THE DEMON

CHAPTER 2: The Demon

Nikolai had been called a demon so many times that he'd started to believe it. Demons didn't have rules or limits, they burned the world and laughed while it screamed, and Nikolai had been laughing for so long that he'd forgotten what it felt like to be anything else.

He sat in his penthouse with a glass of expensive whiskey in his hand, watching the city lights flicker below like stars that had fallen to earth, his empire stretched as far as the eye could see but he was bored out of his fucking mind because none of it mattered without someone to share it with, someone to challenge him.

His phone buzzed with a message from his lieutenant, Mikhail, and Nikolai glanced at it with disinterest because he already knew what it would say. 

"Two million dollars, Nikolai. He burned it all. We lost everything."

Nikolai typed back with one hand while taking a sip of whiskey with the other, and his response was calm and measured because panic was useful but never for him, and he needed Mikhail to stay loyal. "I know, so let him have his little victory because it won't last."

He set the phone down and walked to the window, staring at his reflection in the glass. Seeing the dark hair, sharp features and eyes that gleamed with something between madness and hunger, he thought about Dimitri Volkov and how the man had been a thorn in his side for three glorious years.

They'd met at a neutral party back when Nikolai was just a rising star in the Syndicate and Dimitri was a cold-eyed enforcer for the Volkov Bratva, and Nikolai had been drawn to him immediately, to the controlled fury in his eyes and the stillness that surrounded him like a force field, and he'd wanted to crack it, wanted to see what was underneath.

So he had, and their first meeting had ended with a knife at Nikolai's throat and a promise from Dimitri: "Touch me again and I'll kill you."

Nikolai had touched him again and again, and they'd spent three years trying to destroy each other, and it was the most alive Nikolai had ever felt because Dimitri was the only person in the world who could match him, who could look at him and not flinch.

He'd sent the photograph of Dimitri's mother as a joke, or at least that was what he told himself, but the truth was that he wanted to see Dimitri's face, wanted to see the Ice Prince crack and show something real, and he would have paid a million dollars to be there when Dimitri saw it.

His phone buzzed again, and he looked down to see a message from a number he'd memorized years ago, and his heart rate picked up just slightly because Dimitri never texted him first, never gave him that satisfaction.

“Touch my mother again and I will end you. Slowly. Painfully. I will make you beg for death.”

Nikolai smiled and typed back with a flourish. “Promises, promises. See you tomorrow at the Colosseum. Don't be late. I hate waiting.”

He set the phone down and finished his whiskey because tomorrow was going to be interesting, and the families had forced a truce, a meeting at neutral ground where he and Dimitri would sit down like civilized men and divide the city like a fucking pie.

Nikolai had no intention of dividing anything because he wanted it all, wanted to look across that table and see Dimitri's cold, beautiful face, wanted to watch him lie through his teeth and pretend he wasn't just as obsessed as Nikolai was. Because Dimitri was obsessed, and Nikolai knew it, he could see it in the way Dimitri fought and planned and breathed, and every move Dimitri made was a response to Nikolai's last move, and they were dancing, a slow, bloody, beautiful dance that would end with one of them dead.

But first, the game.

His phone buzzed one last time, and Nikolai glanced at it with a frown because it was an alert from the security feed of the Volkov warehouse, and it showed movement near the perimeter, someone breaching the fence. Nikolai hadn't ordered the attack, and his frown deepened because someone else was playing the game now, someone who thought they could move in on his territory, and that was a mistake they would regret.

He called Mikhail and gave him orders to investigate. His voice was calm and measured but there was steel underneath because Nikolai didn't tolerate interference in his affairs, and whoever was behind this would learn that lesson the hard way.

He ended the call and stood at the window for a long moment, watching the city and thinking about tomorrow, about the meeting, about Dimitri, and he allowed himself a small, dangerous smile because the game was getting more interesting.

And interesting was his favorite thing in the world.