Chapter 13
Chapter 13
Nikolai didn’t even look up. Just waved his hand like he was swatting a fly.
Several bodyguards stepped forward, grabbing Anneliese and slapping her back and forth like a speed bag at the gym.
Within minutes, her face swelled up like hamburger meat, teeth scattered across the marble floor, blood streaming from her busted mouth.
Her cool, arrogant persona completely shattered. Tears poured down her face as she begged incoherently, “Stop, please, I’m begging you, stop.”
‘Finally speaking my language?” Nikolai leaned back in his chair, legs crossed, voice still eerily casual as he watched her fall apart like it was dinner theater. “Took you long enough.”
Anneliese’s body shook violently. The pain cut through all her bullshit. “I… I only went after Veloura because I love you. I thought you loved me back. I was trying to clear the obstacles for us.”
Nikolai burst out laughing–the kind of laugh that makes your blood freeze. “Jesus Christ, you really believed your own hype, didn’t you? You were just a fucking toy, Annie. A little distraction. The only person I’ve ever loved is Veloura, and you destroyed her.”
‘No, that’s not true. You do love me. You left her for me, you chose me…” Her voice kept getting weaker as she met his ice–cold stare.
Nikolai’s smile vanished. He’d thought he was teaching Veloura a lesson about being obedient back then. Instead, this psychotic bitch had used it as a license to torture the only person who’d ever mattered to him.
Thinking about Veloura’s desperate, wounded eyes–how the light had slowly died in them–made something savage wake up in his chest. His heart felt like it was being devoured by fire ants.
He was done talking. Kicked the stack of documents across the floor.
‘She gets back every bit of pain my wife suffered. Times ten.”
‘You can’t do this! This is kidnapping, this is assault!” Anneliese thrashed against the guards. “I’ll have you arrested! I was wrong, okay? I’m sorry!”
‘Don’t fucking touch me! GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!”
His men didn’t even blink. They brought massive blocks of ice from the freezer and made her kneel on them naked.
The ice was so cold it burned. Anneliese lasted maybe ninety seconds before she passed out screaming.
They woke her with ice water. After she’d knelt long enough, they dragged her to the staircase and made her roll down ten times, bones cracking, skin earing, until she was barely human.
Then came sixty lashes with a cane, just like Veloura had endured. Just like his grandfather had beaten him when he’d fought for the right to marry
her.
Anneliese was unconscious more than awake. The doctor kept bringing her back, patching her up just enough to feel the next round.
Every. Single. Day.
But Nikolai wasn’t done. Not even close.
He had his tech team expose her fake inspirational persona online, revealing evidence of how she’d manipulated wealthy patrons and stolen charity donations. Within hours, she went from inspirational hero to public enemy number one.
Her family had falsely accused Veloura of sending thugs to intimidate them, so Nikolai sent real ones. Professional ones. Her father dropped dead of a heart attack on the spot.
When the ambulance came, no paramedics showed up. Just sat there and watched him die.
Her mother had claimed Veloura pushed her down, so Nikolai’s men spent hours pushing the old woman down flights of stairs until they broke her tailbone and both legs.
Go Play Your Duet with Your Mistress: My Life’s Melody is Going Solo on My Own
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Chapter 13
The women who’d hurt Veloura and the medical staff Anneliese had bribed were thrown together in a room.
“Last one standing gets to walk out of here. Everyone else? Well, you’ll figure it out.”
When survival’s on the line, people become animals. They clawed eyes out, bit chunks of flesh off faces, beat each other with broken furniture until the room looked like a slaughterhouse.
None of them would walk out. Nikolai had lied about that part. But watching them destroy each other felt good.
He stood there for hours, watching the carnage, waiting to feel something. Satisfaction. Relief. Peace.
Nothing.
His chest was still this hollow, screaming void where Veloura used to be.
“This is just the beginning,” he told the security cameras, knowing word would spread through Manhattan that Nikolai Virellic had officially lost his fucking mind.
He’d made them all pay. Every single person who’d hurt his wife was dead or wishing they were.
But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
Because he’d killed the only thing that had ever made him feel alive, and no amount of blood was going to bring her back.
17.10
