Twisted Throne (Bratva Born #2)

11. Adriana

Adriana

The smug joy on Barnaby’s face makes me want to throw up. I grit my teeth as we drive through the night back to his estate, and I’m not even scared. This anger that was ignited in me when all those men were deciding my fate has only grown.

The empty void is gone, and in its place is a volcano of feminine rage. I feel right now as if I’m all women, and I’ve just had it. I’m sick of every single man who through the millennia has treated women like their possessions.

Barnaby’s fingers on my thigh with that fucking ring glinting are a crime against all female-hood, and he’s going to pay.

I’m not scared of this man any longer. I won’t let him break me. I’m going to teach him a lesson that he’ll never forget. I’m going to fuck him up so bad . I can’t kill him because then his men, Tom most likely, will tell them to kill Cade, but Barnaby is going to have a very, very, bad night.

Flowers in a vase, so prettily arranged, flit behind my lids when I close my eyes and sink back into the leather. So pretty, but oh so dangerous, and Barnaby is about to trip his balls off.

We arrive back at the house, and my only worry is that Barnaby might take this out on Cade, but something tells me he won’t. Cade is all he has to hold over me. He knows if Cade is gone, then I’m as good as free. He knows that if he harms Cade, I’ll hate him, and he’ll never get what he wants from me, which I believe in his sick head is love. He wants my love and worship.

It gives me an odd kind of power in this twisted dynamic.

He’s sick, but he wants me. Really wants me. He’s the opposite side of the coin to Dimitri. They share the same tarnished copper of that coin, the same twisted obsession. I share it too, in return, but only for one of them.

If I could force myself to fall for him, I’m sure Barnaby would put me on a pedestal and worship me, when he doesn’t want to degrade me in his pleasure room.

Sadly for Barnaby, I don’t want him. I only want Dimitri, and seeing him again this evening solidified that. I also know that I don’t want to play the game Barnaby does. Barnaby seems to like to humiliate and degrade. He has a harem of paid women that he uses to exert his control over.

I find that weak, and weakness doesn’t turn me on. I need a man who will conquer me, as fucked up as that sounds. Dimitri was right when he said I liked primal play. I definitely have fantasies that run that way.

But fantasies of being tied up on a weird sex chair while Barnaby pleasures himself with whores in front of me? God, no.

Tonight, Barnaby is going to be the one degraded. He’s going to find out what it’s like when the shoe is on the other foot. Screw the consequences for me. I’ll take out whatever punishment he doles out in retaliation because once I’ve done this, I’ll have broken a part of it and changed our dynamic forever.

We walk through the hallway and into the kitchen, and I head to the fridge. Barnaby watches me with hooded eyes. “I think we will go straight up stairs.” His voice is sullen, and it makes me want to slap him.

“Of course, but do you mind if I pour us both some champagne?” I indicate the fridge.

He frowns but then gives a terse nod. “None for me.”

Oh fuck. This won’t work if he refuses a drink.

I pout and, with my stomach churning with nerves, walk over to him.

Sliding my arms around his neck, I rub my silk-clad body against him. “Don’t be angry with me,” I say.

“You were going to leave me for him. The only thing making you stay is Cade.”

I pull back and look right in his eyes, and then I lie to him as easily as I breathe because it’s easy to lie to a person you have no respect for at all.

“No, Barnaby that’s not why. I wanted to go back for Cade. Now that I know you have him, I want you to bring him here, and I’ll happily stay with you. None of you get it,” I add, and this bit is the truth, so I let him see my anguish. “I love that kid. I love him like my own brother.”

His eyes lose some of the flinty rage, and my breasts rub against his chest as I squirm like a kitten in his arms, hoping to get him aroused enough that he’ll do what I ask of him, if he thinks it means he’ll get some. Of course, he could simply take some, but something tells me him winning me over and getting me to submit is his one true wish.

I’ll let him think he’s going to get that before I turn the tables on him so bad. This fearless disregard for my safety is exhilarating.

Fear is a prison, and what you can’t know until you reach the end of your rope is that the loss of fear is the most liberating thing ever to feel. If I had only myself to think of, I’d have reached a stage at least two steps beyond don’t give a fuck . As it is, only the need to keep Cade safe is stopping me from going nuclear.

This house is so beautiful, I think as I glance behind Barnaby to take in the rest of the stunning kitchen. I’d like to smash it up. Fuck him for thinking he can do this to me. To Cade!

“Don’t spoil this, if it is to be our first time together,” I say instead.

He smiles, but it’s reptilian. Cold. Calculating. “You think you can manipulate me, don’t you? I’m not some love-struck fool. I’m a man who knows what he wants. A collector of fine things. You’re just my latest fine thing.”

I frown. “So all those words about how we could live together happily as one family were a lie?”

“No, not a lie. We could, we can, but only when you know your place. As mine. My pretty, perfect, beautiful Snow White.”

“Things are inanimate, Barnaby,” I say softly. “I’m a living, breathing human. Perhaps you ought to have bought a doll.”

