3
CHLOE
Heart beating unevenly, I watch the door close behind Nikolai’s tall, broad-shouldered figure. My forehead still tingles where his lips touched my skin, even as my mind replays the raw, agony-filled screams of the man he tortured.
How can a ruthless killer act so caring and tender?
Is any of that real, or is it just a mask he wears to hide the psychopath within?
I’m not actually hungry—the anesthesia has made me somewhat nauseated—but I need a few minutes alone. Everything happened so fast I haven’t had a chance to formulate my questions, much less attempt to come up with any answers. One moment, one of my mom’s killers was straddling me, lust gleaming in his flat, dark eyes, and the next, his partner’s brains were all over the forest floor and Nikolai was slicing open my atta
