Chapter 8: Emperor of Wrath: Chapter 8

Suck it, Kenzo.

There’s a famous scene in The Watchmen where one of the characters, a vigilante named Rorschach, gets put in prison. At first, the other prisoners think he’s an easy target, being a loner and on the smaller side. Then he beats the hell out of a huge prisoner.

After that, Rorschach turns to the other prisoners and tells them that he isn’t locked in with them. They’re locked in with him.

That’s how I think about my upcoming wedding to Kenzo. We might be forced together. But it’s not me who’s trapped with him. It’s going to be him trapped with me.

And trust me, he’s going to regret ever letting this go this far.

I sip on some bubbles, smug in the double whammy of both snubbing Kenzo and making something happen for him, business-wise, that he wasn’t able to pull off himself.

I knew I recognized Matsui when I saw him in here, it just took me a minute to place where and how I did. Maybe a year ago, I was looking into dirt on the CEO of a company Kir was…aggressively pursuing. It’s part of my gig: if negotiations stall or flame out, I find other, “creative” ways of motivating someone to sell or agree to terms.

Aka blackmail.

I tailed this particular CEO to Paris, and then to a gorgeous older home in Rue Veron, in the Pigalle district near Montmartre.

The CEO was married, to a woman, and very much monogamously. And yet the house he was visiting was an elegant, high-end brothel of sorts with a specialty dealing in very young, very pretty men.

Needless to say, after watching him visit this place four times in five days, I got exactly what I wanted out of negotiations. But I also have a fairly photographic memory. And over the course of that five-day stakeout, there were a few other exceptionally important looking men who visited that house.

One of them was Matsui Aki.

Yes, I just gave Kenzo a win. But it was at the cost of losing to me. And that’s where it matters.

I’m leaning against the bar, feeling quite pleased with myself, when suddenly, the rug gets yanked out from under me.

Two words spoken in his horrible, bone-chilling voice are all it takes to turn my skin numb and deaden me inside. To push me right back into that deep, dark hole he kept me in for so many years.

“Hello, puppet.”

The world goes cold. Numbness and a rabid desire to block it all out and run away screaming suffuses every corner of my being. But I can’t run. Can’t scream. Can’t breathe.

Can’t escape.

Slowly, I turn. My heart twists violently, and a shudder ripples down my spine as my eyes lock with Valon’s.

Instantly, I’m plunged right back into the darkness.

I was twenty-two when Valon Leka first crossed my path. I’d just met Freya, and we hadn’t yet hit our stride in making money, or even surviving very well. We were living job-to-job, mostly just stealing to eat and have a place to sleep inside.

That’s when we met Valon, the head of The Brotherhood, an Albanian crime syndicate with cult-like tendencies. Valon hired us for a job—our biggest one yet. When we pulled it off, he heaped us—me, mostly—with praise, and even let us keep half of what we’d stolen instead of the agreed-upon ten percent.

We did another job, and it was the same thing. The third one, he let us keep almost the entire take, and heaped us with even more praise. Then came the gifts and favors. The clothes, and fancy dinners, and fun cars.

Looking back, I know now that what that was is called grooming. I was twenty-two, had no family or place to call home, and I’d been running for years.

Valon, meanwhile, was forty-five. He was charming, good-looking, powerful, and promised to take care of me. When you’ve had to take care of yourself for years and years, letting someone else take the reins is really hard to say no to.

So I didn’t say no. Not to the gifts, or favors, or Valon taking me out to dinner or the ballet or to fancy clubs, just the two of us. I didn’t say no to him bringing me back to his house, and then to his bedroom.

I didn’t say anything at all, actually. He did what he wanted, heedless of my thoughts on the matter.

And I let it all happen, even when I hated it to the point of holding back tears, because I felt like this was the best I could do. I had nothing, and Valon gave me something. I never once tried to tell myself it was love. But in my shattered, hastily glued-back-together state, I figured whatever he was giving me was as close to romantic love as I’d ever get.

I stayed with him for three cold, miserable, dark years. Years I don’t really remember, because I’ve blocked them out. Years that Freya and I don’t talk about. Years where I was alive, but not really.

And he called me his puppet.

I suppose it was meant to be a cutesy pet name, but to me, it was a reminder that someone else was pulling my strings and making me do things I didn’t want to.