He grabs my hair, sudden and vicious. His hold as he pulls to one side, angling my head is enough to make my eyes smart. “One day, Adriana, you will show me the love and respect I deserve.”

“It’s never deserved, Barnaby. Both have to be earned.” I gasp the words as he pulls harder, but I won’t let him go unchallenged with this fucked up shit.

“I worship you,” he seethes, “and yet you can’t show me basic respect?”

He lets go so fast that I stumble and fall against the breakfast bar behind me. “You just said I was a thing .” Is he insane? Is he perhaps actually mad? Clinically so? He can’t seem to keep a thought in his head. One minute I’m the woman he loves, then I’m a thing, and then back to being something he worships.

“Barnaby, what am I to you? Really? You said you wanted a relationship with me, but then you act like you just want me as your slave.”

“I want you as my submissive. My perfect, beautiful plaything, and yes, I can love you that way. You’d be treated like a queen in front of our friends, and Sian if she comes home.”

“Wait, what do you mean if?”

He shrugs as if it matters not, and casually says, “We had a disagreement.”

What? So Sian isn’t in on this?

“Does she know I’m here, Barnaby?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he blusters. “Now. You want champagne, no?”

He’s changing the subject. What is going on? I feel as if my head is in a dryer, all tossed around, over and over. At least he seems to have changed his mind about having a drink as he takes two glasses down from the cupboard.

He said she’d gone and knew I was coming. That she wanted me to be a part of this. Or did he? I rack my brains as Barnaby opens the champagne. He certainly said that she’d told him about what I liked to read and that she wanted her own version of Snow White for a mother.

I think about it some more and remember her dismay at me not coming to stay. No, I’m sure that whatever it is they’ve argued about, it isn’t me, because I think she’s as in on this as her sick father.

Barnaby hands me the champagne glass. I sip and smile at him as he takes a drink of his own. He smiles back.

“I think I’m beginning to understand,” I say. “You want me as your wife, but also as your submissive. You want to worship me, but in private, in that room upstairs, to degrade me? Above all, you need me to know my place, and if I don’t, then your love cracks?” I don’t add that a love that poofs out of existence the moment the object you are fixated on does or says something you don’t like is no love at all. I realize that my first instincts were correct. Once Barnaby had taken me enough times for normality to set in, for some of the obsessive lust to wane, I think he’d kill me. I’d do or say something, and he wouldn’t be obsessed enough any longer to keep me around.

“My degradation is an act of worship,” he says.

Oh, I’m sure it is. I suppress my eye roll.

“Can I ask a favor? Before we go upstairs? Can we sit in the conservatory for a while?” There is a long glass house that runs the far side of the main building, and I’ve always found it magical. Barnaby knows as much.

He smiles, and for a brief moment the fatherly figure is back. “You always did love it,” he says.

“It is chilly, though. Let me go get a wrap.”

“No, I’ll fetch one,” he says. He’s all chivalry now that he thinks he’s going to get his way. I follow him out to the hall, and he takes the steps two at a time.

As soon as I hear him on the second set of stairs, I race for his glass and hurry back into the hallway. I hold it under the angel’s trumpets as I shake the plant vigorously. Crap, you can see the bits in the champagne. I head back to the kitchen and grab a spoon, stirring as much as I can. Barnaby comes back with a shawl, and I snatch both glasses.

“Got your drink,” I say as he wraps the shawl around my shoulders.

We reach the conservatory, and he presses the light switch.

“Can we leave it off?” I ask. “It’s a lovely night, and I’d like to see the stars.”

The entire edifice is glass, so we can easily look up and see the night sky.

“Of course.” He flicks the switch off, and I hand him his champagne.

We sit, and for a few beats we both look up at the millions of glittering stars. We are tiny specks of nothingness in this vast universe, yet to each of us we are the universe. Barnaby is the center of his own world, as I am mine.

Does that make us fools or gods in this mini universe we inhabit?

Sipping at my drink, I smack my lips in appreciation. “Champagne really is one of those drinks enjoyed with others, isn’t it?”

He tips his own glass up and drinks. “Yes, indeed.” Then softly as if he’s whispering words of love, he adds, “I’m going to kill him, you know?”

My heart stutters. “Cade?”

He laughs. “No, my darling. Once I know you understand how it will be between us, Cade can come here. I’m referring to Dimitri.”

I almost laugh at the idea of Barnaby trying to kill Dimitri. Dimitri, who is built like a tank, with military experience, seemingly no fear, and over twenty men at his disposal at any moment. I don’t laugh, though, because Barnaby is serious, and it makes me realize how much danger I’m in.

“I’ve done it before,” he says casually.

“Killed people?” My words come out as a squeak.

“Yes, of course. You don’t get to where I am in the world without getting your hands dirty.”

I stare at him through the dark. “Who did you kill?”

He laughs softly. “My first wife for starters.”

Sickness lurches in me. He killed Sian’s mother? Oh my God. This changes the equation because I’ve seriously underestimated his depravity.

