It never comes.
Asher stops his fists in just enough time. The left right left combination he planned to stun Vaughn with collides with the wall behind me instead of my head.
The spit in his exhausted breaths hits my neck when he roars, “What is she doing here?! Get her out of here!”
His words aren’t for me. They’re for a group of men sitting at his right. They’re also like nothing I’ve ever heard before. They were delivered straight from hell.
“No!” I fight against Matvei with all my might when he attempts to peel me off Vaughn. My clutch on my brother’s back is vicious, but when you’re clutching at straws, you have to give it all you’ve got. If I leave him now, he will die. That isn’t a probability. It is a fact. Asher is seconds from killing him. “He didn’t do anything wrong. He’s not like us. He’s an innocent.”
When Matvei successful pries my nails out of Vaughn’s back, I stab my elbow into his ribs before falling to Asher’s feet. I’m not above begging. Nothing is below me when it comes to protecting those I love. “Please don’t do this. I’ll do anything you want—anything at all.” I hiccup through the sobs tearing from my throat. “Please, Asher. I’m begging you not to do this.”
Although he stops Matvei from retaliating to my violence, the eyes staring down at me are not the same pair I stared at in awe last night. They’re black and lifeless—they belong to a monster.
As does his roar. “Take her—now!”
Realizing not even I have the ability to calm Asher when he’s set for vengeance, Lenin enters the room at the speed of a bullet. He propels me to my feet by yanking on my arm. His hold is as callous as the one I used on Vaughn, but it’s not in anger.
My fight is.
I kick and wail with all my might. My struggle to wrench myself from Lenin’s grip is brutal enough for my feet to collide with Asher’s back numerous times. “I hate you! I fucking hate you! I wish you would have let me die!”
My words have more impact on Asher than my violence. He pivots around in an instant; his grip on my face when he pins me to the door Lenin was attempting to drag me through is more lethal than them all combined. “What did I tell you about saying shit like that to me?! I told you not to say it!”
I’m reasonably sure the entire compound hears me when I yell, “You also said you’d never hurt me! This is hurting me, Asher. By hurting Vaughn, you’re hurting me!”
“He hurt the woman I love!”
His growl scares the living shit out of me, but not as much as the fear clutching my throat. Vaughn’s head is hanging at an odd angle, and his eyes are shut, making me panicked I’ve intervened too late.
Realizing I have nothing left to lose, I throw all my cards on the table. “No, he didn’t. Vaughn would never hurt Dominique. He loved her.” Asher’s grip on my face firms, but it isn’t the reason for the moisture streaming down my cheeks. It’s breaking a promise I swore I’d never break. “Dominique never visited me, Asher. Not once. She was there for Vaughn. She loved Vaughn.”
I keep my eyes locked with Asher’s, ensuring he can see the honesty in them. He can feel it blistering out of me, but he still tries to deny it. He just doesn’t use words.
I’m not taking a page out of his book. I kept quiet for years, and look where it got me. “Check his pocket. He carries a love letter from her everywhere he goes. He’s never without it. Vaughn isn’t your enemy, Asher. He’s a good man who fell in love with the wrong woman.”
Lenin urges Asher to calm down when he gets right up in my face to scream, “You’re lying! You’re lying to save him and to save yourself!”
“From what, Asher? From being forced to repay whatever stupid amount you paid for my virginity? From living in a room that’s worse than a prison cell? What am I saving myself from? I have no reason to lie. Not one.”
The throb in his neck is audible in his voice when he shouts, “From me! You’re trying to save yourself from me!”
Now some of my tears are for him. I knew him before all of this. Before the violence. Before the drugs. I knew him before he would have ever considered death as the payback for betrayal. His reply shows that he’s not punishing Vaughn because he believes he killed Dominique. He’s punishing him because he betrayed him—webetrayed him.
My words crackle when I speak, “If it weren’t for you, Dominique would have never felt free to trust her feelings. You gave her that, Asher. You gave her back her freedom.”
“Freedom to treat me like a fool—withhim!” He relinquishes my face from his grip so he can thrust his blood-stained hand to a near-lifeless Vaughn. “If I had done what I should have done years ago, none of this would be happening. Dominique would still be alive, and you wouldn’t be looking at me like I’m scum on the bottom of your shoe. I made a mistake once letting him off lightly. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”
I resume my begging when his focus shifts back to Vaughn hanging lifeless in the middle of his torture chamber. “No, Asher, please! No, no, no!”
Before I can get within an inch of Asher’s back, Lenin bands his arm around my waist and hoists me in the opposite direction. I scream at Asher. I beg him to stop and remind him of the little boy who once wished to have a brother just like him. When that fails, I tell him I’ll never forgive him, that I’ll hate him until the end of time.
Neither of my ploys work. I’m removed from the room at the same time Asher’s fists leave no doubt to Vaughn’s unconscious state.
My name is Zariah Volkov, and my husband-to-be just killed my brother.
Chapter 26
Asher