One day, Valon had to leave his base in Milan and spend a few weeks in Istanbul as his empire expanded. By then, even though I was mostly kept in the dark, I knew that The Brotherhood was no longer a low-level mafia organization that dealt in gambling, smuggling, and some counterfeiting. They were a full-blown drug organization working with the Sicilian and Turkish mafias in the cocaine, meth, and heroin trade.

Valon was going to be gone for two weeks. It would be the longest I’d ever been “without” him. The truly fucked up thing is, I never once thought about leaving. Not because I loved him, or even liked him, but because I was scared of him, and of going back to that life of having to steal to eat, never knowing where I would sleep that evening.

I’ll never forget the night Freya came to my room with two packed bags and put a gun to her own temple. She told me we were leaving, now, and never coming back. If not, she’d be pulling the trigger, because she couldn’t stand to watch me live this horrible life a minute longer.

That was eight years ago, and I’ve avoided my former jailer ever since.

Until tonight.

Valon’s older now, and the lines on his face are deeper. But he’s still got that slightly charming, slightly demented, dark look in his eye as he casually sips a drink and lets his gaze sweep over me.

“I hear you’re getting married, puppet,” Valon purrs, smirking darkly at me. “How nice.”

My insides turn to ash, my gaze stabbing into the floor between my feet as I hug myself and wish I was anywhere but here.

“What isn’t nice, though,” he mutters quietly, “is taking things that don’t belong to you.”

A shudder slices through my body, and cold terror sneaks in after it.

He’s talking about the Lamborghini I stole for Ulkan—the one Freya and I abandoned outside the Lincoln Tunnel after figuring out it was full of Valon’s drugs and money.

“Wouldn’t you agree?” Valon says chattily. “After everything I did for you, and all that I gave you… First you run away without so much as a thank you, and then you steal from me?”

“I—” the word rasps like powdered bone and dust in my throat. “I didn’t realize…”

“I imagine Ulkan wasn’t very happy with services rendered, was he?”

An icy talon scrapes up my spine.

“You know, before the police found the car, someone else did, and emptied the trunk.”

I shudder violently. “I didn’t know it was yours⁠—”

“I don’t care.”

His words are sharp now. Cold. Merciless. That’s how it always went. First, it was all smiles and soothing tones. Next came the slap to the face, or emotionally freezing me out. Gaslighting me. Negging me. Telling me I was unlovable or calling me a whore. Then he’d flip flop, and we’d be back to smiles, presents, and favors.

I shiver again, still unable to meet his eyes.

God, I hate the power this monster has over me. Even now.

“I’m…” I shake my head. “I’m sorry.”

Valon chuckles quietly. “Well, there’s that.” He clears his throat. “You know, I’m not an unforgiving man, puppet.”

Yes you are.

“So maybe I could look past this.”

I flinch as his hand slips into my vision, holding a black plastic keycard for a hotel room between my eyes and the floor.

“Why don’t you come over for a drink later. We can find a way you can make me”…he coughs delicately…“happy again. For old times’ sake.”

It takes everything I have to hold back the vomit that surges up my throat, burning like acid. My blood turns to ice as his hand touches my hair. I flinch, shuddering and shaking as he pushes it behind my ear and leans down.

“Congratulations again on your engagement, puppet.” He pushes the keycard in between two of my numb fingers. “If you’re smart, I’ll be seeing you soon…my little whore.”

He turns and walks away. My body curls in on itself, my heart thudding loudly and my skin crawling. I whirl, breathless, my vision swimming, and stagger back to the bar.

“Shot,” I whisper to the bartender, throwing the card aside.

His brow furrows. “What sort of⁠—”

“Literally anything. Now, please.”

It turns out to be vodka.

I slam it back, hissing as I tap the bar with the empty glass. “Another,” I croak. “A double this time.”

“Miss—”

“Please and thank you,” I blurt, staring at him haggardly.

The guy nods, looking worried as he pours a huge splash of vodka into the glass. I lift it, nod to him and knock the full contents down my throat at once, my brain still screaming and my skin still crawling.

Fire burns in my gut as I slam the glass back to the bar and turn wildly. My eyes land on Valon’s back and shoulders as he walks away through the crowd toward the door.