Sian doesn’t know. She can’t. She’d hate him if she did.

“You said first wife?” I force normalcy into my voice. “Was there a second?”

“No, silly. You’ll be the second. Unless you upset me the way she did.”

I sober as the reality of his violent tendencies hits me. Shit. My rage is banked now, embers rather than flames and as she subsides, I begin to regret my decision to spike Barnaby. Who knows what he might do. I go to take his champagne glass and set it aside, but he stands before my fingers can wrap around the stem. He downs the entire glass in one gulp, and I wince.

Too late .

I have no idea how much of that plant’s sap and pollen he’s just ingested, or what it will do to him. I don’t think it will kill him. After all, Victorian ladies used to do this to their tea and drink it, and I don’t think they’d do so if it would have killed them.

But he might be about to take a very bad trip.

We head upstairs, and I keep glancing at him surreptitiously to see if anything is happening, but nothing does. By the time we reach his playroom, I’m beginning to think it won’t take effect, and I’ve perhaps had a lucky escape because this was madness, and my rash actions might have harmed Cade.

On the other hand, it means I’m about to be subject to his sexual depravities.

Still, I can do it for Cade. I can zone out, and think of Dimitri. What is the old saying, lie back and think of England . I must get through this, and I must hold on because I will get out of this situation. When I do, no matter what it takes, I will get my vengeance on Barnaby. I can let that knowledge feed the dying embers of the fire inside and keep me warm.

Barnaby closes the door, and I hear a lock mechanism slide into place. Oh, God, this just got real.

He enters a code, and I watch, memorizing the number. 06-29-10-74. 29 th October, 1974. His date of birth, but with 06 in front; very imaginative, I think with heavy sarcasm. Still, the 06 addition will make it hard for anyone to guess, I’d imagine.

This means we’re locked in now, and no one can enter. If I hadn’t seen the code, and he’d had a heart attack, would I be stuck in here forever?

“Does anyone else have that code?” I ask him.

He sneers. “No. That would defeat the purpose.”

“If you died in here, I’d be locked in then?”

“Yes, and that door is practically impenetrable.”

“So I could die in here if something happened to you.”

“Isn’t that romantic?” he says. “Women used to throw themselves on their husbands’ grave because their lives were over. We ought to go back to that.”

He staggers to the side a little as he speaks, and my heart picks up speed. Is it working?

“I’m going to fuck you in the ass,” Barnaby says. “I won’t use lube. You won’t like it, and you might bleed, but it is your punishment for giving that piece of Russian shit the time of day.”

He tenderly brushes my hair aside. “Do you understand?”

And just like that my rage is back. Incandescent in its purity. Maybe I’m as fucked up in the head as Barnaby because I’m swinging wildly between emotions, or maybe it’s just the way things are when you’re being held captive by a mad man. Perhaps his insanity is infectious.

He staggers to a dark bronze chest in the corner of the room. I stare at the Snow White in the paintings, and I try so hard to control the rage welling inside me. If I kill Barnaby, then Cade will die too. I thought he’d at least have a bad trip, and I could exact a bit of vengeance, but the angels trumpet has let me down. A bit of swaying isn’t going to save me.

Barnaby stands with a pair of leather cuffs in his hand, attached to a chain. Holding them up as if in triumph, he grins at me. It’s a sloppy grin, and his eyes are wild, yet glazed. It’s a hell of a combination.

I try to figure out if he’s more or less dangerous like this. Trust me to have possibly made my situation a whole lot worse.

The intercom at the door buzzes, and he sighs and weaves over to it, pressing a button. “What?” he slurs.

“Boss, you okay?”

“Perfectly. I’m not to be disturbed.”

“Boss, the kid. He’s erm, he’s gone, and so is Ari.”

My heart leaps. What? They have Cade? This has to mean Dimitri’s men have him.

How did they find him when Ari has evaded them this past couple of weeks? My heart is singing with joy that the little lovebug will be safe now. Dimitri’s men will guard him until the threat has passed.

“What the fuck?” Barnaby shakes his head. “Jesus Christ, girl. You’re turning out to be more trouble than you’re worth.”

“Let us in, boss, and we can work out our next moves.” It’s Tom talking; I recognize his voice. He sounds seriously worried, which means I ought to be too, but I’m nothing but flame now. I’ll only burn anyone who gets too close.

Barnaby looks at me. “No. I have unfinished business in here.”

“But … um, boss?—”

“I said, no, ” Barnaby roars, as he wobbles again. “I won’t be long. This little bitch is going to pay first, in the ways I want her to, and then we can plan what we’re going to do with that Russian cunt.”

I find true freedom in this moment. I’ve stopped caring if I get hurt, so long as I get to hurt Barnaby too.

Now that Cade is safe, all bets are off.

Barnaby is clearly beginning to feel the effects of the plant, and he’s locked in a room with a woman who is sick to death of men like him and their shit.

I turn to look at my shoulder and brush my finger over the tattoo there.

Time to let this little bluebird out of her cage.