“What secret do you know about Rodion?”
“I swear, I don’t know.”
Renat’s free hand clamped around my throat. The air vanished from my lungs. “I warned you,” he whispered, his breath hot against my ear. “You will hate this day.”
“No.” My voice was barely a rasp. “I don’t know anything, please.”
“You made him kill Salva, remember?” He tightened the grip on my throat. “I only need a lead, and you’ll live. Look at me. Look the fuck at me!”
I shook my head, desperately hoping he would stop, but Renat didn’t care for mercy. “Renat.” He switched positions, pushing me between his legs. I gasped for air as his fingers dug into my throat. “Sto… stop. I can’t breathe.”
“Shut up.” His voice was raw with anger. He pressed the barrel of the gun against my forehead, a cruel smirk twisting his face.“It’s best you answer.”
When I shook my head, he slammed the gun against my forehead again. My eyes closed, and more pain shot across my head. I wanted to die.
If he pulled the trigger, I would take it. I was done, emptied, stripped, nothing left to resist. The stillness inside me was almost a relief, a dark mercy I could fall into. A door slammed open, rattling through the air. For a moment, I couldn’t tell if it had truly happened, or if surrender was only tricking me with illusions.
Chaos erupted. Renat climbed off me, and I recoiled, gasping as I tried to catch my breath. Gunshots exploded through the room, and glass shattered. My ears rang with the violence of it all. Through the haze of my pain, all I heard were footsteps and heavy thuds. The window beside the bed broke, and then everything settled.
I coughed between sobs, my chest heaving as I breathed. My eyes found Rodion in the middle of the room, a gun in one hand and a phone pressed to his ear with the other.
“Renat jumped through the window. North wing. He is injured. You better get him,” he thundered.
The place was in disarray. Blood stained the walls, and everything was scattered across the floor. Elena lay on the floor, her head split open. The sight of her exposed brain made bile rise in my throat, and when Rodion reached to untie my hands, I pushed and threw on the floor.
I gagged, my stomach twisting as I threw up everything inside me. My body trembled violently. Rodion didn’t say a word. He untied my legs, and adjusted my dress to cover my thighs.
The moment I was free, I slipped off the bed, ready to run from everything. I wanted to disappear, to forget, to go far away. But Rodion pulled me back, pressing my back against his chest as his arms wrapped tightly around me.
As I struggled to break free, I saw Marco wedged in the narrow space between a cabinet and the wall. His eyes were dull and unfocused. He wasn’t dead, but he looked close. My gaze dropped to his thigh, where a syringe was buried deep in the flesh, the same one Elena had threatened to use on me.
For the first time, I didn’t feel pity for a dying man. I wanted him to suffer slowly and feel every ounce of the pain he had put me through.
Rodion pulled a gun and brought it to my hand, forcing me to grip it. Something snapped inside me, and I snatched the gun before he could say a word. My hands trembled as I aimed it at Marco.
Screaming, I pulled the trigger. The first bullet missed, shattering the window above him. But I didn’t stop. I kept firing, driven by rage and exhaustion. I emptied the magazine, each shot echoing through the room but none got him.
When I realized there were no more bullets, I dropped the gun, my breath coming in ragged sobs.
“I hate you,” I whispered.
I covered my face with my hands and cried. But Rodion pulled them away, forcing another gun back into my grip. This time, his finger guided mine to the trigger and pulled it. The gun fired. Marco’s body jolted as the bullet tore into his stomach. He let out a strangled groan, his fingers twitching.
Rodion pressed his finger again, and another shot struck Marco’s shoulder. He let go of me, but I didn’t stop. I aimed at Marco’s chest and fired until his body slumped.
My legs gave out beneath me the moment I realized Marco was dead and I had been the one to pull the trigger. I nearly collapsed, but Rodion caught me before I hit the ground. He lifted me into his arms, and my head lolled against his shoulder as he carried me out of the room.
Sirens wailed urgently in the distance, but Rodion didn’t rush.He took the back exit, where a black car waited. He opened the door, placed me in the passenger seat, and buckled the seatbelt over me.
He lingered for a moment, staring down at me. I met his eyes, torn between hatred and the desperate need to be taken far away from everything. I curled into myself, arms wrapped around my shoulders as if I could shield what was left of me. My life no longer felt like it belonged to me.
In the silence, Rodion’s voice broke low and firm, “I promise you his death,” he said. “I will kill Renat for you.”
The drive was quiet. I didn’t speak to Rodion, and neither did he. I rested my head against the seat, letting my body slump under its own weight. The incident replayed in my mind, but all I could think about was the trigger I pulled on Marco. The way his eyes dimmed as he faded. That should have terrified me, but it didn’t. It felt like something long overdue. I had become like them, violent and heartless, but I felt no regret. It was the only positive outcome of this mess.
I didn’t know when I lost the version of myself that would’ve screamed at the thought of killing someone. Maybe that version died when I lay in that hospital bed with my hands tied. Or when Marco touched my face and whispered threats and the bitter truth in my ear. Or maybe when Renat climbed over me and hit me.
That innocent girl was gone.
