizingly slowly.

At first, Demyan had cursed the Russian woman ceaselessly under his breath, struggling against Boris’s hold on him. When it became clear that his outbursts only riled Lichakov all the more, he fell silent.

His intense green gaze caught and held Cadence as Lichakov cut.

And
cut
.

Cadence did her best to concentrate on Demyan instead of the white hot pain her torturer inflicted on her, but as more and more of her body was covered in angry red wounds, she found her breath coming with increasing difficulty.

It hurt…and the pain made it hard to think straight.

She was angry…
furious
even. She wanted to watch Lichakov suffer – to return her severed head to Osip Danshov on a pike. But here, now, Demyan wouldn’t run. He merely watched as the blonde sliced her to ribbons – and Cadence had
no
idea what he was thinking. He had both the documents and the codes. If he could incapacitate one of the Yenotov brothers, he would be all but home free.

And yet he stayed. For her.

The damned fool.

Embarrassingly, she found tears rising to her eyes as Roksana dragged a long, shallow cut over her bare belly. If Demyan
weren’t
present, she was sure she would have lost it sometime during the first hour. Instead, here she was, praying for the endurance to continue until she either lost consciousness or bled to death.

But something told her that Roksana wouldn’t be nearly so callous.

“I’ll admit, I’m impressed.” The blonde whispered darkly in her ear. “I assumed you were some air-headed, pretty little doormat. It appears that you can take a bit of a beating.” The blood-stained knife found the juncture of her hip and thigh, sliding in slowly, and a choked groan escaped Cadence. “Or…you could tell me where the documents are, and maybe I’ll give you a little break.”

Was this how Alessia had died? Defiance on her face as Roksana reveled in the pain she caused her?

God
, Cadence didn’t think she’d ever hated someone so powerfully in her life.

Without warning, Lichakov jammed the heel of her knife down and Cadence heard a sharp snap that was either bone or tendon. The ensuing pain did finally rip a scream from her as her entire body thrashed in Petya’s tight embrace.

“Oh dear, I’m sorry. It slipped.” Cadence quickly stifled her sound of discomfort, even as wetness streamed down her face. There was something horribly wrong with her hip. It felt loose and tight all at the same time, and blood gushed from the wound in impossible amounts. The pain was nigh unbearable. “I might have hit something important.”

“
Stop
.”

At Demyan’s soft, dangerous command, everyone in the room stilled. Cadence struggled to take a breath as she lifted her head to gaze at the Russian man. The pain in his green eyes was enough to make her breath hitch, and, in that moment, she knew he was going to do something stupid. “Demyan,” she croaked immediately, “
No
.”

But it was too late.

“They’re here.” Demyan shifted onto one hip, glaring at Petya. “Sewn into the lining of my coat. Take them and leave her the hell alone.”

The blonde woman grinned like a fucking Cheshire cat and Cadence groaned in dismay. No, no
no
…

Triumphantly, Lichakov crossed the room to Demyan, flipping up the edge of his coat to feel the lining; first the right side, and then the left. Within moments, she found the hidden shape of the little black book and cut it free with her bloodstained knife.

For a long moment, she stared at the innocuous looking object, shaking her head slowly. Then, without pause, she withdrew a lighter from her pocket. With a flick of her thumb, a flame jumped.

And fire enveloped their hard won evidence.

“
No
!” Cadence couldn’t help the scream that ripped from her throat. “
No!
”
As the flame flared, Roksana tossed the burning book into the empty fireplace as the leather bound pages crackled and burned.

The young woman felt totally empty inside.

Why.
Why
the hell would Demyan do such a thing? Lichakov was going to torture and kill her fucking regardless. Did he
really
think that giving up his life’s work was going to stay her hand?

Jesus fucking
Christ
. She was torn between crying and laughing. The man cared enough about her that seeing her in pain tore him apart…but it also robbed him of his senses.

“Well,” As the last of the flames died, Lichakov dusted off her sooty hands. “That’s taken care of. Thank you, Demyan, for your cooperation.” With that, she nodded at Petya, who released Cadence from his grasp.

The blonde caught hold of a handful of the dark-skinned woman’s curls, hauling her upright with a surprisingly strong arm. Cadence stumbled on her injured leg, dizzy from blood-loss as she clutched vainly at the woman’s wrist. “Now, we’ve no more need for you.” She raised Elisaveta Boykov’s butterfly knife to the young woman’s throat and Cadence inhaled sharply.

“
Lichakov
!” Demyan let fly with a stream of curses in Russian, bucking so powerfully that for a moment, Boris had to fight him for dominance. In all the chaos, Cadence’s eyes slid closed as she swallowed thickly.

This wasn’t how she imagined she would die…but then, death was never as one imagined, was it? If there was anything Alessia had taught her,
that
was the lesson she most remembered.