Insatiable Cravings – Episode 144

  

 

INSATIABLE CRAVINGS

Insatiable Cravings – Episode 144

Subtitle; {Loving You Is A Loosing Game} 

TAGS: Age-gap, Mafia, Forbidden Love, Drama, Tragedy and Betrayal.

Settings: United Kingdom, Russia and others.

By: Chukwuma Rejoice 

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

~ Genevieve ~

Viktor’s hand crackéd against my face, the force of it sending me spinning into a hazy daze. My vision blurred, spots dancing before my eyes. I barely had time to recover before his fingers clamped hard around my thróat.

I gagged on air that would not come, lungs straining desperately as my windpipe shrank beneath his grip. My body writhed, thrashing like a fish on dry land, useless and panicked. Instinct drove my knee upwards—my foot connecting with his groin.

He grunted and his grip faltered. I collapsed onto the floor, scuttling backwards on my hands and heels, dragging myself away from him, my gaze never once breaking from his. But I wasn’t nearly fast enough.

In two strides, he was on me again. His hand latched crúelly around my neck and slàmmed me into the wall.

Agony splintered through my back, burning through to my stomach. The air I’d barely clawed back into my lungs moments before was punched out of me in a violent gasp.

My baby…

Oh God.

Please, no.

Please, be safe.

Tears prickled hot at the corners of my eyes, swelling, begging to fall—but I refused to give him that. Not here. Not in front of this mónster. His gaze lingered on my face, and when he caught the glimmer of moisture in my eyes, he smirked, lips curling with wicked satisfaction.

But my restraint still seemed to enrage him. His grip tightened, fingers digging like iron talons into the fragile column of my ñeck. The bàstard was enjoying it—enjoying me gasping and chóking, at his mercy.

One tear broke free. Silent. Heavy.

He saw it. And only then did he relent, loosening his grip by the smallest degree. I was still trapped, his hand clamped firmly around my throàt, my back pressed to the wall. He wanted me alive, yes—but only just.

“I like this,” he drawled, voice low and grotesquely pleased. “You, all teary-eyed, utterly helpless in my hands.”

Disgúst rose bitter in my mouth. He saw it plain as day.

“What? Stop glaring. Your eyes can’t húrt me. Neither can your thoughts.” He chuckled darkly, leaning in. “What do you imagine your precious Dominic would do if he saw you like this?”

My jaw locked, my glare sharpening.

How dare he?

No—how f+cking dare he?

To speak Dominic’s name so carelessly, so shamelessly, as though it meant nothing. He thought himself untouchable now that he had us caged. But he was wrong. He was nothing—less than nothing—next to Dominic Morozov.

The only reason this game was in his favour was because he held Dominic’s sister and his fiancée. Viktor knew it. Deep down, he had to know. But his swollen ego blinded him to one simple truth: Dominic Morozov was not a man you crossed and lived to boast about it.

“What would Dominic do if he saw you like this?” he pressed.

The answer unfurled in my mind, unbidden. Dominic would teàr him apart. Piece by piece. Slowly. He would relish it, take his time, savour every scream. The béast in him would enjoy the húnt, the pàin, the kíll.

“Stop glaring,” Viktor snapped, his smile twitching. “It won’t save you. I’m the master here. I hold all the power.”

A sharp, mocking huff escaped me before I could stop it. His eyes narrowed, but instead of striking, he only smirked wider.

“You don’t believe me?”

“No.” The word cut clean, sharp, and certain.

“Your Dominic won’t save you.” His tone was so assured, so utterly convinced, he might have thought the stars themselves had whispered it to him. “By the time he gets here, it’ll be too late. I’ll see to that.”

Cold terror threaded through me, a vice around my chest.

What would he do to ensure Dominic was too late? Would he kíll me? Or Rory? How? A búllet to the head? A knífe to the throat?

I forced the spiralling thoughts down. “That’s what you think.”

“No, darling,” he crooned, flashing a grin that might have been boyishly charming on another man, but on him, twisted into something cruel. “I don’t think. I know. I know things that would surprise you—fascinate you, even. You’re curious, aren’t you? You’re dyiñg to know…”

But before he could finish his vile taunting, his head jerked violently back. His grip slackened.

Blinking through the haze, I lifted my gaze—only to find Rory standing behind him, cold steel pressed to the nape of his neck.

A knifé. 

Viktor’s hand loosened on me completely as he straightened, but in the same breath he lunged for the blade. She was quicker.

Of course she was.

She is, after all, Dominic’s sister. Trained by the most ruthléss man alive.

She drove her elbow into Viktor’s chin, the crack echoing through the room. He staggered, stunned.

“Flirting with me, doll?” he sneered through gritted teeth.

“One more move,” Rory hissed, voice cutting sharp, “and I’ll slit your throat. Do not dare think I won’t. I swear it.”

Her eyes blazed with fury—no bluff, no hesitation. Pure, deàdly conviction.

