Twilight Sins: Chapter 53

There you are. Finally.

For one fleeting second, I think it’s Yakov behind me.

He saw the note. He came to find us. Mariya is probably off with the guards and Yakov is here to be with me. To dance and drink and forget about everything else for one night.

Then the man spins me around.

My hopes wither and die as I look into a familiar sweaty face. It takes a second for my brain to place the unkempt beard and bloodshot eyes. Then it clicks.

“Sergey?”

Sergey, just as drunk and handsy as the night I met him, curves me towards him. His breath reeks of alcohol. “I saw you dancing. I recognized you. I followed you.”

I push against his chest to try and give myself some space. “Hi. It’s, uh…nice to see you again.”

It’s absolutely not nice to see him again. I never even wanted to see him in the first place. But I have too much experience talking drunk, angry men back from the ledge. If I start yelling, this is going to go south. Fast.

If Sergey was willing to put his hands on me in a restaurant full of people with a man like Yakov sitting two feet away, what will he try now that we’re by ourselves?

“Where’s your boyfriend?” he sneers.

Lie. I hear Yakov’s voice in my head as if he’s standing right behind me. Don’t you dare tell him you’re alone.

“Downstairs. Getting me a drink.” I start to pull away. “I should probably go find him and⁠—”

Sergey clamps his hand around my wrist. “Weird. Your ‘boyfriend’ looked a lot like a brunette in a crop top.” Panic claws up my throat and he laughs. “I told you I was watching you. I saw you the moment you walked through the front door.”

“Okay. My boyfriend isn’t here. I don’t even have a boyfriend.” If lying doesn’t work, we’ll try radical honesty. “I’m here alone and I’d like to keep it that way. I’m not interested in meeting anyone tonight.”

“We’ve already met,” he purrs.

“And you made a shitty first impression.”

He shakes his head. “No, no, princess. That was you. You went out with another man in the middle of our date.”

“Because you were an hour late. And you showed up drunk. Just like you are now.”

“I’m drinking. Not drunk,” he slurs. His hand slips down to cup my ass. “I’m sober enough to know that you look fucking delicious in this dress.”

I smack his chest hard. Sergey is nowhere near as big as Yakov, but that doesn’t make him small. He’s twice my size, at least. He stumbles back one step, but it isn’t enough for me to run for the door. Even if I did have space to run, I can barely walk in these heels, let alone run.

His lazy smile slips into a sneer as he stalks toward me. “You owe me, you little bitch.”

I blink and Sergey blurs into Benjy.

Suddenly, I’m not in a club; I’m in the bedroom Benjy and I shared.

Sergey pins me back against the glass and I can’t move. Can’t breathe.

You make me act like this, Luna. You get me all worked up.

I block Benjy’s voice out. He isn’t here.

“I don’t owe you anything.” I force the words out even as my throat tightens and tears burn in my eyes.

“I’ll make it nice for you.” Sergey slides me to the corner of the room. I can see the dance floor far below to my left, but no one will see us up here.

If I’m going to get out of this, I have to do it myself.

Sergey scrapes his hands under my dress and I shove against his chest. He totters back one step, but is on me again in the next second. His hands are everywhere. The alcohol on his breath is making me nauseous.

I jam my knee forward and connect with his junk.

He hisses, but doesn’t fall back. He falls forward, pinning me to the glass. He groans in my ear. “Your friend didn’t put up any fight at all. She was happy to play along.”

I freeze. My heart jolts to a stop. “My friend?”

“The perky brunette in the sparkles. I had my eye on you, so she went with my buddy.”

While I was dancing—during the two fucking seconds I let myself relax—some asshole lured Mariya away.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! She could be anywhere. With anyone. The thought of her in another dark corner of the club with some stranger makes me feel sick.

I slam my palms against Sergey’s chest one more useless time. “Get off of me.”

He swipes my arms away and fumbles with the hem of my dress. He drags his hand over my upper thigh. I squeeze my legs together until I think they might snap.

“Don’t fucking touch me! I’ll scream.”

Sergey pulls back just long enough to smile. “Go ahead. No one will hear you.”

He’s right.

No one can hear me. No one can see us.

Mariya is alone and I need to get to her.

My dress is up to my waist now as I let the punches fly. I pound on Sergey’s chest and shoulders and head with flailing fists. He yells and stumbles back just as one catches him in the nose.

Pain lances through my hand, but I barely feel it. I can’t feel anything with the adrenaline pouring through me.

Until Sergey draws back and smashes his fist directly into my face.

His knuckles collide with my cheekbone. My head bounces off the glass behind me. Stars swirl in my vision as an instantaneous headache roars through my skull.

Pain. It’s all pain.

So much that I can’t think about anything else.

Not even when cold air rushes over my hips.

When strange fingers tug at the waist of my panties.

When nightmares from the past blend into the cold, hard reality of what’s about to happen to me in the bleeding edge of the present.