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He shook me so hard my brain rattled inside my skull, and the corridor spun, all our art and portraits sliding into one mass of shadow and colour before everything began to spin.
“Insolent girl,” Finch spat, the latest in a long diatribe I’d missed most of. “You know, I didn’t really care about you when I bought you. It was your brother I was interested in for my daughter. The Ivanovs come from good stock, so he wouldn’t pollute the Finch bloodline. Purchasingyouwas just to establisha relationship. I would have fucked you once and given you to one of my men, but now?”
I recoiled from the hot breath on my face, the scent of peppermint and tobacco invading my nose until I couldn’t smell the familiar scent of our home anymore. I was back in Dad’s office with Finch circling me, his eyes pouring down my body like he could see beneath my white lace dress, the two of them discussing how Finch would wire payment. For me. Because he’dboughtme.
Reality jarred me back to the corridor like ice water dumped over my head, both brutal and clarifying. He may have paid for me, but I married Damien. I wasn’t Finch’s anything.
“Now,” he went on cruelly, “I’m going to fuck you within an inch of your life andkeep goinguntil breath dies in your lungs. You’re going to howl and scream and suffer as you experience pain unlike any you’ve—”
Damien exhaled a sound of pain, and the corridor sharpened around me, bringing Finch’s clean-shaven face into full focus.
“You’ll be black and blue by the time your heart finally gives out. Maybe I’ll bleed the life from you. Maybe I’ll choke you. I could use a wire, watch your face turn purple as you struggle, feel how tight that cunt becomes when you’re frantic to breathe. But I’ve always preferred to use my own hands where possible.”
He was gloating, monstrous and arrogant. He dug his fingers into my arm until I cried out involuntarily, my eyes swimming with tears. But he’d grabbed the wrong arm. He held myleftarm.
“You’re a monster,” I panted. “You’re poison.”
Finch smiled. It transformed him into someone younger but even crueller, and I faltered. But Damien gasped as he shifted, fighting to get to his feet, to get to me.
“Oh, Vasilisa. You have no idea how much of a monster I truly am.”
The smile remained on Finch’s face even when he felt cold steel press to his stomach. My hand shook, but I curled my finger around the trigger.
“What are you gonna do, Vasya?” My upper lip curled when he skimmed a finger across my forehead, brushing a curl off my face. “A sweet girl like you can’t kill me. You don’t have it in you.”
I pulled the trigger. The surprise that slackened his face was deeply satisfying. So was watching him drop to the floor with a growl of pain and a hole blast through his stomach, pouring blood at a shocking rate.
“Oh, Armand,” I said, parroting his evil tone. “You have no idea how sweet I am.” I shot him again, missing his chest where I aimed for his heart but burying another round in his belly. The recoil sent me back a step, vibrating up my arms, charging an electric mix of nerves and thrill through my heart.
I aimed higher, knowing I’d miss his head but hungry to see the light leave his eyes. “I’m not a sweet girl. I’m a queen.”
I missed the spot between his eyes I aimed for, but the shot ripped through his throat, and my heart skipped when his head thudded onto the carpet, mouth slack on a cry of pain and his eyes empty. Dead. He wasdead.
I crossed the hall on jelly legs to be certain, kicking him and exhaling a rough breath of relief when his body wobbled, limp and unresponsive.
“Damien,” I gasped, stumbling from Finch’s corpse to drop beside my husband. I kept the gun close but set it on the floor so I could press both my hands to his wounds. Oh, god. His face was clammy with sweat, skin a worrying ashen colour, and his eyes were almost entirely closed, only a slit of black visible between long lashes, watching me.
“Love you,” he breathed.
“I love you, too. More than anyone in the world.” I scanned his body, the sweat-sheer vest he wore making it easy to seehis wounds. The gunshot punched cleanly through shoulder—I didn’t want to think about where it would have hit if I hadn’t got to him—but the ragged slash across his stomach worried me. He’d lost so much blood, a pool forming below him, and panic made my temperature plummet, made shivers wrack my body. “You’re gonna be fine. Stay with me, okay? Don’t you dare leave.”
I kissed his brow and jerked back to my feet, stumbling into the living room where I left my phone and dialling Jonathan. I snatched a cardigan off the back of the sofa as I raced back to Damien’s side. With the phone balanced between my ear and shoulder, I pressed my hands over the cardigan on Damien’s stomach, holding the two sides together. The green fabric instantly soaked with blood.
“Where the fuck are you?”I screamed when Jonathan picked up. “Where’s Eli? Finch got in the flat and Damien’s hurt. I need an ambulance or whatever the family’s illegal version of a paramedic is. Now!”
“Fuck,” Jonathan whispered. “We were on our way back when we heard the power went out. One of your security team is an ex-army medic, I’ll tell her to get up to you ASAP. Stay on the line, Vasya.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I replied, throwing all my weight into keeping Damien’s blood inside his body. “But hurry.”
A minute passed; I measured it by the blood dropping to the floor under my husband. The cardigan was entirely soaked through, the fabric almost black. The pool under him grew.
“Damien,” I breathed, my hands shaking. His eyes had slipped fully closed while we waited for Jonathan. “Don’t you leave me, you hear me? Help is coming right now. We’re gonna get you to a doctor, and you’re going to befine.”
I moved him to the floor so I could press harder on his stomach, choking back a cry at how much blood he’d lost from both wounds. Where the fuck was the medic?
“Ambulance is on its way,” Jonathan told me, his rumbling voice making me jump after only panting and my own voice. “The less you know the better, just know he’ll be taken to a hospital with the best medical care available. How is he?”
“Unconscious,” I rasped. “And losing too much blood. He’s cold, Jonathan, really cold. I don’t know what to do.”
