Emperor of Rage: Chapter 7

There’s nowhere to run.

Mal steps out of the shadows, his tall frame blocking the only exit.

It feels like I’m going to hyperventilate and pass out.

I yank the towel tighter around myself as he stalks closer. The room suddenly feels smaller, like the walls are closing in on me together with him and his suffocating presence.

He moves with the same deadly grace I saw in the office, the same quiet confidence that says he knows exactly how to control the situation.

He’s in black jeans, white t-shirt, and black leather jacket, and he prowls toward me like an animal. My heart slams against my ribs as I shiver and sink back into the chair. I wrap the towel around my body even tighter, curling my knees up away from him as if to disappear into the chair.

I should be feeling pure terror. Nothing but fear. But instead there’s something else coiling in the pit of my stomach.

Something dark and shameful.

“What are you doing here?” I breathe, my voice shaking even though I’m desperately trying to inject it with confidence.

Mal doesn’t answer right away. He stops a few feet from where I’m curled up in the chair, his eyes scanning me.

Slowly. Deliberately.

I can feel his gaze slide across my skin like a physical touch, making my breath catch in my throat. He tilts his head slightly, darkness swirling in those piercing blue eyes.

I grit my teeth, my fingers trembling against the fabric of the towel. “Answer me.”

He takes another step closer, his eyes gleaming with a predatory smile.

I want to back away, but there’s nowhere to go. The armchair presses against my back, trapping me between the plush cushion and the man standing before me. My heart races, every instinct in me telling me to run, but I can’t even get to my feet.

I’m frozen.

“Y-you’re not supposed to be here,” I say, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to keep it steady. “This is Kir’s house.”

Mal’s eyes darken with amusement. “I hardly think the rules, and where I am and am not supposed to be, are any of your concern right now…Freya.”

A cold shiver chases down my spine when he growls my name. I swallow hard, forcing myself to meet his gaze. I don’t want him to see the fear in my eyes, don’t want him to know how much he’s rattling me. But it’s impossible to hide.

He sees everything.

The desperate need to get out of this room and out of his orbit is almost overwhelming. I try to think how I could spring to my feet and maybe bolt past him. But before I can even finish that plan in my head, he’s closing the distance between us, as if sensing my pathetic intentions.

I cower back as his powerful hands grip either side of the high back of the chair behind me, his massive, muscled frame looming over me as he cages me in. The dim light from outside my bedroom window sends sharp shadows across his lethal jaw, Nordic cheekbones, and the rippling muscles of his forearms as his hands grip the chair like iron.

My pulse skips. Something somewhere between abject fear and liquid fire ripples through my system, electrifying me as I look up into those lethal blue eyes.

A dark, malevolent smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. Slowly, one of his hands uncoils from the back of the chair and drops to my chin. He cups my jaw, dragging one thick, strong finger down my cheek. The hand slides to my neck, squeezing slightly and sending bolts of something wicked and forbidden exploding through my core.

Then his hand drops even lower, and his fingers find the edge of the towel. He tugs at the fabric, just enough to make me hold it tighter, my body reacting instinctively to the threat of exposure.

“Do you think you can lie to me?” he murmurs, his voice low, almost a growl.

I blink, confused. “What are you talking about?”

His eyes lock onto mine, and for a moment, I forget to breathe. There’s something dark and knowing in his gaze that makes my blood turn to ice.

“You think you’re so good at hiding,” he says softly, but there’s a hard edge to his words. “Pretending to be someone else. But I know the truth, Freya. About your family.”

The color drains from my face, and I can see my fear reflected in his eyes as they glint maliciously.

He knows.

He. Fucking. Knows.

There’s a reason I’ve avoided Mal Ulstäd ever since Kenzo and the rest of the Mori family landed on Annika’s and my radar five years ago, and it’s not because I knew he wore creepy masks and liked to murder people with swords. It’s not because of his Yakuza connections, either.

It’s because Mal Ulstäd is a link to the darkness I ran from when I was fifteen.

How the fuck does he know?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I whisper.

Mal’s hand slides back up my towel, making me shudder as his strong fingers wrap around my throat almost sensually. His grip tightens slightly, his thumb drifting over the pulse point.

“Lying again,” he tsks, his lips curving into a dark smile. “You’re not very good at it, you know.”

My mind races, trying to figure out how to get out of this. How to keep him from digging any deeper.

“What do you want?”

His smile fades, his expression turning cold. “The truth.”

My pulse quickens, my throat tightening under his grip as fear curls in my stomach. “W-what truth?”

Mal leans down closer, his face barely a foot away. I can feel the heat radiating off him, the sheer presence of him overwhelming my senses.

He’s malevolence and violence incarnate.

Rage personified.

And I’m trapped with nowhere to hide.

I flinch as he brings his face right to mine. For one shocked second, I’m sure he’s either going to kiss me or fucking bite me. But instead, I just feel his breath against my neck.

“The truth about who you are,” he rasps, his words warm against my ear. “The truth about your fucking family, Freya.”

“W-what do you want with Kir⁠—”

I gasp as he snarls right into my ear.