“I don’t know who gave you the blóody audacity,” she spat, “to imagine you—a pàthetic, snivelling man-child desperate for the world’s approval—could ever dethrone my brother. You’re nothing. Less than nothing. And you know it. That’s why your pitiful brain convinced you to kidnàp me and his fiancée. Because you could never face him directly.”

Viktor twitched, body jolting as though ready to strike—but he didn’t. Not with her holding the blade.

Rory smirked. A cold, merciless thing that looked nothing like the sister I knew. “Ah, I told you not to move.”

Then, in a flash quicker than a blink—she slashed the kñife across his throat.

The sound was obscene.

Red.

Crimson welled thick and slow.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

My lips parted to speak, but before I could, the door creaked open.

Ed.

His blank, dead-eyed expression faltered when he saw Viktor, and for the first time, fear cracked through. Not for himself—for Viktor.

He stormed across the room in long strides, reached Rory, and before she could react, his palm whipped across her fàce. The sound rang out sharp and brutal. My gasp tore free.

But he wasn’t finished. Blów after blów rained down. Rory crumpled beneath him, yet still she fought—thrashing, clawing, refusing to surrender.

He was too strong. Relentless.

I froze, mind blank, heart hammering. What could I do? My thoughts spun uselessly. Then instinct took over. I lunged forward, clawing at his hand, desperate to stop him.

Wrong move.

The moment I touched him, Ed wrenched his arm back. The sheer force of it flung me across the room. My skull cracked against the sharp wooden edge of the bed—white paiñ exploding behind my eyes—

And then darkness.

••

Blink.

Blink.

Yet still, nothing. My eyelids felt glued shut, heavy as lead, as though I were trapped beneath them. Each attempt to claw out of the dark world failed, so I lay waiting. What else could I do?

With sight stolen, I leaned hard on my other senses. Hearing sharpened, straining for scraps.

A sound. Low. Scratchy, like an itch I couldn’t reach. Too close.

“Does it húrt?”

The question hung, unanswered—at least aloud. Whoever it was meant for must have replied another way, because silence pressed in thick around me.

Then Ed’s voice broke it. Shaken, raw.

“Luckily the cut wasn’t deep. If it had been, you—”

“Eddie.” Viktor’s voice. But not the usual cool command. Softer. Almost tender. And—God—almost loving.

My pulse stumbled.

“I’m fine,” Viktor murmured. “Please, stop worrying.”

“How can I stop?” Ed’s words tumbled out in a rush, torn at the edges. “I saw you bléeding, V. From your throat. Your fúcking throat. I lost it. I completely lost it. I was so scared—so fuckíng scared I’d lose you.” His breath snagged, hitching into a half-cough, half-choke. “Why didn’t you fight back? Why did you let her do that? Why didn’t you stop her?”

“Ed. Enough. You’re overreacting.”

“Am I?” His voice was sharp, wounded. “You like her, don’t you? That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why you call her ‘doll’.” Each word landed like an accusation. “She’s your type—pretty, feisty, unattainable.” His voice lowered, bitter. “Female.”

“Edward.” Viktor’s voice hardened.

“Isn’t she?” 

Silence. 

“Isn’t she?” He repeated. 

The air thickened. Hot. Suffocating. It pressed down on my tongue, caught in my throat.

“Edward.” This time Viktor’s tone was stripped bare of warmth. No softness left. Only iron.

“What?!” Ed’s voice splintered into fury. “You going to shoot me deàd?”

“I just might.” The words ground out between Viktor’s teeth, harsh and deliberate.

Ed scoffed, bitter, broken. “You overestimate yourself.”

“And you underestimate me.” Viktor’s reply was low, edged with threat, but laced with something darker—almost playful.

The silence that followed was thick as smoke, choking the air.

Then Ed’s voice dropped. Quieter. Rough. Resigned.

“You’re lucky I love you. Otherwise, we’d put it to the test.”

The words hit me harder than any slap, driving the breath from my lungs. It landed like a blade sliding beneath my skiñ, cold and cutting.

He loves him?

For a moment, my mind refused to wrap around it. Edward—violent, unhiñed Edward—loved Viktor.

The thought sent a jolt through me, dizzying and brutal. My stomach lurched as though I’d been dropped from a height. Heat crawled up my neck, clashing with the ice pooling in my veins.

Edward loves Viktor.

Not the hàrmess kind of love. Not platonic. Not brother to brother. No—this was twisted, consuming, dangeroús.

My chest tightened, every breath snagging against the thought. The air tasted metallic, as if the room itself had turned poisonóus.

A sickeníng truth lodged itself in me. The obsessíon in Ed’s eyes, the possessiveness in his tone—it wasn’t madnéss alone. It was love. Dark, fervent, unrestrained love.

And for Viktor.

The room tilted in my mind’s eye, my heart pounding like it wanted out of my ribs.

In love. He’s in love with him. 

TBC📖✍️

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