Then my gaze lurches to the buffet.

…And the catering staff member cutting wagyu steak into little strips with a razor-sharp chef’s knife.

My eyes rip back to Valon.

I’m going to kill him.

I have to.

Fuck the consequences.

I only make it one step to the buffet table before a powerful hand is suddenly grabbing my wrist. I gasp as Kenzo shoves my arm behind my back, yanking me against his hard, unyielding chest, glaring maliciously down into my eyes. His black hair hang and fans around his face as if he’s a dark avenging angel of death.

Or the prince of Hell.

“What the fuck was that?” he snarls coldly.

My mouth opens, but no sound comes out.

“Answer me,” he snaps viciously. “Who the fuck was that?”

The room starts to spin. “I—no one,” I mumble.

Kenzo’s lips curl as he leans closer. “I don’t give a fuck how much you hate this, Annika,” he growls. “I don’t even give a fuck if you hate me. But we are getting married. And as my wife, you will play the role.”

He looms closer.

“Which means no other man talks to you like that, or touches you, or gets close to you like that motherfucker just did.” His snarling tone is so serious and heated that it startles me. “Is. That. Fucking. Clear.”

I could answer rationally. Or even just nod. But the walls I’ve worked so hard to erect to block out certain parts of myself are beginning to crumble. Memories I’ve desperately tried to purge from my system rear up, angry and vengeful at being silenced for so long.

And I do what I always do when I feel cornered or vulnerable: I lash out.

“Your jealousy is pathetic,” I spit at him.

Instantly, his hand on my wrist tightens, pinning it to the small of my back. A cold shiver ripples down my spine when his other hand grabs the back of my neck possessively, angling my face up to his.

“This is politics, Annika,” he growls. “This needs to be sold. And it doesn’t get sold if you’re schmoozing with some other fucking guy, letting him touch you, getting cozy with him⁠—”

I’m spiraling. The pain and shame of those years are smashing against the walls and barriers inside. The screams I held back and the horrors my body and soul endured in shuddering silence begin to wail and rise up as the room spins and my vision goes dark.

It feels like I’m about to drown under the weight and the pain of it all. And so I reach out for the one rock I can grab hold of.

I do the only thing I can to silence the agony and drown out the horrific memories of a monster surging up inside.

In one motion, I grab Kenzo’s tie, yank him down, and crush my mouth to his, kissing him.

And the whole damn world goes still.

It escalates quickly. One second, I’m holding his tie and pressing my lips to his. The next, it’s like Kenzo comes alive. His hand tightens on my wrist, pulling me hard against him. His mouth opens, his tongue dancing over my lips and then plunging between them.

His dark, masculine groans rumble through my body and turn my core to molten lava as the spicy clean scent of him consumes me.

His hand on the back of my neck slides up, his fingers threading into my hair and gripping me possessively as he kisses me. Around us, partygoers begin to laugh and smile, clapping and taking pictures as I melt against Kenzo’s chest in the single most powerful, gravity-shifting kiss of my entire life.

…And for the first time in longer than I can remember, the screaming in my head goes utterly and completely silent.

I don’t know how long it lasts. But I do know when he finally pulls back, his teeth raking across my bottom lip, my legs are shaking and I’ve stepped into a different reality.

A ragged breath leaves my swollen lips as I stare up at him. My mouth curls a little at the edges, my pulse roaring as Kenzo locks eyes with me.

He turns to flash the crowd a smile as I stand there still staring up at him like a fool.

Slowly, he turns back to me. But there’s no confusion or even happiness in his eyes. There’s no charming grin, no eager lips.

Just wrath and malice lurking under the surface as he leans down, his lips brushing my ear so that only I can hear.

“Don’t think for a second I don’t know what you just did,” he hisses quietly.

His hand slides back to the nape of my neck, gripping it firmly and making me wince.

“Don’t ever fucking take me for a fool again, Annika,” he snarls. “And don’t take me for a man who’ll take another’s scraps, either. When I do more than kiss you, princess—and I will—you’ll be thinking of me and only me. Is that fucking clear?”

I’m trembling, but I nod quickly, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Yes.”

“Good girl,” he growls.

His hands drop from me.

“Now, let’s go sign this fucking contract and get it over with.”

He turns and walks away.