“Not the fucking Nikolayevs,” he hisses viciously. “You’re as bad at playing stupid as you are at lying, so stop it.”

His fingers tighten around my neck.

“I’m talking about your real family, Freya Lindqvist.”

The name slams into me like a freight train, knocking the air out of my lungs. My body goes numb, every nerve ending alight as alarm bells jangle inside my head.

He knows.

He knows about everything I’ve been running from for years.

I remember the wall of “conquests” in my father’s office, trophies from his vanquished enemies. The steering wheel from the vintage Rolls Royce belonging to a Norwegian government minister who’d gone to war with William Lindqvist and paid with his and his family’s lives. The badge belonging to a former local chief of police who’d also run afoul of my father.

The jeweled crucifix that belonged to Erik Johannsen, after the once notorious Johannsen mafia family lost a territory war, and their lives, to him.

But there was one trophy from that wall in particular I could never forget: the brutally charred, bullethole-ridden, family crest hewn from stone that had once sat proudly over the front door of the home of another family that had fallen to my father.

A crest that read Ulstäd.

That trophy used to haunt me more than the others, because of the sheer physical violence still evident on it. The other trophies were possessions that had been taken after death. But that stone crest looked like it’d been pried from an enemy’s bleeding hands even before victory was certain.

And that is why I’ve avoided Mal. Because I know the history with his last name, and used to have nightmares about it after visiting my father’s office.

Because I know at some point in the past, my family destroyed Mal’s.

And now he fucking knows, too.

I don’t know how. I’ve been so careful, so meticulous. I’ve spent years covering my tracks, erasing every connection to the Lindqvist family and to my past, building an entirely new life and identity.

“How…” My voice cracks, barely audible. “How do you know that?”

Mal crouches down in front of me, his hand still wrapped around my throat, pinning me in place. His eyes bore into mine, intense and unyielding.

“Because none of your fucking secrets are safe from me, Freya.”

I shake my head, my thoughts ricocheting in a million different directions.

This can’t be real. No one knows who I really am. Not even Annika and Damian.

“What do you want from me?” I ask, my voice trembling.

Mal leans in close again, his lips brushing against my ear. “I want you to know that you belong to me now.”

The words send a shiver down my spine, a mix of fear and something darker that I don’t want to admit. I try to pull away, but his grip tightens, his fingers around my throat like iron, cutting off my air.

“I—I don’t belong to anyone,” I whisper hoarsely through his grip. Even as I say the words, they ring false.

Mal smiles demonically, his eyes glittering with amusement. “Incorrect, Freya.”

Before I can respond, he reaches out with his other hand, his fingers brushing lightly against the edge of the towel.

He’s too close. Too powerful.

Too dangerous.

“Stop,” I whisper, though there’s no force behind the word. It’s more of a plea than a command.

Mal’s fingers tug gently at the towel again, threatening to pull it away. “I’ll stop when you stop lying.”

I swallow hard. “I’m not lying.”

“Really.” His voice is low, smooth as silk. “I think you’ve been lying to everyone. About who you are. Where you come from. And most of all…” He leans in, his lips brushing against my cheek. “About the evil that flows in your fucking veins.”

My heart skips a beat, his fingers squeezing my windpipe tighter and tighter until I can barely breathe.

I want to deny it. I want to tell him he’s wrong.

But he’s right.

And in this moment, I hate him for it.

“You don’t know anything about me,” I choke, trying to pull away.

Mal just laughs softly, low and dangerous. “I know everything about you, Freya.”

Suddenly, he’s letting go of my throat. I choke, drawing in a ragged, rasping inhalation as he slowly stands up in front of me. He rolls his shoulders, taking a long, slow breath like nothing happened.

The sudden absence of his touch leaves me reeling, my body still humming with the tension he left behind.

“But your real problem isn’t what I know,” Mal says quietly, his eyes stabbing into me. “It’s what Kir and the rest of your little found family doesn’t know, isn’t it?”

The floor drops out from underneath me.

No.

No. Please, God, no…

He’s right. The worst part isn’t that Mal knows my dark secret. It’s that Kir, Damian, and Annika don’t, despite all these years of calling me family.

Because there’s another nightmarish trophy from my father’s wall I could never, ever purge from my memory.

Two wedding rings, hanging on a bloodied chain.

Two rings, each with a name engraved on it. I always thought of it as unbelievably horrifying that my father had killed a married couple and taken their wedding rings as his trophy. But it wasn’t until years later, after I’d fallen in with Damian and Kir, that I finally pieced together the full story.

The names engraved on the rings were Daniil Kovalchuk…

…and Polina Nikolayev.

AKA, Kir’s sister and her husband.

Damian’s parents.

The two men who have become my family, who took me in and gave me an entirely new life?

My family killed theirs.

And Mal fucking knows it.

Before I can say anything, he turns and walks back toward the door, his voice floating over his shoulder like a dark promise.

“I’ll be seeing you soon, Freya.”

Then he’s gone, leaving me alone in the silence, my heart racing, pure toxic terror flooding my veins.